Since then, men have realized that these acrobatic amusements were only the artistic form, the blast of trumpets preceding the vanguard of the revolution, which has just ended in the formation of the Society of Physical Education.
Molier and his friends, who, with legitimate pride, remember that on one occasion they presented the Duchesse d’Uzès with 50,000 francs for the benefit of the Hospital for Incurables, claim, with some reason, a share in influencing this national movement. They certainly rendered bodily exercises fashionable once more, and this is a great deal in a country where routine is the only queen that has never been dethroned.
Moreover the warm applause which greeted the tirade of the Brettigny in the Révoltée last winter, proved to the acrobats of the Cirque Molier that they had won their cause in the opinion of the public.
M. ERNEST MOLIER.
You may remember the indignant tirade in which the gentleman acrobat defends his favourite amusement against the witticisms of Madame Herbeau: [p321]
“What do you want a man of our class to do at the present time? Politics are prohibited. They are monopolized by other buffoons, whose exercises are much more dangerous for the spectators and not so amusing. The army? Well, it is a refuge for those who have courage, and I have belonged [p322] to it. But there was too little to do in time of peace. Literature? I should not know how to begin, and I dare own that I would not deign to adopt it. Naturalism is too dull, and dilettantism too sterile. I find it better to enjoy life than to write about it. You say that I degrade my race? Nay, I revive it. You know the language used by the rhetors and journalists in describing the corrupt scions of the old aristocracy. Well, we will regenerate this corrupt youth! We are strong, our muscles are like those of the street porters, of our ancestors the Frank warriors, of the companions of Charlemagne, who were only superb brutes.”[16]
Molier and his friends have triumphed without noise, just as they resisted the ill-humour of foolish grumblers without bluster.
During the last ten years this clever troupe of amateurs has wonderfully increased. It now includes two new star equestrians—Mademoiselle Blanche Lamidey and Miss Anna. You have probably seen Mazeppa performed in a circus, at least once in your life, but, since Miss Ada Menken, you have never seen a very young girl, thrown on her back, held by one foot only, her loosened hair dragging in the sand, and in this dangerous position leaping with her galloping horse an arrangement of several barriers.