Claque (
pronunced as klahk) is the French word for a handclap, applied to a
group of people hired by a theatre manager to applaud a performance, thus
encouraging the paying audience to do likewise. The French writer Villiers de
ITsle-Adam described this widespread corrupt practice in the theatres of
19th-century Paris as 'the avowed symbol of the Public's inability to
distinguish by itself the worth of what it is listening to'.