The History of the Nineteenth Century in Caricature Part 10

_By Daumier in "Charivari."_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Prussia Annexes Alsace.

_By Cham in "Charivari."_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Oh, no! Prussia has not completely slain her. It is not yet time to go to her aid."

_By Cham in "Charivari."_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Adieu!"

"No, 'au revoir.' Visits must be returned."

_By Cham._]

Yet to those whose sympathies were with France during the struggle of 1870-71, there is a distinct pathos in the change that is seen in the later work of Daumier--not a personal pathos, but a pathos due to the changed condition of the country which it reflects. The old dauntless audacity, the trenchant sarcasm, the mocking, light-hearted laughter, is gone. In its place is the haunting bitterness of an old man, under the burden of an impotent wrath--a man who, for all that he dips his pencil in pure vitriol, cannot do justice to the nightmare visions that beset him. There is no better commentary upon the pervading feeling of helpless anger and outraged national pride of this epoch than in these haunting designs of Daumier's. They are the work of a man tremulous with feverish indignation, weird and ghastly conceptions, such as might have emanated from the caldron of Macbeth's witches. The backgrounds are filled in with solid black, like a funeral pall; and from out the darkness the features of Bismarck, of Von Moltke, of William I., leer malevolently, distorted into hideous, ghoulish figures--vampires feasting upon the ruin they have wrought.

French liberty, in the guise of a wan, emaciated, despairing figure, the personification of a wronged and outraged womanhood, haunts Daumier's pages. At one time she is standing, bound and gagged, between the gaping muzzles of two cannon marked, respectively, "Paris, 1851," and "Sedan, 1870," and underneath the laconic legend, "Histoire d'un Regne."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Souvenirs and Regrets.

_By Aranda._]

Another cartoon shows France as a female Prometheus bound to the rock, her vitals being torn by the Germanic vulture. A number of these cartoons, all of which appeared in _La Charivari_, treat bitterly of the disastrous results of the twenty years during which Louis Napoleon was the Emperor of the French. The sketch called "This Has Killed That" has allusion to the popular ballot which elected the Prince-President to the throne. A gaunt, angry female figure is pointing with one hand to the ballot-box, in which repose the "Ours" which made Louis Napoleon an Emperor, and with the other to the corpses on the battlefield where the sun of his empire finally sets.

"This," she cries, "has killed that." The same idea suggested a somewhat similar cartoon, in which a French peasant, gazing at the sh.e.l.l-battered ruins of his humble home, exclaims in the peasant's ungrammatical _patois_: "And it was for this that I voted 'Yes.'"

Still more grim and ominous is the cartoon showing a huge mouse-trap with three holes. The mouse-trap represents the Plebiscite. Two of the holes, marked respectively, "1851" and "1870," have been sprung, and each has caught the throat of a victim. The third, however, still yawns open warningly, with the date not completely filled in.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Show of the Napoleonic Mountebanks.

_From a caricature by Hadol._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Prussia introducing the New National a.s.sembly to France.

_By Daumier in "Charivari."_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Let Us eat the Prussian."

_By Andre Gill._]

Still another cartoon, thoroughly characteristic of Daumier's later manner, is "The Dream of Bismarck," one which touches upon the idea which has been used allegorically in connection with every great conqueror whose wake is marked by the strewn corpses of fallen thousands. In it Bismarck, frightfully haggard and ghastly of countenance, is sleeping in his chair, while at his side is the grim figure of Death bearing a huge sickle and pointing out over the b.l.o.o.d.y battlefield.

Of the younger group of cartoonists none is more closely connected with the events of the _annee terrible_ than "Cham," the Comte de Noe.

The name Noe, it will be remembered, is French for Noah, just as Cham is the French equivalent of Ham, second son of the patriarch of Scripture. The Comte de Noe was also second son of his father, hence the appropriateness of his pseudonym. As a caricaturist, Cham was animated by no such seriousness of purpose as formed the inspiration of Daumier; and this was why he never became a really great caricaturist. It was the humorous side of life, even of the tragedies of life, that appealed to him, and he reflected it back with an incisive drollery which was irresistible. He was one of the most rapid and industrious of workers, and found in the events of _l'annee terrible_ the inspiration of a vast number of cartoons. The looting propensities of the Prussians were satirized in a sketch showing two Prussian officers looking greedily at a clock on the mantelpiece in a French chateau. "Let us take the clock." "But peace has already been signed." "No matter. Don't you see the clock is slow?" The German acquisition of the Rhenish provinces is summed up in a picture which shows a German officer attaching to his leg a chain, at the end of which is a huge ball marked Alsace. The siege having turned every Parisian into a nominal soldier, this condition of affairs is. .h.i.t off by Cham in a cartoon underneath which is written: "Everybody being soldiers, the officers will have the right to put through the paces anyone whom they meet in the streets." The sketch shows a cook in the usual culinary costume, and bearing on his head a flat basket filled with kettles and pans, marking time at the command of an officer. The att.i.tude of England during the war seemed to the caricaturist perfidious, after the practical aid which France had rendered Albion in the Crimea. Cham hits this off by representing the two nations as women, Britannia looking ironically at prostrate France and saying: "Oh, no! Prussia has not yet entirely killed her! So it is not yet time to go to her aid."

[Ill.u.s.tration: New Design for a Hand Bell proposed by "Charivari" for the Purpose of Reminding the a.s.sembly that Prussian Troops still hold French Territory.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Germany: "Farewell, Madame, and if--"

France: "Ha! We shall meet again!"]

The statesmen and warriors of that period were very happily caricatured in a series of cartoons, most of which appeared in _L'eclipse_. Gill excelled in his caricature of individual men rather than in the caricature of events or groups. His real name was Louis Alexandre Gosset. He was born at Landouzy-li-Ville, October 19, 1840, and died in Paris, December 29, 1885. Thiers, Gambetta, Louis Blanc, all the men of the time, were hit off by his pencil. His method in most cases consisted of the grotesque exaggeration of the subject's head at the expense of the body. He was especially happy in his caricature of Thiers, whose diminutive size, as well as his great importance, made him a favorite subject for the cartoonist. Thiers as Hamlet soliloquizing, "To be or not to be"; Thiers as "The Man Who Laughs"; the head of Thiers peering over the rim of a gla.s.s, "A tempest in a gla.s.s of water"; Thiers as the first conscript of France; Thiers as Achilles in retreat--all these and countless others are from the pencil of Gill.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bismarck the First.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Trochu--1870.]

A striking satirical sketch by Hadol, ent.i.tled "La Parade," sums up all the buffooneries of the Second Empire. In it the Duc de Morny as the barking showman is violently inviting the populace to enter and inspect the wonders of the Theatre Badinguet. Badinguet, as said before, was the name of the workman in whose clothes Louis Napoleon was said to have escaped from his imprisonment at Ham; and throughout the Second Empire it was the name by which the Parisians maliciously alluded to the Emperor. Behind De Morny in the cartoon are the Emperor and Empress, seated at the cas.h.i.+er's desk at the entrance of the theater to take in the money of the dupes whom De Morny can persuade to enter. To the right and left, in grotesque attire, are the actors of the show, representing the various statesmen and soldiers whose names were connected with the reign.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bazaine.

_By Faustin._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Rochefort.]

Popular hatred of Marshal Bazaine after the surrender of Metz, based on the prevalent belief that he had sold the city and the army under his command to the Germans, finds pictorial expression in the grim cartoon by Faustin, reproduced here. The artist has cunningly drawn into the features of the Marshal an expression of unutterable craft and treachery. Round his neck there has been flung what at the first glance seems like a decoration of honor, an impression strengthened by the cross and inscription on his breast. But as you look more closely you perceive that this decoration is suspended from the noose of the hangman's rope, and that the words "Au Marechal Bazaine--La France Reconnaissante" have another and a deeper significance. The defender of the city of Paris, General Trochu, was genially caricatured by Andre Gill in _L'eclipse_ as a _blanchisseuse_ industriously ironing out the dirty linen of France. However great his popularity was at the time, Trochu has by no means escaped subsequent criticism. To him the resistance of Paris seemed nothing but "an heroic folly," and he had no hesitation about proclaiming his opinion. Another exceedingly happy caricature by Andre Gill was that representing Henri Rochefort, the implacable enemy of Louis Napoleon, as a member of the Government of the National Defense. Here Rochefort's head is shown peering out of the mouth of a cannon projecting through a hole in the city's fortifications.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Entree Solennelle de l'Empereur d'Allemagne a Paris.

(Caricature de Felix Regamey.)]

PART IV

_THE END OF THE CENTURY_

CHAPTER XXIII

THE EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN CARICATURE

During the period covered by the present chapter the foundation of the two leading American comic weeklies, _Puck_ and _Judge_, the former in 1877 and the latter in 1881, led to a distinct advance in political caricature in this country. It also made it possible for the first time to draw an intelligent comparison between the tendencies of caricature in England and in America. No one can look over the early files of _Puck_ and _Judge_ and compare them with _Punch_ for the corresponding years without being struck with the contrast, not merely in methods of drawing and printing, but in the whole underlying spirit. For the past half century _Punch_ has adhered faithfully to its original att.i.tude of neutrality upon questions of party politics.

Its aim has been to represent the weight of public opinion in a sober and conservative spirit; to discountenance and rebuke the excesses of whichever party is in power; to commemorate the great national calamities, as well as the occasions of national rejoicings. If it somewhat overstepped its established bounds in its repeated attacks upon Lord Beaconsfield because his foreign policy was regarded with distrust, it made amends with an eloquent tribute at the time of that statesman's death. And if on one occasion it cartooned him in the guise of the melancholy Dane, with broad impartiality it travestied his great rival, Gladstone, a month or two later, in precisely the same character. Taken as a whole, the English cartoons are not so distinctly popular in tone as those in this country. The underlying thought is apt to be more cultured, more bookish, so to speak; to take the form of parodies upon Shakspere and Dante, d.i.c.kens and Scott. And yet, taking them all in all, it would be difficult to point out any parallel series of cartoons which, after the lapse of years, require so little explanation to make them intelligible, or which cover in so comprehensive a manner the current history of the world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Caran d'Ache.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Gulliver Crispi.

_From "Il Papagallo" (Rome)._]

On the other hand, the typical American cartoon of a generation ago concerned itself but little with questions of international interest, while in its treatment of domestic affairs it was largely lacking in the dignity and restraint which characterized the British school.

Being founded upon party politics, its purpose was primarily not to reflect public opinion, but to mold it; to make political capital; to win votes by fair means, if possible, but to win them. From their very inception _Puck_ and _Judge_, as the mouthpieces of their respective parties, have exerted a formidable power, whose far-reaching influence it would be impossible to gauge, especially during the febrile periods of the Presidential campaigns. At these times the animosity shown in some of the cartoons seems rather surprising, when looked at from the sober vantage ground of later years. Political molehills were exaggerated into mountains, and even those elements of vulgar vituperation and cheap personal abuse--features of political campaigns which we are happily outgrowing--were eagerly seized upon for the purpose of pictorial satire. The peculiar bitterness which marked the memorable campaign between Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Blaine in 1884 was strongly mirrored in the political caricature of the time. It marked the highwater line of the element of purely personal abuse in comic art. In the end the extreme measures to which each of the rival parties resorted during that year had very beneficial effects, for after the election the nation, in calmer mood, grew ashamed at the thought of its violence and bitterness, and subsequent campaigns have consequently been much more free from these objectionable features.

Mr. Harrison, Mr. Bryan, Mr. McKinley, and Mr. Roosevelt have all been a.s.sailed from many different points. But we are no longer in the mood to tolerate attempts to rake up alleged personal scandals and to use them in the pamphlet and the cartoon. Enough of this was done by both parties in 1884 to last us for at least a generation. There are cartoons which appeared in _Puck_ and _Judge_ which even at this day we should not think of reprinting, and which the publications containing them and the artists who drew them would probably like to forget.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 291. Caricature de Gill. (_eclipse_, 19 octobre 1873.)]