Harlequinade "the lean and slippered Pantaloon". In the English harlequinade, Pantaloon emerged as the greedy, elderly father of Columbine who tries to keep the lovers separated but was no match for Harlequin's cleverness. His servant Clown's antics, however, slowed him in his pursuit of the lovers. Later, Pantaloon became Clown's assistant. Pierrot ("Pedroline") was a comic servant character, often Pantaloon's servant. His face was whitened with flour. During the 17th century, the character was increasingly portrayed as stupid and awkward, a country bumpkin with oversized clothes. During the 19th century, the Pierrot character became less comic, and more sentimental and romantic,
Pierrot summarized and analyzed an unnamed pantomime of unusually somber events: Pierrot murders an old-clothes man for garments to court a duchess, then is skewered in turn by the sword with which he stabbed the peddler when the latter's ghost lures him into a dance at his wedding. The pantomime under "review" was a fabrication (though it inspired a hack to turn it into an actual pantomime, "The Ol’ Clo's Man" [1842], in which Deburau probably appeared—and also inspired Barrault's wonderful recreation of it in "Children of Paradise"). But it importantly marked a turning-point in Pierrot's career: henceforth Pierrot could bear