#laraviniere

The name Bousingots stuck. When Le Figaro, which kept up a teasing and caustic opposition* under the loyal management of Monsieur Delatouche, changed hands, and little by little changed its stripes, the name Bousingots  became an insult; after that there was no mockery too bitter or unjust with which to smear them. But the true Bousingot remained unmoved, and our friend Laraviniere joyously kept his title of President of the Bousingots until he died, without fearing that he deserved either ridicule or contempt. 

He was so sought after and adored by his companions that we never saw him walking by himself. In the midst of this ambulant group  that was always singing or yelling around him,  he rose above them like a robust and proud pine in the heart of the thicket, or like Fénélon's Calypso in the midst of the small nymphs, or, finally, like young Saul among the shephards of Israel (he preferred the latter description).** He could be spotted from afar by his pointy, wide-brimmed grey hat, his goatee, his long hair, by his enormous red cravat that clashed with the white lapels of his Marat-style waistcoat***...Add to all that a cigar as big as a log, jutting out of a half-burnt auburn moustache, a rough voice that broke in the first days of August 1830 while singing the Marseillaise, and the benevolent aplomb of a man who had embraced Lafayette a hundred times but who no longer spoke of him after 1831 except as "my poor friend"****--and there you have him in his full glory, Jean Laraviniere, President of the Bousingots. 

*I assume this means “opposition to the ruling regime” but it could also mean “opposition to the  Bouzingo”  and in either case be true! Delatouche was something of a Romanticist and no fan of the Restoration, but he didn’t like the extreme fringe Romanticists and rabble-rousers that made up the Bouzingo groups.  After the paper changed hands, it gradually turned outright royalist and went from being Not A  Fan of the group to solidly despising them. 

** this is so 100 percent stuff that Romantics would actually say about each other and to each other,  I’m cracking up.  “YOU’RE LIKE A GIANT SEA GODDESS THING”   “Thanks buddy, you’re like a Muse of composition yourself! “  

*** This is the very first I’ve ever heard of people wearing Marat-style waistcoats? I shall investigate further!