A fascinating and tragic buffoon who is also feared, the madman entertains, denounces and inverts values: that's the story behind a vast exhibition entitled 'Figures of the Madman, from the Middle Ages to the Romantics' that opens on Wednesday at the Louvre. The exhibition is not concerned with madness as a mental illness, but rather with the omnipresence of this figure in Western art and culture. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES