A child destined to be a plaything for men--such a thing has existed;such a thing exists even now. In simple and savage times such a thingconstituted an especial trade. The 17th century, called the greatcentury, was of those times. It was a century very Byzantine in tone. Itcombined corrupt simplicity with delicate ferocity--a curious variety ofcivilization. A tiger with a simper. Madame de Sevigne minces on thesubject of the fagot and the wheel. That century traded a good deal inchildren. Flattering historians have concealed the sore, but havedivulged the remedy, Vincent de Paul.
In order that a human toy should succeed, he must be taken early. Thedwarf must be fashioned when young. We play with childhood. But awell-formed child is not very amusing; a hunchback is better fun.
Hence grew an art. There were trainers who took a man and made him anabortion; they took a face and made a muzzle; they stunted growth; theykneaded the features. The artificial production of teratological caseshad its rules. It was quite a science--what one can imagine as theantithesis of orthopedy. Where God had put a look, their art put asquint; where God had made harmony, they made discord; where God hadmade the perfect picture, they re-established the sketch; and, in theeyes of connoisseurs, it was the sketch which was perfect. They debasedanimals as well; they invented piebald horses. Turenne rode a piebaldhorse. In our own days do they not dye dogs blue and green? Nature isour canvas. Man has always wished to add something to God's work. Manretouches creation, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. The Courtbuffoon was nothing but an attempt to lead back man to the monkey. Itwas a progress the wrong way. A masterpiece in retrogression. At thesame time they tried to make a man of the monkey. Barbara, Duchess ofCleveland and Countess of Southampton, had a marmoset for a page.Frances Sutton, Baroness Dudley, eighth peeress in the bench of barons,had tea served by a baboon clad in cold brocade, which her ladyshipcalled My Black. Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester, used to goand take her seat in Parliament in a coach with armorial bearings,behind which stood, their muzzles stuck up in the air, three Capemonkeys in grand livery. A Duchess of Medina-Celi, whose toilet CardinalPole witnessed, had her stockings put on by an orang-outang. Thesemonkeys raised in the scale were a counterpoise to men brutalized andbestialized. This promiscuousness of man and beast, desired by thegreat, was especially prominent in the case of the dwarf and the dog.The dwarf never quitted the dog, which was always bigger than himself.The dog was the pair of the dwarf; it was as if they were coupled with acollar. This juxtaposition is authenticated by a mass of domesticrecords--notably by the portrait of Jeffrey Hudson, dwarf of Henriettaof France, daughter of Henri IV., and wife of Charles I.
To degrade man tends to deform him. The suppression of his state wascompleted by disfigurement. Certain vivisectors of that period succeededmarvellously well in effacing from the human face the divine effigy.Doctor Conquest, member of the Amen Street College, and judicial visitorof the chemists' shops of London, wrote a book in Latin on thispseudo-surgery, the processes of which he describes. If we are tobelieve Justus of Carrickfergus, the inventor of this branch of surgerywas a monk named Avonmore--an Irish word signifying Great River.
The dwarf of the Elector Palatine, Perkeo, whose effigy--orghost--springs from a magical box in the cave of Heidelberg, was aremarkable specimen of this science, very varied in its applications. Itfashioned beings the law of whose existence was hideously simple: itpermitted them to suffer, and commanded them to amuse.