He cannot rest with merely stunning English ears, but must shock
our morals, At the _bals masques_, the French dancers, and the hardly
mentionable _cancan_, were hooted back to their native stews under the
Palais Royal; but he provides substitutes for them in the _tableaux
vivans_ now exhibiting. This, because a more insidious, is a safer
introduction. The living figures are dressed to imitate plaster-of-Paris,
and are so arranged as to form groups, called in the bills "classical;"
but for which it would be difficult to find originals. In short, the whole
thing is a feeler thrown out to see how far French impudence and French
epicureanism in vice may carry themselves. It shall not be our fault if
they do not experience an ignominious downfall, and beat a speedy retreat,
to the tune of the "Rogue's March," arranged as a quadrille!
* * * * *
MADAME TUSSAUD'S,
THE REAL TEMPLE OF FAME.
"Some men are born to greatness, some men achieve greatness, and
some have greatness thrust upon them."--SHAKSPEARE.
Reader, should you doubt the above assertion, in the true showman
phraseology, just "Walk up! walk up!" to Madame Tussaud's, the real Temple
of Fame, and let such doubts vanish for ever; convince yourselves that the
mighty attribute not more survives from good than evil deeds, though, like
poverty, it makes its votaries acquainted with the strangest of strange
bedfellows! The regal ermine and the murderer's fustian alike obtain their
enviable niche.
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