著者

蔵持 不三也

出版者

早稲田大学

雑誌

早稲田大学人間科学研究 (ISSN:09160396)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.17, no.1, pp.67-79, 2004-04-01

---

In the end of November 1721, a great thief named Cartouche was sent off the scaffold of wheel at the Place of Greve in Paris. Chief of 366 followers forming a group "Cartousien", he committed with his complices many criminal acts like murders and thefts: their victims were a secret agent, messenger, merchant, and so on. Very interestingly, even before the execution of Cartouche, an Italian comedy titled "Cartouche and his company" was put on the stage of the Comedie-Frangaise in Paris, where Cartouche was indentified with Arlequin (Arlecchino), farcical trickster and descendant of "Familia herlechini". One year after the execution of Cartouche, his life story began to be published in the collection of "Bibliotheque blueu", cheep books of the colportage, and seemed to be distributed, by the beginning of 20th century 40,000,000 copies (!) for 40,000 editions. That is veritable best-seller book which shows us the popularity of Cartouche. In the popular imagnation, his negative characters became less distinct as time goes on. Then, laying emphasis on his extraordinary boldness and wiseness, people would get rid of their daily discontents or resentments due to the social injustice and unfairness. As the legendarization of histories makes a Hero, the historicization of legends makes an Anti-hero. We can find there a kind of representation of popular culture.