the war is a sorry thing to relate. We will pass over Brieux, Hervieu,
Battaille, Bernstein, to consider Donnay, Porto-Riche and their ilk.
These worthies and their imitators achieved unparalleled financial and
social triumphs by incorporating a certain intimate lewdness into their
trivial drama. Their obvious theatrical machinery, which Apollinaire
ridicules, has been as successfully adopted in this country and
elsewhere in Europe, under the label of "modern drama."]
[Footnote 10: _Mamamouchi_ is a character in Molière's play, _le
Bourgeois Gentilhomme_, a dignitary whose sense of office is so strongly
imbedded in him that he always enters shouting, "_Je suis Mamamouchi!_"]
[Footnote 11: François Coppée, this sentimental nineteenth century
poet was amazingly popular, and truly French in his weaknesses, like the
music of Massenet. Apollinaire takes grave liberties with him, out of
sheer mischief.]
[Footnote 12: _Archipel_, archipelago, used in the sense of _papier
buvard_ (!) _blotting paper!_ The disciples of Mallarmé went even
farther than this.]
[Footnote 13: _Tychobrahé_, Tycho Brahe, the Danish astronomer
(1546-1601). Although lord of a province in Scania, he took refuge in a
monastery where he pursued his scientific researches.
He settled in Prague, at the invitation of Emperor Rudolf II, and died
there. Whether he ever really visited the monastery at Brünn is hard to
judge.]
[Footnote 14: The number of prizes given for poetry and for other forms
of literature has reached an even more disquieting figure since the war.
Great publicity attends each award, and the publishers vie with each
other in establishing such prizes. However, the lot of the true poet is
as hard as ever, since it has become distinctly unfashionable to be the
recipient of a prize.]
[Footnote 15: Paul Fort, Prince of Poets, he, of the broad-brimmed black
hat, and the flowing scarf, frequented the _Closérie des Lilas_, with
his band, whereas his avowed enemy, Apollinaire, and his far more
disreputable cronies quartered themselves in the Café Rotonde, a short
distance east along the Boulevard Montparnasse.]
End of Project Gutenberg's The Poet Assassinated, by Guillaume Apollinaire