ourpoint_ or jerkin of
cherry-coloured satin, cut in the shape of a Milanese cuirass, pointed,
busked, and arched in front, and fastened behind the back with hooks and
eyes. From the imperturbable disdain with which the wearer faced the
opera-glasses and laughter of the assembly it was evident that it would
not have taken much urging to induce him to come to the second night's
performance decked in a daffodil waistcoat.[25] The young enthusiasts of
_le petit cenacle_ carried their Byronism so far that, in imitation of
the celebrated revels at Newstead, they used to drink from a human skull
in their feasts at _le Petit Moulin Rouge_. It had belonged to a
drum-major, and Gerard de Nerval got it from his father, who had been an
army surgeon. One of the neophytes, in his excitement, even demanded
that it be filled with sea water instead of wine, in emulation of the
hero of Victor Hugo's novel, "Han d'Islande," who "drank the water of the
seas in the skull of the dead." Another _caput mortuum_ stood on Hugo's
mantelpiece in place of a clock.[26] "If it did not tell the hour, at
least it made us think of the irreparable flight of time. It was the
verse of Horace translated into romantic symbolism." There was a decided
flavour of Bohemianism about the French romantic school, and the spirit
of the lives which many of them led may best be studied in Merger's
classic, "La Vie de Boheme." [27]

As another special feature of French romanticism, we may note the
important part taken by the theatre in the history of the movement. The
stage was the citadel of classical prejudice, and it was about it that
the fiercest battles were fought. The climacteric year was 1830, in
which year Victor Hugo's tragedy, "Hernani, or Castilian Honour," was put
on at the Theatre Francais on February 25th, and ran for thirty nights.
The representation was a fight between the classics and the romantics,
and there was almost a mob in the theatre. The dramatic censorship under
Charles X., though strict, was used in the interest of political rather
than aesthetic orthodoxy. But it is said that some of the older
Academicians actually applied to the king to forbid the acting of
"Hernani." Gautier has given a mock-heroic description of this famous
literary battle _quorum pars magna fuit_. He had received from his
college friend, Gerard de Nerval--who had been charged with the duty of
drumming up recruits for the Hugonic _claque_--six tickets to be