ACROBATS AND MOUNTEBANKS.
PREFACE.
The Banquistes was the first title chosen for this book: ithas been altered for two reasons which appeared conclusiveafter some consideration: the general public would have misunderstoodit, and it would certainly have wounded thoseinterested in it, who would have known what it meant.
But if we consult an etymological dictionary we shall findthat the word SALTIMBANQUE, which is more generally usedthan BANQUISTE, is derived from a definite root: SALTIMBANQUE,s. m., from the Italian word SALTIMBANCO: who vaults on abench (Latin, SALTARE IN BANCO). In Italian we also findthe word CANTIMBANCO, a platform singer. I must add thatwhen, after tracing out the etymology of the words SALTIMBANQUISTEand banquiste, we search for the origin of the wordbanker, we shall find that the same radical, BANCO, is the rootof these three derivatives. In the old fairs two personageswere allowed to erect a small platform, a “banc”—the money-changerand the acrobat. Perhaps the “banc” already servedas a spring-board, giving both the BANKER and the BANQUISTEa greater impetus in their leap; perhaps we must even lookback to the same date to find the exact origin of the nowcommon expression “LEVER LE PIED” (to abscond).
However this may be, after the perusal of this book, it willbe readily understood that the contemporary acrobat, established,enriched, emerging into the middle classes, indignantlyrejects a slang term which apparently assigns to him the sameorigin as that of our modern financiers. This intolerance iscertainly not the only surprise reserved for the reader of thesepages. We claim to lead him to the threshold of an unknownworld.
Before commencing this work, which has absorbed usduring at least three years, I made a thorough investigationof the bibliographic and monographic information now existingupon the banquiste question, and I came to the conclusionthat no French or foreign author worth attention or quotationhad yet interested himself in this original people. M.Houcke, the manager of the Hippodrome, had kindly placedat our disposal a series of lithographs published in Germany.But the text and the correctness of the work were so defec