Note 122 — BOOK VI[60]
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos translation
Antonio Franconi (1738-1836), a native of Venice, began life as a tumbler and travelling physician. Afterwards he instituted bull-fights in Lyons and, later, at Bordeaux; and, lastly, went into partnership, in 1783, with Astley, the English circus-proprietor, who had opened a theatrical riding-school in Paris, and founded the circus which he called the Cirque Olympique and which obtained a prodigious success.—T.