The pose of pathetic despair was not, however, the only one in which the feeling of moral solitude showed itself. Another very common attitude was that of revolt against society, an aping of Mephistopheles, the fallen angel doomed to everlasting unhappiness, strong only in his disillusionment and his clear vision of the canker in the heart of every bud. The word "satanism" summed up this attitude: its breviaries were "Manfred" and Dumas' violent tragedy, "Antony." It rejoiced in the cult of the horrible, in Hoffmannesque dabblings in the supernatural, in pessimistic poetry like Gautier's "Tête de Mort," and such lines in his early sonnets as: _Mais toute cette joie est comme le lierre_ _Qui d'une vieille tour, guirlande irregulière,_ _Embrasse en les cachant les pans démantelés,_ _Au dehors on ne voit que riante verdure,_ _Au dedans, que poussière infecte et noire ordure,_ _Et qu'ossements jaunis aux décombres mêlés._ Its effects, in society, were chiefly obtained by the satanic laugh. Gautier soon grew out of his satanic mood, Dumas was never anything more than a fine romancer, while Victor Hugo, Lamartine, and de Vigny were too lofty poets to indulge in such artificialities; but satanism deserves mention because it was a traditional business with one party in the romantic Bohemia--the party of the _Bousingots_. [Illustration: Bousingots] The origin of the term _Bousingot_ has been a matter of dispute among French writers. Philibert Audebrand in his memoir of Léon Gozlan says it was invented by that brilliant journalist to satirize the young republican enthusiasts of 1832 in the _Figaro_. Charles Asselineau in his "Bibliographie Romantique" says that after some hilarious souls had been arrested for singing too loudly in the streets "Nous avons fait du bousingo"--_bousingo_ being the slang for "noise"--it became a popular designation for the more furious Romantics. The matter seems to be settled more or less in Asselineau's manner by a passage in the letter written by Philothée O'Neddy to Asselineau after the publication of the "Bibliographie Romantique" to give a more correct account of the second _cénacle_. He asserts that there never were any self-styled _Bousingots_, but that after the arrest of the hilarious revellers the affair got into the newspapers and the term remained as a _bourgeois_ hit at the Romantics. The proper spelling of the word was _bouzingo_, and Gautier exclaimed one day: "These asses of _bourgeois_ don't even know how _bouzingo_ is spelt! To teach them a little orthography several of us ought to publish a volume of stories which we will bravely call 'Contes du Bouzingo.'" The suggestion was thought a happy one, and the book was even advertised as imminent, but it was never written. Gautier's promise of a contribution was afterwards redeemed in "Le Capitaine Fracasse," but Jules Vabre's famous treatise "Sur l'incommodité des commodes" did not progress beyond the title. In common