Citations from the _Père Peinard_ are impossible, less because of a constantly recurring broadness that is more than broadness (since this might easily be dodged in extracts) than because it was written in the picturesque slang of the faubourg, which can no more be rendered into English than _Chimmie Fadden_, for instance, could be rendered into French. The very titles of the articles are untranslatable.
Whatever exception to its morals one may take, one is forced to admit that the _Père Peinard_ was a remarkable production in its way. For blended drollery and diabolism, _camaraderie_ and cynicism, _gaminerie_ and gruesomeness, it would be hard in contemporary writing to find its counterpart. Like the unmatched narrative of the shipwreck in the second canto of _Don Juan_, it was at once rollicking and horrible, flippant and terrible, ribald and sublime. In it there was no distinguishing between the antics, grimaces, and piquant impudence of the buffoon and the imprecations of the tragedian or the anathemas of the prophet; and, while there were times when the sight of this grinning fury was merely grotesque, there were others (seconds, at least) when it was magnificent.
The _Père Peinard_ was even more a one man’s paper than is Drumont’s _La Libre Parole_ or Rochefort’s _L’Intransigeant_. Apart from the illustrations, which were the work of obscure caricaturists now thrice famous,—a fact which gives the file a high value with collectors,—it was practically all written by its editor, Emile Pouget. Pouget is by general consent one of the “best fellows in the world.” Nevertheless, he is no dilettante revolutionist. His grievances against society are very real ones. He was forced out of his original occupation as a dry-goods clerk because he tried to organise his fellow-employees; and he was condemned (along with Louise Michel) on disgracefully insufficient evidence for a misdemeanour in connection with a meeting of the unemployed, of which he was not guilty. The following account of the affair is so fully substantiated by the official record of the trial that it may be accepted as practically authentic:—
“The organisers of this meeting of the unemployed simply had in view to bring together on the Esplanade des Invalides the greatest number possible of hungry persons. They intended it to be less a revolt than a demonstration. They had no thought whatever of marching on the Elysée or on the Ministry of the Interior. They merely wished to say to the _bourgeoisie_: ‘Look at us. We are 20,000 without means of existence.’ And the Esplanade des Invalides had been chosen in order that they might not be accused of impeding circulation. The police, disturbed at the idea of so large a number of men assembling in one place, took every precaution to prevent it. They closed the Esplanade, and forced those who came to the meeting into the streets adjacent, where disorders naturally arose. Certain individuals, who really had eaten nothing since the night before, invaded three bake-shops. The bake-shops were cleaned out in five minutes as if by enchantment.