audience. Quiet being resorted, the Alcalde tries to examine the
man. Behold a venerable Alcalde, sitting in an Alcalde's great
armchair, arranging the sleeves of his Alcalde's gown. Only in
Spain do Alcaldes cling to their enormous sleeves and wear plaited
lawn ruffles about the magisterial throat, a good half of an
Alcalde's business on the stage in Paris. This particular Alcalde,
wheezing and waddling about like an asthmatic old man, is Vignol,
on whom Potier's mantle has fallen; a young actor who personates
old age so admirably that the oldest men in the audience cannot
help laughing. With that quavering voice of his, that bald
forehead, and those spindle shanks trembling under the weight of a
senile frame, he may look forward to a long career of decrepitude.
There is something alarming about the young actor's old age; he is
so very old; you feel nervous lest senility should be infectious.
And what an admirable Alcalde he makes! What a delightful, uneasy
smile! what pompous stupidity! what wooden dignity! what judicial
hesitation! How well the man knows that black may be white, or
white black! How eminently well he is fitted to be Minister to a
constitutional monarch! The stranger answers every one of his
inquiries by a question; Vignol retorts in such a fashion, that
the person under examination elicits all the truth from the
Alcalde. This piece of pure comedy, with a breath of Moliere
throughout, puts the house in good humor. The people on the stage
all seemed to understand what they were about, but I am quite
unable to clear up the mystery, or to say wherein it lay; for the
Alcalde's daughter was there, personified by a living, breathing
Andalusian, a Spaniard with a Spaniard's eyes, a Spaniard's
complexion, a Spaniard's gait and figure, a Spaniard from top to
toe, with her poniard in her garter, love in her heart, and a
cross on the ribbon about her neck. When the act was over, and