United States or Canada ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
At the sight of Etienne Lousteau, the dealer in orders and tickets rose from a sturdy chair before a large cylinder desk, and Lucien beheld the leader of the claque, Braulard himself, dressed in a gray molleton jacket, footed trousers, and red slippers; for all the world like a doctor or a solicitor.
This mannerism had no purpose beyond indicating to the audience the end of a passage and giving the claque the signal to applaud. Offenbach did not belong to that heroic strain to which success is the least of its cares. So he adopted this mannerism, and often his ingeniously turned and charming couplets are ruined by this silly absurdity now gone out of fashion.
Mad and livid with rage Clodius, in the very midst of the shouting, kept putting the questions to his claque: "Who was it who was starving the commons to death?" His ruffians answered, "Pompey." "Who wanted to be sent to Alexandria?" They answered, "Pompey." "Who did they wish to go?" They answered, "Crassus." The latter was present at the time with no friendly feelings to Milo.
Yesterday two of my own nomenclators young men, I admit, about the age of those who have just assumed the toga were enticed off to join the claque for three denarii apiece. Such is the outlay you must make to get a reputation for eloquence!
This did not suit the petted genius. He complained to the manager. "Your horrible claque splits my ears," he cried in a fury: "I expect you to get rid of it at once. Or if not " Before his ultimatum was pronounced Madame Dorval appeared. "Are you crazy?" she said to the manager: "what is the use of these imbeciles with their hand-clapping?
"Well, the rascal turned Olympe's head, and he, madame, did not keep good company when I tell you he was very near being nabbed by the police in a tavern where thieves meet. 'Wever, Monsieur Braulard, the leader of the claque, got him out of that. He wears gold earrings, and he lives by doing nothing, hanging on to women, who are fools about these good-looking scamps.
The Romanticists were, of course, anxious that the play should be a great success; the Classics were quite willing that it should be otherwise; in fact, they had bought up the claque and were making arrangements to hiss it down. But the author's friends were numerous; they were young and lusty; they held meetings behind locked doors, and swore terrible oaths that the play should go.
The Japanese overestimated their own capacity and underestimated the Korean. They had carefully organized their claque in Europe and America, especially in America. They engaged the services of a group of paid agents some of them holding highly responsible positions to sing their praises and advocate their cause. They enlisted others by more subtle means, delicate flattery and social ambition.
Oscar faced the American Philistine public without his accustomed claque, and under these circumstances a half-success was evidence of considerable power. His subjects were "The English Renaissance" and "House Decoration."
No one was near to see him turn aside, and rest his arms against the brick wall, to bury his face in them, and sob like a child, utterly oblivious of the storm that beat upon him. And he sat down. "Come on," yelled the Youngster, "where's the claque?" And he began to applaud furiously. "Oh, if there is a claque, the rest of us don't need to exert ourselves," said the Lawyer, indolently.
Word Of The Day