At the other end of the city, in the Boulevard du Temple,
were Belle Madeleine, the seller of Nanterre cakes, famous throughout
Europe, the face contortionist Valsuani, Miette in his egg-dance,
Curtius' waxworks. By each street corner were charlatans of one or
another sort exchanging jests with the passers-by. It was the period
when the Prudhomme type was created, so common in all the skits and
caricatures of the day. One of the greatest pleasures of the citizen
under the Restoration was to mock at the English. Revenge for Waterloo
was found in written and spoken satires. Huge was the success of
Sewrin's and Dumersan's _Anglaises pour rire_, with Brunet and Potier
travestied as _grandes dames_, dancing a jig so vigorously that they
lost their skirts. The same species of _revanche_ was indulged in when
Lady Morgan, the novelist, came to France, seeking material for a
popular book describing French customs. Henri Beyle (Stendhal) hoaxed
her by acting as her cicerone and filling her note-books with absurd
information, which she accepted in good faith and carried off as fact.
On Sundays the most respectable families used to resort to the
_guinguettes_, or _bastringues_, of the suburbs.
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