public." Sometimes the plot recoils very
amusingly on the heads of the concoctors—
the manager being in a manner hoisted with
his own petard— for the audience, astonished
at the unusual silence, begin to suspect the
conspiracy, and, rallying round the victim,
bear him triumphantly through the piece,
amid extravagant demonstration of applause.
In such case he obtains what is known as an
irregular success, or succès circulaire ; so
called from its being the work of the boxes
alone, the parterre having no share in it.
But your true artiste, if he be wise, will fly
such dangerous honours. He will have before
his eyes the banded leaguers of the parterre
glaring at him with discomfited looks. He
knows that this night's glory has been dearly
purchased, and that MM. les Claqueurs will
let him know it before the season finishes.

Such manifestations of independence would
go near to ruin the whole system. Therefore
has it been laid down as the primary
article of the claqueur creed that—" In a
theatre, the public counts for nothing; not
only that, but the public spoils everything!"
And truly it is a little exasperating that
these idle amateurs, these mere condottieri,
should disturb the nice combinations of the
regular forces. It is most intolerable and
not to be endured, that unpaid outsiders—
whose only law in expressing their feelings is
the empty satisfaction of the moment — should
confuse by their foolish clamour the calm
arrangements of science. Still, to a certain
class of amateurs is reasonable indulgence
extended, in consideration of the circumstances
only. It is felt that such are peculiarly
situated, and that their number is too small to
prove any serious hindrance to the profession.
This class of favoured ones, he says, is made
up of naïve friends, who will innocently
admire everything that passes on the stage,
even before the lamps are lighted; of relations,
those claqueurs provided by nature; of
writers, who make furious partisans; and,
above all, of admirers and husbands. This is
the reason why ladies, besides their other
advantages over men, have far more chances
of succeeding. It is quite impossible for a
woman, in a theatre or a concert-room, to
applaud her husband or admirer; at least,
in any way that, can be useful to them — very
likely she has something better to amuse
herself with; whereas the lover or husband,
if he have but the smallest natural turn
that way, or even the bare elementary notions
of the art, may bring about, by means of a
lucky clap, nothing less than a succès de
renouvellement — that is a success that would
oblige a manager to renew the engagement.
For such operations husbands are
found to answer even better than the lovers.
For the husband, who holds the purse, who
well knows the value of a well-aimed bouquet,
of a salvo properly taken up, and of a
vociferous recal before the curtain, such a man
will fearlessly exert whatever faculties he
possesses ; he finds himself suddenly gifted
with ventriloquism — with the power of
ubiquity. At one moment he may be heard
down in the amphitheatre uttering Brava !
in a kind of tenor pitch. With a single bound
he is in the corridor of the box tier, and,
putting in his head at each door as he goes
by, calls out Admirable ! in deep bass accents.
Then does he fly upward to the third tier
and fill the hall with cries of Delicious !
ravishing ! good heavens ! what genius !
These being uttered in a soft soprano key, as
it were overpowered by emotion. This is
indeed a model husband — a hard-working,
intelligent head of a family.

It must have been a husband surely who
invented the hiss approbative (sifflet-à-succès)
or the hiss enthusiastic, which is worked
something after this fashion: Suppose the
public has grown too familiar with the
talents of a particular lady, and has fallen
into a kind of indifference, usually the result
of satiety, a devoted partisan — a man but
little known is privily brought into the
theatre for the duty of waking them up. At
the exact moment when la Diva has exhibited
a splendid specimen of her ability, and the
claqueur party are hard at work with the
greatest unanimity in the centre of the
parterre, a low hissing sound is heard to issue from
a dark and distant corner. The whole audience
rises in a torrent of indignation, and the
applause bursts forth with a kind of frenzy.
What infamous conduct! is the cry from all
sides. A miserable cabal! brava! brava!
bravissima! beautiful! exquisite! But such a
bold stroke requires the most delicate handling.

The man who would essay the task of
directing the operations of the claque must
be gifted with no ordinary genius and
qualifications. He must have the eye of a true
general: the cold, searching glance of a
Wellington, to scan the battle-field and meet
coming dangers. He must have the faculty
of grasping the situation, of devising new
positions at an instant's warning, and a nice
appreciation of the proper force and measure
of his demonstrations. Such exalted spirits
are, alas! but too rare. Dazzling meteors,
they visit us once or so in a generation, and
leave behind them an utter and irremediable
blank! Even now, the race is fast dying out,
and we shall soon have nothing left to us but
the tradition of their greatness.

Not long since, there flourished at the
Grand Opéra a giant of this order, bearing
the imposing cognomen of Augustus. A man
of surpassing merit; reticent; of few words;
always, it would seem, wrapped up in his
tactics and plans of lofty strategy. Wonderful
was it to mark the glorious fashion wherein
he conducted the great works of the modern
school. Patiently would he sit out many a
rehearsal, striving to glean every stray hint
that might do good service to his followers
in their professional duties. There would he
weigh and nicely adjust the proper points of