The History of the Nineteenth Century in Caricature Part 4

[Ill.u.s.tration: Barbarism and the Cholera invading Europe in 1831.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Raid on the Workshop of the Liberty of the Press.]

CHAPTER X

MAYEUX AND ROBERT MACAIRE

A peculiar feature of French caricature, especially after political subjects were largely forbidden, was the creation of certain famous types who soon became familiar to the French public, and whose reappearances from day to day in new and ever grotesque situations were hailed with growing delight. Such were the Mayeux of Travies and the Macaire and Bertrand of Daumier, who in course of time became as celebrated, in a certain sense, as the heroes of "The Three Musketeers." In his "Curiosites Esthetiques" Beaudelaire has told the story of the origin of Mayeux. "There was," he says, "in Paris a sort of clown named Le Claire, who had the run of various low resorts and theaters. His specialty was to make _tetes d'expression_, that is, by a series of facial contortions he would express successively the various human pa.s.sions. This man, a clown by nature, was very melancholy and possessed with a mad desire for friends.h.i.+p. All the time not occupied in practice and in giving his grotesque performances he spent in searching for a friend, and when he had been drinking, tears of solitude flowed freely from his eyes. Travies saw him. It was a time when the great patriotic enthusiasm of July was still at its height. A luminous idea entered his brain. Mayeux was created, and for a long time afterward this same turbulent Mayeux talked, screamed, harangued, and gesticulated in the memory of the people of Paris."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Travies's "Mayeux."

"Adam destroyed us by the apple; Lafayette by the pear."]

In a hundred different guises, in the blue blouse of the workman, the ap.r.o.n of the butcher, the magisterial gown of judge or advocate, this hunchback Mayeux, this misshapen parody upon humanity, endeared himself to the Parisian public. Virulent, salacious, corrupt, he was a sort of French Mr. Hyde--the shadow of secret weaknesses and vices, lurking behind the Dr. Jekyll of smug _bourgeois_ respectability; and the French public recognized him as a true picture of their baser selves. They laughed indulgently over the broad, Rabelaisian jests that unfailingly accompanied each new cartoon--jests which M. Dayot has admirably characterized as "seasoned with coa.r.s.e salt, more German than Gallic, and forming a series of legends which might be made into a veritable catechism of p.o.r.nography." This Mayeux series is not, strictly speaking, political in its essence. It touches upon all sides of life, without discrimination and without respect. It even trespa.s.ses upon the subject of that forbidden fruit, "Le Poire." In an oft-cited cartoon, Mayeux with extended arms, his head sunken lower than usual between his huddled shoulders, is declaiming: "Adam destroyed us with the apple; Lafayette has destroyed us with the pear!" And later, when repeated arrests, verdicts, fines, edicts had banished politics from the arena of caricature, Mayeux was still a privileged character. Like Chicot, the jester, who could speak his mind fearlessly to his "Henriquet," while the ordinary courtier cringed obsequiously, Mayeux shared the proverbial privilege of children and buffoons, to speak the truth. And oftentimes it was not even necessary for his creator, Travies, to manifest any overt political significance; the public were always more than ready to look for it below the surface. In such a picture as that of Mayeux, in Napoleonic garb striking an att.i.tude before a portrait of the Little Corporal and exclaiming, "_Comme je lui ressemble!_" they inevitably discovered a hint that there were other hypocrites more august than Mayeux who fancied themselves worthy of filling Napoleon's shoes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Messieurs Macaire and Bertrand have found it expedient to make a hurried departure for Belgium for the purpose of evading French justice. The eloquent Macaire, on reaching the frontier, declaims as follows: "Hail to thee, O land of hospitality! Hail, fatherland of those who haven't got any! Sacred refuge of all unfortunates proscribed by human justice, hail! To all drooping hearts Belgium is dear."]

Even more famous than Mayeux are the Macaire and Bertrand series, the joint invention of Philipon, who supplied the ideas and the text, and of Daumier, who executed the designs. According to Thackeray, whose a.n.a.lysis of these masterpieces of French caricature has become cla.s.sic, they had their origin in an old play, the "Auberge des Adrets," in which two thieves escaped from the galleys were introduced, Robert Macaire, the clever rogue, and Bertrand, his friend, the "b.u.t.t and scapegoat on all occasions of danger." The play had been half-forgotten when it was revived by a popular and clever actor, Frederick Lematre, who used it as a vehicle for political burlesque. The play was suppressed, but _Le Charivari_ eagerly seized upon the idea and continued it from day to day in the form of a pictorial puppet show, of which the public never seemed to weary.

Thackeray's summary of the characters of these two ill.u.s.trious rascals can scarcely be improved upon:

[Ill.u.s.tration: Extinguished!]

"M. Robert Macaire [he says] is a compound of Fielding's 'Blueskin'

and Goldsmith's 'Beau Tibbs.' He has the dirt and dandyism of the one, with the ferocity of the other: sometimes he is made to swindle, but where he can get a s.h.i.+lling more, M. Macaire will murder without scruple; he performs one and the other act (or any in the scale between them) with a similar bland imperturbability, and accompanies his actions with such philosophical remarks as may be expected from a person of his talents, his energies, his amiable life and character.

Bertrand is the simple recipient of Macaire's jokes, and makes vicarious atonement for his crimes, acting, in fact, the part which pantaloon performs in the pantomime, who is entirely under the fatal influence of clown. He is quite as much a rogue as that gentleman, but he has not his genius and courage.... Thus Robert Macaire and his companion Bertrand are made to go through the world; both swindlers, but the one more accomplished than the other. Both robbing all the world, and Robert robbing his friend, and, in the event of danger, leaving him faithfully in the lurch. There is, in the two characters, some grotesque good for the spectator--a kind of 'Beggars' Opera'

moral.... And with these two types of clever and stupid knavery, M.

Philipon and his companion Daumier have created a world of pleasant satire upon all the prevailing abuses of the day."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Louis Philippe as Cain with the Angels of Justice in Pursuit.]

The Macaire and Bertrand series were less directly political in their scope than that of Travies's hunchback; at least, their political allusions were more carefully veiled. Yet the first of the series had portrayed in Macaire's picturesque green coat and patched red trousers no less a personage than the old "Poire" himself, and the public remembered it. When politics were banished from journalism they persisted in finding in each new escapade of Macaire and Bertrand an allusion to some fresh scandal, if not connected with the King himself, at least well up in the ranks of governmental hypocrites.

And, although the specific scandals upon which they are based, the joint-stock schemes for floating worthless enterprises, the thousand-and-one plausible humbugs of the period, are now forgotten, to those who take the trouble to read between the lines, these masterpieces of Daumier's genius form a luminous exposition of the _morale_ of the government and the court circles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Laughing John--Crying John.

July, 1830. February, 1848.]

CHAPTER XI

FROM CRUIKSHANK TO LEECH

In contrast with the brilliancy of the French artists, the work in England during these years, at least prior to the establishment of _Punch_, is distinctly disappointing. The one man who might have raised caricature to an even higher level than that of Gillray and Rowlandson was George Cruikshank, but he withdrew early in life from political caricature, preferring, like Hogarth, to concentrate his talent upon the dramatic aspects of contemporary social life. Yet at the outset of his career, just as he was coming of age, Cruikshank produced one cartoon that has remained famous because it antic.i.p.ated by thirty years the att.i.tude of Mill and Cobden in 1846. It was in 1815, just after the battle of Waterloo had secured an era of peace for Europe, that he produced his protest against the laws restricting the importation of grain into England. He called it "The Blessings of Peace; or, the Curse of the Corn Bill." A cargo of foreign grain has just arrived and is being offered for sale by the supercargo: "Here is the best for fifty s.h.i.+llings." On the sh.o.r.e a group of British landholders wave the foreigner away: "We won't have it at any price.

We are determined to keep up our own to eighty s.h.i.+llings, and if the poor can't buy it at that price, why, they must starve." In the background a storehouse with tight-shut doors bulges with home-grown grain. A starving family stand watching while the foreign grain is thrown overboard, and the father says: "No, no, masters, I'll not starve, but quit my native land, where the poor are crushed by those they labor to support, and retire to one more hospitable, and where the arts of the rich do not interpose to defeat the providence of G.o.d."

After Cruikshank, until the advent of the men who made _Punch_ famous,--Richard Doyle, John Leech, John Tenniel, and their successors,--there are no cartoonists in England whose work rises above mediocrity. When the death of Canning brought Wellington and Peel into power, a series of colored prints bearing the signature H.

Heath, and persistently lampooning the new ministry, enjoyed a certain vogue. They scarcely rose above the level of the penny comic valentine, which they much resembled in crudeness of color and poverty of invention. One set, ent.i.tled "Our Theatrical Celebrities," depicted the Premier as stage manager, the other members of the cabinet as leading man, premiere danseuse, prompter, etc. Another series depicts the same statesmen as so many thoroughbreds, to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, and describes the good points of each in the most approved language of the turf. Lot No. 1 is the Duke of Wellington, described as "the famous charger, Arthur"; Lot No. 2 is Peel, the "Good Old Cobb, Bobby," and the rest of the series continue the same vein of inane witticism. Somewhat more point is to be found in the portrayal of Wellington buried up to his neck in his own boot--one of the universal Wellington boots of the period. The cartoonist's thought, quite obviously, was that the ill.u.s.trious hero of Waterloo had won his fame primarily in boots and spurs, and that as a statesman he became a very much shrunken and insignificant figure. In its underlying thought this cartoon suggests comparison with the familiar "Grandpa's Hat" cartoons of the recent Harrison administration. Very rarely Heath broke away from home politics and touched upon international questions of the day. A print showing the Premier engaged in the task of "making a rushlight," which he is just withdrawing cautiously from a large tub labeled "Greece," is an allusion to the part played by Great Britain in helping to add the modest light of Greek independence to the general illumination of civilized Europe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Duke of Wellington in Caricature.

_From the collection of the New York Public Library._]

Another man whose work enjoyed a long period of shop-window popularity, and who nevertheless did not always rise above the comic-valentine level, was John Doyle, who owes his memory less to his own work than to the fact that he was the father of a real master of the art, Richard Doyle. Parton, in his history of "Caricature and Other Comic Art," notes the elder Doyle's remarkable prolificness, estimating his collected prints at upward of nine hundred; and he continues: "It was a custom with English print-sellers to keep portfolios of his innocent and amusing pictures to let out by the evening to families about to engage in the arduous work of entertaining their friends at dinner. He excelled greatly in his portraits, many of which, it is said by contemporaries, are the best ever taken of the noted men of that day, and may safely be accepted as historical. Brougham, Peel, O'Connell, Hume, Russell, Palmerston, and others appear in his works as they were in their prime, with little distortion or exaggeration, the humor of the pictures being in the situation portrayed. Thus, after a debate in which allusion was made to an ancient egg anecdote, Doyle produced a caricature in which the leaders of parties were drawn as hens sitting upon eggs. The whole interest of the picture lies in the speaking likeness of the men."

CHAPTER XII

THE BEGINNING OF "PUNCH"

What the advent of _La Caricature_ did for French comic art was done for England by the birth of _Punch_, the "London Charivari," on July 17, 1841. It is not surprising that this veteran organ of wit and satire, essentially British though it is in the quality and range of its humor, should have inspired a number of different writers successively to record its annals. Mr. M. H. Spielmann, whose admirable volume is likely to remain the authoritative history, points out that the very term "cartoon" in its modern sense is in reality a creation of _Punch's_. In the reign of Charles I., he says, the approved phrase was, "a mad designe"; in the time of George II. it was known as a "hieroglyphic"; throughout the golden age of Gillray and Cruikshank "caricature" was the epithet applied to the separate copperplate broadsides displayed in the famous shops of Ackermann, Mrs. Humphrey, and McClean. But it was not until July, 1843, when the first great exhibition of cartoons for the Houses of Parliament was held--gigantic designs handling the loftiest subjects in the most elevated artistic spirit--that _Punch_ inaugurated his own sarcastic series of "cartoons," and by doing so permanently enriched the language with a new word, or rather with new meaning for an old word.

_Punch_, however, did far more than merely to change the terminology of caricature, he revolutionized its spirit; he made it possible for Gladstone to say of it that "in his early days, when an artist was engaged to produce political satires, he nearly always descended to gross personal caricature, and sometimes to indecency. To-day the humorous press showed a total absence of vulgarity and a fairer treatment, which made this department of warfare always pleasing."

As in the case of other famous characters of history, the origin and parentage of _Punch_ have been much disputed, and a variety of legends have grown up about the source of its very name, the credit for its genesis being variously a.s.signed to its original editors, Henry Mayhew, Mark Lemon, the printer Joseph Last, the writer Douglas Jerrold, and a number of obscurer literary lights. One story cited by Mr. Spielmann, although clearly apocryphal, is nevertheless worthy of repet.i.tion. According to this story, somebody at one of the preliminary meetings spoke of the forthcoming paper as being like a good mixture of punch, good for nothing without Lemon, when Mayhew caught up the idea and cried, "A capital idea! We'll call it _Punch_!"

In marked contrast to its French prototype, the "London Charivari" was from the beginning a moderate organ, and a stanch supporter of the Crown. In its original prospectus its political creed was outlined as follows: "_Punch_ has no party prejudices; he is conservative in his opposition to Fantoccini and political puppets, but a progressive whig in his love of _small change_ and a repeal of the union with public Judies." And to this day this policy of "hitting all around," of avoiding any bitter and prolonged partisans.h.i.+p, is the keynote of _Punch's_ popularity and prestige. How this att.i.tude has been consistently maintained in its practical working is well brought out by Mr. Spielmann in his chapter dedicated to the periodic _Punch_ dinners, where the editorial councils have always taken place:

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Land of Liberty.]

"When the meal is done and cigars and pipes are duly lighted, subjects are deliberately proposed in half a dozen quarters, until quite a number may be before the Staff. They are fought all round the Table, and unless obviously and strikingly good, are probably rejected or attacked with good-humored ridicule or withering scorn.... And when the subject of a cartoon is a political one, the debate grows hot and the fun more furious, and it usually ends by Tories and Radicals accepting a compromise, for the parties are pretty evenly balanced at the Table; while Mr. Burnand a.s.sails both sides with perfect indifference. At last, when the intellectual tug-of-war, lasting usually from half-past eight for just an hour and three-quarters by the clock, is brought to a conclusion, the cartoon in all its details is discussed and determined; and then comes the fight over the t.i.tle and the 'cackle,' amid all the good-natured chaff and banter of a pack of boisterous, high-spirited schoolboys."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "What? You young Yankee-Noodle, strike your own Father!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Louis Philippe as "The Napoleon of Peace."

_From the collection of the New York Public Library._]

Down to the close of the period covered in the present chapter, the cartoon played a relatively small part in the weekly contents of _Punch_, averaging barely one a week, and being omitted altogether from many numbers. During these years the dominating spirit was unquestionably John Leech, who produced no less than two hundred and twenty-three cartoons out of a total of three hundred and fourteen, or more than twice as many as all the other contributors put together.

He first appeared with a pageful of "Foreign Affairs" in the fourth issue of _Punch_--a picture of some huddled groups of foreign refugees--a design remembered chiefly because it for the first time introduced to the world the artist's sign-manual, a leech wriggling in a water bottle.

Of Doyle's political plates during these early years, none is more interesting to the American reader than the few rare occasions upon which he seeks to express the British impression of the United States.

One of these, "The Land of Liberty," appeared in 1847. A lean and lanky, but beardless, Uncle Sam tilts lazily back in his rocking-chair, a six-shooter in his hand, a huge cigar between his teeth. One foot rests carelessly upon a bust of Was.h.i.+ngton, which he has kicked over. The other is flung over the back of another chair in sprawling insolence. In the ascending clouds of smoke appear the Stars and Stripes, surrounded by a panorama of outrages, duels, barroom broils, lynch law, etc., and above them all, the contending armies of the Mexican war, over whom a gigantic devil hovers, his hands extended in a malignant benediction. A closely a.n.a.logous cartoon of this same year by Richard Doyle sharply satirized Louis Philippe as the "Napoleon of Peace," and depicted in detail the unsatisfactory condition of European affairs as seen from the British vantage ground.

As a consequence of this cartoon _Punch_ was for some time excluded from Paris.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Great Sea Serpent of 1848.

_From the collection of the New York Public Library._]

From 1848 onward the cartoons in _Punch_ look upon the world politics from a constantly widening angle. Indeed, the same remark holds good for the comic organs not only of England, but of France, Germany, Italy, and the other leading nations as well. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century the international relations of the leading powers may be followed almost without a break in the cartoons of _Punch_ and _Judy_, of the _Fliegende Blatter_ and the _Kladderadatsch_, of _Don Pirlone_, of the _Journal pour Rire_, of _Life_ and _Puck_ and _Judge_, and the countless host of their followers and imitators.