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Updated: June 6, 2025
The above is the Reverend M. Macaire's solitary exploit as a spiritual swindler: as MAITRE Macaire in the courts of law, as avocat, avoue in a humbler capacity even, as a prisoner at the bar, he distinguishes himself greatly, as may be imagined.
Such is the key to M. Macaire's philosophy; and a wise creed too, as times go. Acting on these principles, Robert appears soon after; he has not created a bank, but a journal. He sits in a chair of state, and discourses to a shareholder. Bertrand, calm and stupid as before, stands humbly behind. "Sir," says the editor of La Blague, journal quotidienne, "our profits arise from a new combination.
But Macaire's receipt is easy. "Get a gown, take a shop," he says, "borrow some chairs, preach about Napoleon, or the discovery of America, or Moliere and there's a religion for you." We have quoted this sentence more for the contrast it offers with our own manners, than for its merits. After the noble paragraph, "Les badauds ne passeront pas.
We shall, therefore, say no more of French and English caricatures generally, or of Mr. Macaire's particular accomplishments and adventures. They are far better understood by examining the original pictures, by which Philipon and Daumier have illustrated them, than by translations first into print and afterwards into English. It runs in the blood.
In short, whenever the dog saw the chevalier, he continued to pursue and attack him with equal fury. Such obstinate violence, confined only to Macaire, appeared very extraordinary, especially to those who at once recalled the dog's remarkable attachment to his master, and several instances in which Macaire's envy and hatred to Aubri de Mondidier had been conspicuous.
Almost the first figure that these audacious caricaturists dared to depict was a political one: in Macaire's red breeches and tattered coat appeared no less a personage than the King himself the old Poire in a country of humbugs and swindlers the facile princeps; fit to govern, as he is deeper than all the rogues in his dominions.
It is needless to describe the play a witless performance enough, of which the joke was Macaire's exaggerated style of conversation, a farrago of all sorts of high-flown sentiments such as the French love to indulge in contrasted with his actions, which were philosophically unscrupulous, and his appearance, which was most picturesquely sordid.
He is a compound of Fielding's "Blueskin" and Goldsmith's "Beau Tibbs." Bertrand is the simple recipient of Macaire's jokes, and makes vicarious atonement for his crimes, acting, in fact, the part which pantaloon performs in the pantomime, who is entirely under the fatal influence of clown. He is quite as much a rogue as that gentleman, but he has not his genius and courage.
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