Philippe Bunau-Varilla was to be greatly misunderstood in another generation. The tendency among historians would be to see him as an almost comic figure, a sort of road-show French schemer who, though colorful enough in his fashion, should not be taken altogether seriously. Possibly the mustache had a bearing on that judgment. But primarily it was Bunau-Varilla’s own account of all that happened, his obsession with the first person singular in everything he wrote, which to even the most tolerant modern reader seems so absurdly one-sided, so inflated by self-interest, as to be ludicrous. In
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