Suppose that a man in disguise goes into the opera ball intoxicated,
rushes hither and thither, gesticulating, insulting the women, mocking
the men, turns off the gas, then sets light to some curtains, until
such a hue and cry is raised that he is turned out of the place.
Whereupon our mask runs off to the nearest costumier’s, changes his
clown’s dress for that of a pantaloon, and returns to the opera to
recommence his old tricks, saying, “I have changed my dress, no one
will recognise me.” But he is wrong, there is no mistaking his way of
doing business.
The crowd surrounds him and cries, “We recognise you, _beau masque!_”
and if he has had the imprudence to secure the doors, they throw him
out of window.
We recognise you, Executive Commission;[77] it is in vain that you
disguise yourself in the bloody rags of the Committee of Public Safety,
your are still yourself, you are still Félix Pyat, you are still
Ranvier, you have never ceased to be Gérardin; you hope to make
yourself obeyed more readily under this lugubrious costume, but you
mistake. Command us to go and fight, and we will not budge; pursue us,
and we will hardly run away; put us in prison, and we will only laugh.
You are no more a Terror, than Gil-Pérez the actor is Talma; the knocks
you receive have pushed aside your false nose; it is in vain that you
decree, that you rob, that you incarcerate; you are too grotesque to be
terrible. Even if you carried the parody out to the end, and thought
fit to erect a guillotine and sharpen the knife, we should even then
decline to look seriously upon you, and were we to see one by one five
hundred heads fell into the basket, we should still persist in thinking
that your axe was of wood, and your guillotine of cardboard!
[Illustration: Dupont, Delegate of Trade and Commerce.]