Life — September 8, 1898 — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Mountebank. of BENTREZ, Mesdames et Messieurs! Entrez! The world's famous fortune-teller, Mile, Clara La Pause, is waiting for you!” With a flourish of his long, hairy arms,a mountebank on the boards of a booth was encouraging his audience to consult the oracle within, while the roll of a drum and the harsh notes ofa battered key bugle punctuated bis language. The country fair of Nonce, near Orleans, was at its height. On the square all the catchpennies of human credulity wero lined up. Midst the explosion of firearms, the squeaks of steam organs, the roars of wild beasts, and the hoarse shouting of showmen extolling the attractions of electric women or bearded ladies, the crowd fluctuated, to bo swallowed, part here, part there, by some one of the shows, ‘The mountebank in front of the for- tune-teller’s booth was in his element. From time to time he brandished a heavy stick toward the drummer and the bugler. Then the drum would roll with greater fury and the wheezing of the bugle become more frenzied. Nothing could be in greater contrast than the dignity of the mountebank, with his long, disheveled gray hair and bushy eyebrows, and the comical appearance of the two musicians—the bugler a fat woman, more enormous in faded tights, patched here and there, and with an overflow of flesh which her green corsage did not suffice to compress; the drummer a boy with a head too big for his body, which was lost ina bright-striped jersey. But on the faces of the three—tho stalwart mounte- bank, the fat woman, the boy with the big head—the same indefinable expression could be traced. They wore father, mother and son La Pause, Tho La Pauses had been mounte- banks for generations, and, with the same instinet which makes birds mi- grate to warmer climates, they fol- lowed the sun, coming north with the spring, roturning south when the leaves began to fall. Thus their years wore @ porpetual spring. In the roulotte, a large cabin on wheels inside the tent, Mile. Clara La Pause told fortunes from two to six in the afternoon and from eight till eleven at night. Her father, with the help of Madame La Pause and the boy with the big head, attracted customers to / the entrance. Asacrowd, like moutons \ de panurge, follows its leader, Father La Pauso had engaged a young fellow to bait the customers by being the first to enter, He was Piorre Boudin, a tall chap with an open face, whom Father La Pause met one day at a fair at Arles inthe south of France. “A good find, that Pierre! A good find!” the old mountebank bad exclaimed more than once, And he was right. Sinco Pierre had entered the family, business had increased and the out- look was rosy. At night, when the show was over and the smoky lamps of the other booths were blown out, laughter could still be heard from the fortune-teller’s roulotte; and the tired neighbors, stretching themselves on their cots, would exclaim : “Ob, those La Pauses, those La Pauses! What a lucky family 1” They certainly were happy. Father La Pauso was robust, and, like all giants, simple and good at heart. Tho mother, with her florid face and shabby finery, was tho kindest mother one could dream of. Jean, the son, Lak & W7