Punch, or the London Charivari
Volume 107, September 22nd, 1894
edited by Sir Francis Burnand

IN PARIS OUT OF THE SEASON.

(With some Notes on a Detective Melodrama at the Ambigu.)

Dear Mr. Punch,—When I announced my intention of running over to Paris for a few days, my friend Buzzard looked at me with a stony contempt. "To Paris?" he said, "at this time of year! Why, you must be mad. What on earth are you going to do there?" I tried to explain to Buzzard, whose frigid superiority frightens me, that I liked Paris, that I was going there pour me dégourdir; that it was just as possible to breakfast at Ledoyen's or Voisin's, and to dine at Durand's or Joseph's in September as at any other time; that a few theatres were still open; that the Boulevards were there for the flâneur; but I failed to penetrate his scorn, even with the most idiomatic French at my command. However, I determined that Buzzard, like the weight of the elephant in the problem, must be neglected; and here I am in the Rue de Rivoli with another madman like unto myself. We take our café complet in bed; we wear beautiful French ties, made of foulard, with two vast ends floating like banners in the Parisian breeze—in a word, we are thoroughly enjoying ourselves in an entirely non-British fashion—which I take, indeed, to be of the essence of a pleasant holiday. What care we for the echoes of the Trades Union Congress; for the windiest of Keir Hardie's blatancies; for the malignities of Mr. Chamberlain, or the failure of Lord Rosebery's Ladas at Doncaster? We are in Paris, and the sight of a cuirassier trotting past with his great black crinière waving behind, or of the lady bicyclists scudding by in knickerbockers, excites us more than even the latest ravings of the newest woman in London. Buzzard be blowed! You may tell him I said so.

I want to let Mr. Conan Doyle know that there is a great opening for him here. If I may judge by the latest detective drama, the ideas of the Parisian public with regard to the acumen and general power of a detective are still very primitive. Yet Gaboriau did something in this line, and, in the Vicomte de Bragelonne, did not d'Artagnan show himself on the occasion of a certain duel to be a detective of unmatchable force? Still the fact remains that the play-going Parisian public is easily satisfied in the matter of detectives. Listen, if you doubt me, to a plain unvarnished account of "La Belle Limonadière," the "Grand drame nouveau en cinq actes, huit tableaux," which is now running gloomily, but with immense success, at the Ambigu.

Madame de Mazerolles, a wealthy widow, is, in the first Act, robbed and brutally murdered by her stepson, Roland, a dissipated young man, who is incited to the commission of the crime by his wicked mistress Sabine. Vidocq, the great representative of the new school in detection (circa A.D. 1820), is away at the time, and in his absence the investigation falls to his rival Yvrier, who belongs to the old school. In the chamber of death Yvrier soon makes up his mind that the guilty person is one Henri Lebrun, a faithful and gigantic old soldier, much given to beating his breast with both fists and talking at large about his services to his country, his immaculate honesty and his domestic virtues. Suddenly Vidocq enters. He discovers that the assassin has entered by a certain door because a cobweb has been disturbed, he picks up a red flower dropped by the assassin, he pours contempt on the crass stupidity of Yvrier—all quite in the best Sherlock Holmes style. But nothing comes of it all. Poor Henri Lebrun, still beating his breast with fists, is arrested, and after a painful interview with his only daughter (whom he discovers to have been the mistress of George, the son of Madame Mazerolles), he becomes sublime, accuses himself quite unnecessarily of the murder he had never committed, and is marched off to prison amid the execrations of the populace, the triumph of the crass Yvrier, and the loudly expressed determination of Vidocq to bring the guilty to justice and save the life of the innocent Lebrun. Time passes. Lebrun, overwhelmed by an entire absence of proofs, is tried and condemned to death. It is the morning appointed for his execution. The curtain rises in the upper floor of a restaurant commanding an extensive view of the guillotine. The sight-seers troop in. First of all comes Roland, the murderer, disguised in black as a wicked Marquis, and accompanied by the infamous Sabine. Hélène Lebrun, the daughter of the condemned man, also troops in to slow music in black. There is a commotion at the door, and the obsequious innkeeper backs on to the stage ushering in Milord Sir John Stilton and his son "Shames." Sir John is dressed in an enormous green swallow-tailed coat with brass buttons, a striped yellow waistcoat, a pair of yellow knickerbockers, and stockings brilliantly striped with red and black. On his head he wears a low-crowned hat. In one hand he carries an umbrella, while a telescope dangles from his Shoulders by a strap. In short, he is tout-ce-qu'il-y-a de plus Anglais. His son Shames is even more aggressively British. Sir John orders lunch: "vous donner moa bifteck" is the obvious formula. Shames concurs with a "Yehs, Pappah," which provokes roars of laughter. But stay, what is this? Sir John takes Shames aside: they talk in beautiful French. Can it be? Yes, by Heaven, it is the great Vidocq with his faithful Coco-Latour! We breathe again, for now we know that the innocent man is safe. The procession, however, approaches. The condemned man speaks from below to his daughter in the balcony. He declares his innocence. Now good Vidocq, to the rescue. Display all your arts, convict the guilty, disguised Marquis, and save the estimable Lebrun! But Vidocq looks on impassive, a dull thud is heard and the head of the innocent rolls into the basket. Immediately afterwards Yvrier staggers in. Too late, he says, he has been convinced of Lebrun's innocence. At the last moment Lebrun looked at him with eyes in which there was no trace of guilt. That last look did it, and now Yvrier in a passion of repentance offers himself to help Vidocq, even in the most subordinate capacity, to track down the guilty, and to remove the stain from Lebrun's name. I pass over the padding, during which Vidocq appears, for no earthly reason, in numerous disguises, and come to the last scene. Roland has all but killed George Mazerolles in a duel, he has murdered Sabine, who, before dying, rounds on him, and he is now, by a strange conjunction of circumstances, in the very room in which he murdered Madame