"As to his person, the Prince Imperial is a perfect type of a slobbering aspirant of the eighth order. In his exterior, at least, he does not seem to have derived much from his father; but he has the empty, vain, and silly expression of his mother. He represents sufficiently well one of those married boobies whose insignificance condemns them to live upon their income in a little provincial city, working six hours a day their part of third cornet in a raw philharmonic society, while their wives at home make cuckolds of them with the officers of the garrison.
"SUPPLEMENTARY NOTICE.
"Dates to be supplied by the collectors of the Trombinoscope.
"Eugene-Napoleon, attaining his majority March 16th, 1877, demands a settlement from his mother. She confesses to him that of his maternal fortune there remain but thirty-two francs. 'What has become, then,' he asks,'of all the fund which, during the twenty years of papa's empire, was produced by the exemption money of the conscripts for whom substitutes were not obtained, by the buttons which were wanting to the gaiters, and the gaiters which were wanting to the buttons?' 'What has become of it?' said the Empress. 'Do you suppose that, during these seven years past, I have maintained our French journals with my old chignons?' Eugene-Napoleon replied to his mother: 'Then, if I have no longer a sou with which to take Mandarine to the races, hand me one of papa's riding-jackets that I may make a descent at Boulogne, to dethrone Louis Philippe II. He makes a descent at Boulogne, the —— 18—, with five drunken men and the little Conneau, all disguised as circus staff officers. They put him on his trial; he is convicted the —— 18—; is pardoned the —— 18—; repeats the performance the —— 18—. The Republic having turned out Louis Philippe II., Eugene-Napoleon re-enters France the —— 18—as simple citizen. The republicans, who are always just so foolish, permit him to be elected deputy the —— 18—, and president the —— 18—. He seats himself upon the Republic December 2d, 18—, and re-establishes the Empire the —— 18—. The social decomposition resumes its course. Vélocipède IV. marries the —— 18—, a circus girl. The moral scale continues to rise: Blanche d'Antigny and Cora Pearl are ladies of honor at the Tuileries. The —— 18—, at the moment when Vélocipède IV. is about to engage in a war with Prussia, which he thinks will consolidate his throne, but which, considering the organization of our artillery, threatens to extend the German frontiers as far as Saint-Ouen. France stops the drain of those ruinous imitations, drives out the Emperor, and again proclaims the Republic. This time, a thing wholly unexpected, some republicans are found who, after having energetically swept France clean of all that appertains to former systems, whether pretenders, office-holders, spies, etc., etc., push their logic even to the point of bolting the door inside, in order not to be interfered with in their loyal endeavor. This device, so simple, but by which we have passed three times in a century without seeing it, succeeds to admiration; and at length it is announced, the —— 19—, that Vélocipède IV., after having been by turns, at London, keeper of a thirteen-sous bazaar, pickpocket, circus performer, magnetizer, and dealer in lead-pencils, dies in the flower of his age from the effects of a disease which his father did not contract while presiding at a meeting of his cabinet."
With this specimen of blague we may leave the caricaturists of France to fight it out with La Censure.
CHAPTER XX.
COMIC ART IN GERMANY.
Upon the news-stands in St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, New York, and other cities, we find the comic periodicals of Germany, particularly the Fliegende Blätter of Berlin, and the Beilage der Fliegenden Blätter of Munchen, papers resembling Punch in form and design. The American reader who turns over their leaves can not but remark the mildness of the German jokes. Compared with the tremendous and sometimes ghastly efforts of the dreadful Funny Man of the American press, the jests of the Germans are as lager-beer to the goading "cocktail" and the maddening "smash!" But, then, they are delightfully innocent. Coming from the French comic albums and papers to those of the Germans, is like emerging, after sunrise, from a masquerade ball, all gas, rouge, heat, and frenzy, into a field full of children playing till the bell rings for school. Nevertheless, the impression remains that an extremely mild joke suffices to amuse the German reader of comic periodicals.
The pictured jests, as in Punch, are the attractive feature. Observe the infantile simplicity of a few of these, taken almost at random from recent volumes of the papers just mentioned:
Two young girls, about twelve, are sitting upon a bench in a public garden. Two dandies walk past, who are dressed alike, and resemble one another. "Tell me, Fanny," says one of the girls, "are not those two gentlemen brothers?" This is the reply: "One of them is, I know for certain; but I am not quite sure about the other."
A strapping woman, sooty, wearing a man's hat, and carrying a ladder and brushes, is striding along the street. The explanation vouchsafed is the following: "The very eminent magistrate has determined to permit the widow of the meritorious chimney-sweep, Spazzicammino, to continue the business."