Adolphe Willette, in Le Calvaire de la Vache Enragée.
“Whatever scorn, whatever disgrace he may bring upon himself, it is none the less true that the poor and obscure artist is often worth more than the conquerors of the world; and there are nobler hearts under the mansards where only three chairs, a bed, a table, and a grisette are to be found, than in the gémonies dorées and the abreuvoirs of domestic ambition.”
Alfred de Musset, in Preface of Comédies et Proverbes.
“Ils feront de ta corne acérée une épée, Ils feront de ton crâne une coupe sculptée, Où nous boirons ton sang avivé de levains. Ils feront de ton cuir des bottes de sept lieues Pour courir au pays des illusions bleues Ou vers l’âpre idéal des rouges lendemains.” Paul Marrot, in a poem to the Vache Enragée.
“A la Vache Enragée, à Montmartre. Mademoiselle:— All those who have not known you are like untempered metals. Accept, I pray, my best wishes. “E. Frémiet.”
“Vive la Vache Enragée! “Son ami, “Alphonse Daudet.”
THE official restoration at the Carnival of 1896 of the historic but long unobserved fête of the Bœuf Gras (Fat Ox) was the signal for the creation of the fête of the Vache Enragée (Famished Cow) for that year’s Mi-carême by the denizens of Montmartre.
“Over against the Bœuf Gras, father of the golden calf, emblem of the wealth and prosperity of the bourgeoisie,” said the committee of organisation in its public manifesto, “the painters, poets, and chansonniers of the Mont des Martyrs have prepared for the pleasure and edification of the Parisians a spectacle which they call the Cavalcade of the Vache Enragée (or the Vachalcade), intended to present the picture, sometimes poignant, of their struggles, their sufferings, their ideals, their chasings after phantoms, their unrealised dreams, their often illusory hopes.”