What does it signify to receive a box on the ear? Commonplace metaphor replies: “It is to see thirty-six candles.” Here slang intervenes and takes it up: Candle, camoufle . Thereupon, the ordinary tongue gives camouflet 68 as the synonym for soufflet . Thus, by a sort of infiltration from below upwards, with the aid of metaphor, that incalculable, trajectory slang mounts from the cavern to the Academy; and Poulailler saying: “I light my camoufle ,” causes Voltaire to write: “Langleviel La Beaumelle deserves a hundred camouflets .”

Researches in slang mean discoveries at every step. Study and investigation of this strange idiom lead to the mysterious point of intersection of regular society with society which is accursed.