A GLIMPSE OF PARIS—THE INCROYABLES  
All these great victories naturally had their echo in Paris—Paris, that short-sighted city which has ever had a limited horizon, save when some great national excitement has driven her beyond her material interests. Paris, weary of bloodshed, eagerly sought after pleasure, and was only too glad to turn her eyes toward the theatre of war, so glorious was the drama which was there being enacted.
Most of the players of the Comédie-Fran?aise and the Théatre Feydeau, who had been imprisoned as royalists, had been liberated after the 9th Thermidor. Larive, Saint-Prix, Molé, Dazincourt, Saint-Phare, and Elleviou had been received with frantic applause at the Comédie-Fran?aise and at the Feydeau. Everybody rushed to the theatres, where the "Marseillaise" was beginning to give place to the "Reveil du Peuple." And at last the jeunesse dorée (gilded youth) of Fréron began to appear.
Every day we utter those words "Fréron" and "jeunesse dorée" without having a clear idea of what they mean. Let us see.
There have been two Frérons in France; one was an honorable man, an upright and severe critic, who may perhaps have been mistaken, but who erred in good faith. This was Fréron, senior—Elie-Catherine Fréron. The other knew neither law nor faith, his only religion was hate, his sole motive was vengeance, and his one god was self-interest. This was Fréron, junior—Louis-Stanislas Fréron.
The father saw the whole of the eighteenth century pass before him. He was opposed to every innovation in art, and, in the name of Racine and Boileau, he attacked all such in literature. He was opposed to all political innovations, and[Pg 235] attacked them in the name of religion and royalty. He recoiled before none of the giants of modern philosophism.[4]
[4] We do not believe that philosophism is good French from the standpoint of the academician, but it expresses our meaning better than philosophy does.
He attacked Diderot, who had come from his little town of Langres in sabots and jacket, half priest, half philosopher. He attacked Jean-Jacques, who had come from Geneva, penniless and without a jacket. He attacked D'Alembert, a foundling discovered on the steps of a church, who was for a long time called Jean Lerond, from the name of the place where he was found. He attacked those great lords called Buffon and Montesquieu. Finally, surviving even the anger of Voltaire, who had tried to injure him with his satire, "The Poor Devil," to kill him with his epigrams, and to annihilate him with his comedy of "The Scotchwoman," he stood up and cried out to Voltaire in the midst of his triumph, "Remember that thou art mortal!"
He died before his two great antagonists, Voltaire and Rousseau. In 1776 he succumbed to an attack of gout, occasioned by the suppression of his journal, "The Literary Year." This had been his weapon, and when it was broken he no longer cared to live.
The son, who had for godfather King Stanislas, and, who had been a schoolfellow of Robespierre, drank to the dregs the draught which public opinion had poured into the paternal cup.
The injuries accumulated during thirty years upon the father's head fell like an avalanche of shame upon the son; and as his heart held neither faith nor fidelity, he could not bear up under them. Belief in a duty nobly fulfilled had made the father invincible. The son, having no counterpoise to the scorn which overwhelmed him, became ferocious; wrongfully held in contempt, since he was not responsible for his father's acts, he resolved to make himself hated on his own account. The laurels which Marat culled in editing "L'Ami du Peuple" destroyed Fréron's rest. He founded "The Orator of the People."
[Pg 236]
Naturally timid, Fréron could not restrain his cruelty, being too weak and fearful. When sent to M............