Basque had succeeded, and, considering the undoubted literary merits and intrinsic interest of the article, this is not at all surprising.

And so it was upon an already expectant city that Binet and his company descended in that first week of February.  M. Binet would have made his entrance in the usual manner — a full-dress parade with banging drums and crashing cymbals.  But to this Andre-Louis offered the most relentless opposition.

“We should but discover our poverty,” said he.  “Instead, we will creep into the city unobserved, and leave ourselves to the imagination of the public.”

He had his way, of course.  M. Binet, worn already with battling against the strong waters of this young man’s will, was altogether unequal to the contest now that he found Climene in alliance with Scaramouche, adding her insistence to his, and joining with him in reprobation of her father’s sluggish and reactionary wits.  Metaphorically, M. Binet threw up his arms, and cursing the day on which he had taken this young man into his troupe, he allowed the current to carry him whither it would.  He was persuaded that he would be drowned in the end.  Meanwhile he would drown his vexation in Burgundy.  At least there was abundance of Burgundy.  Never in his life had he found Burgundy so plentiful.  Perhaps things were not as bad as he imagined, after all.  He reflected that, when all was said, he had to thank Scaramouche for the Burgundy.  Whilst fearing the worst, he would hope for the best.

And it was very much the worst that he feared as he waited in the wings when the curtain rose on that first performance of theirs at the Theatre Feydau to a house that was tolerably filled by a public whose curiosity the preliminary announcements had thoroughly stimulated.

Although the scenario of “Lee Fourberies de Scaramouche” has not apparently survived, yet we know from Andre-Louis’ “Confessions” that it is opened by Polichinelle in the character of an arrogant and fiercely jealous lover shown in the act of beguiling the waiting-maid, Columbine, to play the spy upon her mistress, Climene.  Beginning with cajolery, but failing in this with the saucy Columbine, who likes cajolers to be at least attractive and to pay a due deference to her own very piquant charms, the fierce humpbacked scoundrel passes on to threats of the terrible vengeance he will wreak upon her if she betrays him or neglects to obey him implicitly; failing here, likewise, he finally has recourse to bribery, and after he has bled himself freely to the very expectant Columbine, he succeeds by these means in obtaining her consent to spy upon Climene, and to report to him upon her lady’s conduct.

The pair played the scene well together, stimulated, perhaps, by their very nervousness at finding themselves before so imposing an audience.  Polichinelle was everything that is fierce, contemptuous, and insistent.  Columbine was the essence of pert indifference under his cajolery, saucily mocking under his threats, and finely sly in extorting the very maximum when it came to accepting a bribe.  Laughter rippled through the audience and promised well.  But M. Binet, standing trembling in the wings, missed the great guffaws of the rustic spectators to whom they had played hitherto, and his fears steadily mounted.