Page 2298 - les-miserables

chained; a chaos of shamelessness driven by a coachman
crowned with flowers; this is what that institution was like.
Greece stood in need of the chariot of Thespis, France
stands in need of the hackney-coach of Vade.
Everything can be parodied, even parody. The Saturnalia,
that grimace of antique beauty, ends, through exaggeration
after exaggeration, in Shrove Tuesday; and the Bacchanal,
formerly crowned with sprays of vine leaves and grapes, in-
undated with sunshine, displaying her marble breast in a
divine semi-nudity, having at the present day lost her shape
under the soaked rags of the North, has finally come to be
called the Jack-pudding.
The tradition of carriage-loads of maskers runs back to
the most ancient days of the monarchy. The accounts of Lou-
is XI. allot to the bailiff of the palace ‘twenty sous, Tournois,
for three coaches of mascarades in the cross-roads.’ In our
day, these noisy heaps of creatures are accustomed to have
themselves driven in some ancient cuckoo carriage, whose
imperial they load down, or they overwhelm a hired lan-
dau, with its top thrown back, with their tumultuous
groups. Twenty of them ride in a carriage intended for six.
They cling to the seats, to the rumble, on the cheeks of the
hood, on the shafts. They even bestride the carriage lamps.
They stand, sit, lie, with their knees drawn up in a knot,
and their legs hanging. The women sit on the men’s laps. Far
away, above the throng of heads, their wild pyramid is vis-
ible. These carriage-loads form mountains of mirth in the
midst of the rout. Colle, Panard and Piron flow from it, en-
riched with slang. This carriage which has become colossal

2298 Les Miserables