Bobèche (clown)

Antoine Mandelot, better known as Bobèche, was a French theatre clown, similar to a Merry Andrew, under the First Empire and the Restoration.

These two comedians were very well known, and performed at the Boulevard du Temple in Paris for twenty years, at a time when theatres, acrobat schools and all kinds of spectacles were very popular.

Performing on trestle stages on the Boulevard du Temple, he wore a costume in the Lower Normandy style, consisting of yellow breeches, patterned stockings, a red jacket, straw-coloured wig, and a small horned hat adorned with a butterfly.

One chronicler wrote: "Bobèche was original, blending Janot [fr] and Jocrisse, these two excellent creations of Volanges at Brunet.

His face was distinguished, his manner shy, but this sardonic shyness reveals what is called a vacuous person from Sologne, which is to say a cunning chap, wily and meek.