belong at all in the class of cafés artistiques et littéraires—have, lurking under all their vulgar clap-trap, no small fund of pungent satire on religion and the church.[101]

Finally, there are at Montmartre a round half-dozen resorts, cabarets de la chanson d’argot (also called cabarets brutaux), of which Bruant’s Mirliton, Alexandre’s Cabaret Bruyant, and “Buffalo’s” l’Alouette are the most conspicuous examples. They have had their day so far as spontaneity is concerned, like the cabarets artistiques et littéraires, though, like them, they still attract foreigners and provincials.

Mercenary and meretricious now to the last degree, however genuine they may have been in the beginning, they still have this much, at least, of sincerity,—namely, cordial detestation of the bourgeois; and it is to this very spirit, strangely enough, that their vogue with the bourgeois has been due.

It was of one of these cabarets brutaux (Bruant’s Mirliton, probably) that Zola wrote in Paris: “Pleasure-seeking Paris, the Bourgeoisie, mistress of money and of power, sickened by their possessions in time, but unwilling to let anything go, flocked thither—to receive insults and obscenities full in the face.... Far more than in the words, the burning insult was in the manner with which the singer cast the words in the teeth of the rich, of the favoured, of the fine ladies who elbowed each other to hear him. Under the low ceiling, amid the smoke of pipes, in the blinding heat of the gas, he launched his verses brutally like crachats, a very hail-squall of furious contempt.”

Bruant himself rarely appears nowadays at his Mirliton, which, with the aid of under-studies, he, nevertheless, keeps up. Loaded with notoriety and wealth, he has come to prefer following the hounds or emptying a bottle of good wine, as the Châtelain of Courthenay, to entertaining the bourgeois by affronting them.

Not long back Bruant was an unsuccessful candidate for deputy at Belleville, which adjoins Montmartre. His address to his electors—with which it is customary for candidates to placard the walls of their districts—was in rhyme. The verses, though not of his best, are novel enough to demand quotation:—

AUX ELECTEURS

de la première conscription du vingtième arrondissement
Belleville-Saint-Fargeau

Programme I Si j’étais votre député,— Ohé! Ohé! qu’on se le dise,— J’ajouterais “Humanité” [292] Aux trois mots de votre devise ... Au lieu de parler tous les jours Pour la République ou l’Empire Et de faire de longs discours Pour ne rien dire. II Je parlerais des petits fieux, ... Des filles-mères, des pauvres vieux Qui l’hiver gèlent par la ville.... Ils auraient chaud comme en été, Si j’étais nommé député A Belleville. III Je parlerais des tristes gueux, Des purotins batteurs de dèche, Des ventres plats, des ventres creux, Et je parlerais d’une crèche Pour les pauvres filles sans lit, Que l’on repousse et qu’on renvoie Dans la rue! ... avec leur petit!... Mères de joie! IV Je parlerais de leurs mignons, De ces minables chérubins Dont les pauvres petits fignons Ne connaissent pas l’eau des bains,— Chérubins dont l’âme et le sang Se pourrissent à l’air des bouges Et qu’on voit passer, le teint blanc Et les yeux rouges. [293] V Je parlerais des vieux perclus Qui voudraient travailler encore, Mais dont l’atelier ne veut plus, ... Et qui traînent jusqu’à l’aurore Sur le dur pavé de Paris,— Leur refuge, leurs Invalides,— Errants, chassés, honteux, meurtris, Les boyaux vides. VI Je parlerais des petits fieux, ... Des filles-mères, des pauvres vieux, Qui l’hiver gèlent par la ville.... Ils auraient chaud comme en été Si j’étais nommé député A Belleville.