Note 336 — BOOK I[330]

"Mayeux," the hunchbacked type of the political versatility of the French nation, was an invention of the caricaturists and the comic papers of the year 1831. According to them, Messidor Napoleon Louis Charles Philippe Mayeux, born on the 14th of July 1789, while his father was engaged in taking the Bastille, had taken various Christian names according to the different forms of government which he had in turn espoused or repudiated. He had not been much heard of before 1830, but the sun of July had at last brought him into the light of day. For twelve months, Paris saw, talked, thought, swore, above all, by none save Mayeux. He was in turns a Republican, a Bonapartist, a juste-milieu man: everything, in short, except a Carlist; for he was faithful to his resentment against a mounted Grenadier of the Royal Guard who had failed to see him behind a curb-post and had laughed at him when he said:

"Take care, soldier; there's a man in front of you."

Mayeux was a National Guard: that caused his death. One day he was struck off the roll for being guilty of making his brother bisets laugh while under arms. He died of grief and shame a few weeks later: on the 23rd of December 1821, to be exact (Cf. the chapter on Mayeux in Bazin: L'Époque sans nom).—B.