Such was the measure of freedom enjoyed in the French republic governed by soldiers. But this elaborate system of repression can be both evaded and turned to account by the caricaturist. During the last two or three years, a writer who calls himself Touchatout has been amusing Paris by a series of satirical biographies, each preceded by a burlesque portrait. But occasionally the Censure refuses its consent to the insertion of the portrait. The son of Louis Napoleon was one individual whom the Censure thus endeavored to protect. Observe the result. Instead of exhibiting to the people of Paris a harmless picture representing the head of the unfortunate young man mounted upon a pair of diminutive legs, Touchatout prints at the head of his biographical sketch the damaging burlesque subjoined: ____________________________________________________ | | | RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE. | | | | LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY, | | AND CENSURE. | | | | THE PUBLICATION OF THE PORTRAIT OF | | | | Vélocipède IV. | | | | HAS BEEN FORBIDDEN BY THE CENSURE. | |____________________________________________________| | IT CAN BE FOUND AT ALL THE PHOTOGRAPHERS. | |____________________________________________________| I translate the burlesque biography that follows the above. It may serve also as a specimen of the new literary commodity of which the Parisians seem so fond, and for which a name has been invented--_blague_--which means amusingly malign gossip. "VÉLOCIPÈDE IV. (Napoleon-Eugene-Louis-Jean-Joseph, Prince Imperial, more commonly known by the name of:) born at Paris, March 16th, 1856. He is the son of Napoleon III. and of the Empress, Eugénie de Montijo.