LATER PURITAN CARICATURE.
[Illustration: Cris-cross Rhymes on Love's Crosses, 1640. (Musarum,
306.)]
What a change came over the spirit of English art and literature at the
Restoration in 1660! Forty years before, when James I. was king, who
loathed a Puritan, there was occasionally published a print in which
Puritans were treated in the manner of Hudibras. There was one of 1612
in which a crown was half covered by a broad-brimmed hat, with verses
reflecting upon "the aspiring, factious Puritan," who presumed to
"overlooke his king." There was one in 1636, in the reign of Charles I.,
aimed at "two infamous upstart prophets," weavers, then in Newgate for
heresy, which contains a description of a Puritan at church, which is
entirely in the spirit of Hudibras:
"His seat in the church is where he may be most seene. In the time of
the Sermon he drawes out his tables to take the Notes, but still noting
who observes him to take them. At every place of Scripture cited he
turnes over the leaves of his Booke, more pleased with the motion of the
leaves than the matter of the Text; For he folds downe the leaves though
he finds not the place. Hee lifts up the whites of his eyes towards
Heaven when hee meditates on the sordid pleasures of the earth; his
body being in God's Church, when his mind is in the divel's Chappell."
Again, in 1647, two years before the execution of Charles, an extensive
and elaborate sheet appeared, in which the ignorant preachers of the day
were held up to opprobrium. Each of these "erronious, hereticall, and
Mechannick spirits" was exhibited practicing his trade, and a multitude
of verses below described the heresies which such teachers promulgated.
"Oxford and Cambridge make poore Preachers;
Each shop affordeth better Teachers:
Oh blessed Reformation!"
Among the "mechannick spirits" presented in this sheet we remark
"Barbone, the Lether-seller," who figures in many later prints as
"Barebones." There are also "Bulcher, a Chicken man;" "Henshaw, a
Confectioner, alias an Infectioner;" "Duper, a Cowkeeper;" "Lamb, a
Sope-boyler," and a dozen more.
Such pictures, however, were few and far between during the twenty years
of Puritan ascendency. But when the rule of the Sound-head was at an
end, and Rattle-head had once more the dispensing of preferment in
Church and State, the press teemed with broadsheets reviling the Puritan
heroes. The gorgeous funeral of the Protector--his body borne in state
on a velvet bed, clad in royal robes, to Westminster Abbey, where a
magnificent tomb rose over his remains--was still fresh in the
recollection of the people of London when they saw the same body torn
from its resting-place, and hung on Tyburn Hill from nine in the morning
until six in the evening, and then cast into a deep pit. Thousands who
saw his royal funeral looked upon his body swinging from the gallows.
The caricatures vividly mark the change. Cromwell now appears only as
tyrant, antichrist, hypocrite, monster. Charles I. is the holy martyr.
His son's flight in disguise, the hiding in the oak-tree, and other
circumstances of his escape are no longer ignominious or laughable, but
graceful and glorious.
A cherished fiction appears frequently in the caricatures that no man
came to a good end who had had any hand in the king's execution, not
even the executioner nor the humblest of his assistants. On one sheet we
read of a certain drum-maker, named Tench, who "provided roapes,
pullies, and hookes (in case the king resisted) to compel and force him
down to the block." "This roague is also haunted with a Devill, and
consumes away." There was the confession, too, of the hangman, who,
being about to depart this life, declared that he had solemnly vowed not
to perform his office upon the king, but had nevertheless dealt the
fatal blow, trembling from head to foot. Thirty pounds had been his
reward, which was paid him in half-crown pieces within an hour after the
execution--the dearest money, as he told his wife, that he had ever
received, for it would cost him his life, "which propheticall words were
soon made manifest, for it appeared that, ever since, he had been in a
most sad condition, and lay raging and swearing, and still pointing at
one thing or another which he conceived to appear visible before him."
[Illustration: Shrove-tide in Arms against Lent, A.D. 1660.]
Richard Cromwell was let off as easily by the caricaturist as he was by
the king. He is depicted as "the meek knight," the mild incapable,
hardly worth a parting kick. In one very good picture he is a cooper
hammering away with a mallet at a cask, from which a number of owls
escape, most of which, as they take their flight, cry out, "_King!_"
Richard protests that he knows nothing of this trade of cooper, for the
more he hammers, the more the barrel breaks up. Elizabeth, the wife of
the Protector, figured in a ludicrous manner upon the cover of a
cookery-book published in the reign of Charles II., the preface of which
contained anecdotes of the kitchen over which she had presided.
[Illustration: Lent tilting at Shrove-tide, A.D. 1660.]
Among other indications of change in the public feeling, we notice a few
pictures conceived in the pure spirit of gayety, designed to afford
pleasure to every one, and pain to no one. Two of these are given
here--Shrove-tide and Lent tilting at one another--which were thought
amazingly ingenious and comic two hundred years ago. They are quite in
the taste of the period that produced them. Shrove-tide, in the
calendar of Rome, is the Tuesday before Lent, a day on which many people
gave themselves up to revelry and feasting, in anticipation of the forty
days' fast. Shrove-tide accordingly is mounted on a fat ox, and his
sword is sheathed in a pig and piece of meat, with capons and bottles of
wine about his body. His flag, as we learn from the explanatory verses,
is "a cooke's foule apron fix'd to a broome," and his helmet "a brasse
pot." Lent, on the contrary, flings to the breeze a fishing-net, carries
an angling-rod for a weapon, and wears upon his head "a boyling kettle."
Thus accoutred, these mortal foes approach one another, and Lent lifts
up his voice and proclaims his intention:
"I now am come to mundifie and cleare
The base abuses of this last past yeare:
Thou puff-paunch'd monster (Shrovetyde), thou art he
That were ordain'd the latter end to be
Of forty-five weekes' gluttony, now past,
Which I in seaven weekes come to cleanse at last:
Your feasting I will turn to fasting dyet;
Your cookes shall have some leasure to be quiet;
Your masques, pomps, playes, and all your vaine expence,
I'll change to sorrow, and to penitence."
Shrove-tide replies valiantly to these brave words:
"What art thou, thou leane-jawde anottamie,
All spirit (for I no flesh upon thee spie);
Thou bragging peece of ayre and smoke, that prat'st,
And all good-fellowship and friendship hat'st;
You'le turn our feasts to fasts! when, can you tell?
Against your spight, we are provided well.
Thou sayst thou'lt ease the cookes!-the cookes could wish
Thee boyl'd or broyl'd with all thy frothy fish;
For one fish-dinner takes more paines and cost
Than three of flesh, bak'd, roast, or boyl'd, almost."
This we are compelled to regard as about the best fun our ancestors of
1660 were capable of achieving with pencil and pen. Nor can we claim
much for their pictures which aim to satirize the vices.
[Illustration: The Queen of James II. and Father Petre.
"It is a foolish sheep that makes the wolf her confessor." (1685.)]
The joy of the English people at the restoration of the monarchy, which
seemed at first to be as universal as it was enthusiastic, was of short
duration. The Stuarts were the Bourbons of England, incapable of being
taught by adversity. Within two years Charles II. alarmed Protestant
England by marrying a Portuguese princess. The great plague of 1665,
that destroyed in London alone sixty-eight thousand persons, was
followed in the very next year by the great fire of London, which
consumed thirteen thousand two hundred houses. At a moment when the
public mind was reduced to the most abject credulity by such events as
these, the scoundrel Titus Oates appeared, declaring that the dread
calamities which had afflicted England, and others then imminent, were
only parts of an awful _Popish Plot_, which aimed at the destruction of
the king and the restoration of the Catholic religion. A short time
after, 1678, Sir Edmundsbury Godfrey, the magistrate before whom Titus
Oates made his deposition, was found dead in a field near London, the
victim probably of some fanatic assassin of the Catholic party. The
kingdom was thrown into an ecstasy of terror, from which, as before
observed, it has not to this day wholly recovered. Terror may lurk in
the blood of a race ages after the removal of its cause, as we find our
sensitive horses shying from low-lying objects at the road-side, though
a thousand generations may have peacefully labored and died since their
ancestors crouched from the spring of a veritable wild beast. The
broadsheets of that year, 1678, and of the troublous years following,
even until William of Orange was seated on the throne of England, in
1690, have, we may almost say, but one topic--the Popish Plot. The
spirit of that period lives in those sheets.
It had been a custom in England to celebrate the 17th of November, the
day, as one sheet has it, on which the unfortunate Queen Mary died, and
"that Glorious Sun, Queen Elizabeth, of happy memory, arose in the
English horizon, and thereby dispelled those thick fogs and mists of
Romish blindness, and restored to these kingdoms their just Rights both
as men and Christians." The next recurrence of this anniversary after
the murder of Godfrey was seized by the Protestants of London to
arrange a procession which was itself a striking caricature. A pictorial
representation of the procession is manifestly impossible here, but we
can copy the list of objects as given on a broadsheet issued a few days
after the event. This device of a procession, borrowed from Catholic
times, was continually employed to promulgate and emphasize Protestant
ideas down to a recent period, and has been used for political objects
in our own day. How changed the thoughts of men since Albert Duerer
witnessed the grand and gay procession at Antwerp, in honor of the
Virgin's Assumption, one hundred and fifty-nine years before! The 17th
of November, 1679, was ushered in, at three o'clock in the morning, by a
burst of bell-ringing all over London. The broadsheet thus quaintly
describes the procession:
"About Five o'clock in the Evening, all things being in readiness, the
Solemn Procession began, in the following Order: I. Marched six Whiflers
to clear the way, in Pioneers Caps and Red Waistcoats (and carrying
torches). II. A Bellman Ringing, who, with a Loud and Dolesom Voice
cried all the way, _Remember Justice Godfrey_. III. A Dead Body
representing Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, in the Habit he usually wore, the
Cravat wherewith he was murdered about his Neck, with spots of Blood on
his Wrists, Shirt, and white Gloves that were on his hands, his Face
pale and wan, riding on a White Horse, and one of his Murderers behind
him to keep him from falling, representing the manner how he was carried
from Somerset House to Primrose Hill. IV. A Priest in a Surplice, with a
Cope Embroidered with Dead mens Bones, Skeletons, Skuls, &c., giving
pardons very freely to those who would murder Protestants, and
proclaiming it Meritorious. V. A Priest alone, in Black, with a large
Silver Cross. VI. Four Carmelite Friers in White and Black Habits. VII.
Four Grey Friars in their proper Habits. VIII. Six Jesuits with Bloody
Daggers. IX. A Consort of Wind-musick, call'd the Waits. X. Four Popish
Bishops in Purple and Lawn Sleeves, with Golden Crosses on their
Breasts. XI. Four other Popish Bishops in their Pontificalibus, with
Surplices, Rich Embroydered Copes, and Golden Miters on their Heads.
XII. Six Cardinals in Scarlet Robes and Red Caps. XIII. The Popes Chief
Physitian with Jesuites Powder in one hand, and a ---- in the other.
XIV. Two Priests in Surplices, with two Golden Crosses. Lastly, the Pope
in a Lofty Glorious Pageant, representing a Chair of State, covered with
Scarlet, the Chair richly embroydered, fringed, and bedeckt with Golden
Balls and Crosses; at his feet a Cushion of State, two Boys in
Surplices, with white Silk Banners and Red Crosses, and Bloody Daggers
for Murdering Heritical Kings and Princes, painted on them, with an
Incense-pot before them, sate on each side censing his Holiness, who was
arrayed in a rich Scarlet Gown, Lined through with Ermin, and adorned
with Gold and Silver Lace, on his Head a Triple Crown of Gold, and a
Glorious Collar of Gold and precious stones, St. Peters Keys, a number
of Beads, Agnus Dei's and other Catholick Trumpery; at his Back stood
his Holiness's Privy Councellor, the Devil, frequently caressing,
hugging, and whispering, and oft-times instructing him aloud, to
destroy His Majesty, to forge a Protestant Plot, and to fire the City
again; to which purpose he held an Infernal Torch in his hand. The whole
Procession was attended with 150 Flambeaus and Torches by order; but so
many more came in Voluntiers as made up some thousands. Never were the
Balconies, Windows and Houses more numerously filled, nor the Streets
closer throng'd with multitudes of People, all expressing their
abhorrence of Popery with continual Shouts and Acclamations."
With slow and solemn step the procession marched to Temple Bar, then
just rebuilt, and there it halted, while a dialogue in verse was sung in
parts by "one who represented the English Cardinal Howard, and one the
people of England." We can imagine the manner in which the crowd would
come thundering in with
"Now God preserve Great Charles our King,
And eke all honest men;
And Traytors all to justice bring,
Amen! Amen! Amen!"
Fire-works succeeded the song, after which "his Holiness was decently
tumbled from all his grandeur into the impartial flames," while the
people gave so prodigious a shout that it was heard "far beyond Somerset
House." For many years a similar pageant was given in London on the same
day.
As an additional illustration of the feeling which then prevailed in
Puritan circles, I will copy the rude and doleful rhymes which accompany
a popular print of 1680, called "The Dreadful Apparition; or, the Pope
haunted with Ghosts." Coleman, Whitebread, and Harcourt, who figure
among the ghosts, had been recently executed as "popish plotters." The
picture shows the Pope in bed, to whom the devil conducts Coleman, and
an angel leads the spirit of Sir Edmundsbury Godfrey. Whitebread and
Harcourt are in shrouds. A bishop, a cardinal, and other figures are
seen. A label issuing from the mouth of each of the persons represented
contains the rhymes which follow:
THE POPE IN BED.
"_Away! Away! am not I Pope of Rome,
torment me not before my time is Come._"
THE DEVIL, IN THE FORM OF A DRAGON.
"_Your Sevt S{r}! Ned Coleman doth appeare
he'll tell you all, therefore I brought him here._"
COLEMAN'S GHOST.
"_S{r} you are Cause of my Continuall paine,
My Soul is Lost, for your Ambitious gaine._"
GODFREY'S GHOST, INTRODUCED BY ----.
"_Repent great S{r} and be for ever blest,
in Heaven with me that happy place of rest._"
ANGEL, IN A "ROMAN SHAPE."
"_O Chariety! who mercy craves for those:
With Bluddy hands that ware his Cruell foes._"
WHITEBREAD'S GHOST, WITH A SWORD THROUGH THE BODY.
"_I am perplexed with perpetuall fright;
but who is this apeares this dreadful night._"
HARCOURT'S GHOST, WITH A SWORD THROUGH THE BODY.
"_'Tis Godfrey's Ghost I wish all things be well
that we may have our Pope of Rome in hell._"
A BISHOP.
"_Let us depart and Shun their cruell fate,
and all repent before it is to late._"
CARDINAL.
"_Come let us flie with all the Speed we may,
Ye Devil els will take us all away._"
Below the picture are the verses subjoined:
NUNCIO.
"Horrors and Death! what _dismal Sights_ Invade
His Nightly Slumbers, who in _Blood_ does Trade.
The Ghostly Apparitions of the Dead;
The _Bless'd_ by Angels; _Damn'd_ by _Demons Lead_;
'Tis sure, _Romes_ Conclave _must_ Amazed stand,
When _Souls_ Complaining, thus against _them_ band;
Who _All_ but _One_ to please Ambitious ROME,
Have Gain'd _Damnation_ for Their Final DOOM.
Hear how _They Curse Him_ all, but _He_ who fell.
Great _Brittains Sacrifice_ by Imps of Hell;
Who shew'd _Their Bloody Vengeance_ in the _Strife_,
To Murther _Him_, who Business had for _Life_."
POPE.
"_How do_ my Eye-Balls _Roul_, and Blood _run back_,
_What Tortures at this sight my Conscience Rack_;
_Oh!_ Mountains _now fall on me, some Deep Cave_
Pitty me once, _and prove my speedy Grave_.
_Involv'd_ in Darkness, _from the Seated_ Light,
_Let Me abscond_ in _Everlasting Night_.
Torment _me not_; _you Shades, before my time_,
_I do confess_, your Downfalls _was_ my Crime;
To _Satiate my_ Ambition _and_ Revenge,
_I push'd you on to this Immortal Change_.
_But Ah! fresh Horrors, Ah! my Power's grown weak_,
What art thou Fiend? _from whence? or where? O Speak_;
_That in this Frightful Form, a_ Dragon's _hew
Presents_ One _Sainted, to_ my _Trembling View?"_
FIEND.
"By Hells Grim KING'S Command, on _whom_ I wait,
I've brought your Saint his Story to relate;
Who from the black _Tartarian_-Fire below,
So long beg'd Absence as to let you know
His Torments, and the Horrid Cheat condole,
You fix'd on him to Rob him of his Soul."
POPE.
"_O! spare my Ears, I'll no such Horrors hear;_"
COLEMAN.
"You must, and know your _own_ Damnation's near:
You must ere long be _Plung'd_ in Grizly Flame,
Which I shall laugh to see, tho, rack'd with pain
Thou _Grand Deceiver_ of the _Nations_ All,
Contriver of my _Wretched Fate_ and _Fall_:
Thou who didst push me on to Murther _Kings_
Persuading me for it on _Angels Wings_
I should _Transcend_ the Clouds, be _ever Blest_, )
And be of _Al_ that Heav'n cou'd yield, _possest_, )
But these I mist, got _Torment_ without _Rest_: )
For whilst on _Earth_ I stand, a _Hell_ within
Distracts my Conscience, pale with horrid Sin:
Instead of _Mortals_ Pardon, _One_ on High,
I must your Everlasting Martyr Fry;
Whilst Name of _Saint_ I bear on Earth, _below_
It _stirs_ the _flames_, and much Augments _my Woe_."
POPE.
"_Horrors! 'tis Dismal, I can hear no more,
O! Hell and Furies, how I have lost my Pow'r._"
SIR E. GODFREY.
"See Sir this Crimson Stain, this baleful Wound
See Murther'd me, with _Joys Eternal_ Crown'd;
Though by the _Darkest Deed_ of Night I fell,
Which _shook Three Kingdoms_, and _Astonish'd Hell_:
Yet rap'd _above_ the Skyes to Mansion bright,
There to Converse with Everlasting Light;
Thence got I leave to View thy _Wretched Face_,
And find my Death thy Hell-born PLOTS did race,
And next to the _Almighty Arm_ did _Save_
Great _Albion's_ Glory from its yawning Grave;
From _Sacred Bliss_ my Swift-_Wing'd Soul_ did glide,
Conducted _Hither_ by my _Angel-Guide_,
To let thee know thy Sands were almost run,
And that thy Thread of _Life_ is well-nigh Spun;
_Repent_ you then, Wash off the _Bloody Stain_,
Or _You'll_ be Doom'd to _Everlasting Pain_."
ANGEL.
"Come Worthy _of Seraphick Joys Above_,
Worthy _Our_ Converse, and _Our Sacred_ Love;
Who hast Implor'd the Great _Jehove_ for One )
Who _Shed_ thy Blood, to _Snatch_ thy Princes _Throne_ )
In this thy _Saviour's_ Great Examples shown: )
Come let _Vs_ hence, and leave _Him_ to his Fate,
When _Divine Vengeance_ shall the Business State."
POPE.
"_Chill Horror seizes me, I cannot flye;
Oh Ghastly! yet more Apparitions nigh?_"
WHITEBREAD.
"Thus wandering through the _Gloomy Shades_, at last
I've found _Thee_, Traytor, that _my Joys_ did Blast,
Whose _Dam'd Injunctions_, _Dire Damnation_ Seal'd,
And _Torments_ that were never yet Reveal'd:
Mirrihords of _Plagues_, _Chains_, _Racks_, Tempestuous _Fire_,
Sulpherian _Lakes_ that Burn and ner Expire,
Deformed _Demons_, Uglier far than Hell,
The Half what _We Endure_, no Tongue can _Tell_;
This for a _Bishoprick_ I Undergo,
But _Now_ would give Earth's _Empire_ wer't _not so_."
POPE.
"_Retire, Good Ghosts, or I shall Dye with Fear._"
HARCOURT.
"Nay stay Sir, first You must _my Story_ Hear:
How could you thus _Delude_ your _Bosome-Friend_?
Your _Foes_ to _Heaven_, and _Vs_ to _Hell_ thus send;
_Damnation_ seize You for't; ere long You'll be
Plung'd _Headlong_ into vast _Eternity_;
_There_ for to Howl, whilst _We_ some _Comfort_ gain, )
To see You welter in an endless Pain, )
And without _Pitty_, justly there Complain." )
POPE.
"_Ho!_ Cardinals and Bishops, _haste with speed_,
Bell, Book, _and_ Candle _fetch_, _let me be free'd_:
_Ah! 'tis too late_, by Fear Intranc'd _I lye_."
BISHOP.
"Heard you that Groan? with speed _from hence_ let's flye."
CARDINAL.
"The _Fiend_ has got _Him_, doubtless, lets away,
And in _this_ Ghastly place no longer stay."
BISHOP.
"Dread Horrors seize me, _Fly_, for _Mercy_ call,
Least _Divine Vengeance_ over-whelm _Vs all_."
It was in this crude and lucid way that the forerunners of Gillray,
Nast, Tenniel, and Leech satirized the murderous follies of their age. A
volume larger than this would not contain the verse and prose that
covered the broadsheets in the same style which appeared in London
during the reign of Charles II. This specimen, however, suffices for any
reader who is not making a special study of the period. To students and
historians the collection of these prints in the British Museum is
beyond price; for they show "the very age and body of the time, his form
and pressure." Perhaps no other single source of information respecting
that period is more valuable.
[Illustration: French Caricature of Corpulent General Galas, who
defeated a French Convoy, 1635.]
From the accession of William and Mary we notice a change in the
subjects treated by caricaturists. If religion continued for a time to
be the principal theme, there was more variety in its treatment. Sects
became more distinct; the Quakers arose; the divergence between the
doctrines of Luther and Calvin was more marked, and gave rise to much
discussion; High Church and Low Church renewed their endless contest;
the Baptists became an important denomination; deism began to be the
whispered, and became soon the vaunted faith of men of the world; even
the voice of the Jew was occasionally heard, timidly asking for a small
share of his natural rights. It is interesting to note in the popular
broadsheets and satirical pictures how quickly the human mind began to
exert its powers when an overshadowing and immediate fear of pope and
king in league against liberty had been removed by the flight of James
II. and the happy accession of William III.
Political caricature rapidly assumed prominence, though, as long as
Louis XIV. remained on the throne of France, the chief aim of politics
was to create safeguards against the possible return of the Catholic
Stuarts. The accession of Queen Anne, the career of Bolingbroke and
Harley, the splendid exploits of Marlborough, the early conflicts of
Whig and Tory, the attempts of the Pretenders, the peaceful accession of
George I.--all these are exhibited in broadsheets and satirical prints
still preserved in more than one collection. Louis XIV., his pomps and
his vanities, his misfortunes and his mistresses, furnished subjects for
hundreds of caricatures both in England and Holland. It was on a Dutch
caricature of 1695 that the famous retort occurs of the Duc de
Luxembourg to an exclamation of the Prince of Orange. The prince
impatiently said, after a defeat, "Shall I, then, never be able to beat
that hunchback?" Luxembourg replied to the person reporting this, "How
does he know that my back is hunched? He has never seen it."
Interspersed with political satires, we observe an increasing number
upon social and literary subjects. The transactions of learned societies
were now important enough to be caricatured, and the public was
entertained with burlesque discourses, illustrated, upon "The Invention
of Samplers," "The Migration of Cuckoos," "The Eunuch's Child," "A New
Method of teaching Learned Men how to write Unintelligibly." There was
an essay, also, "proving by arguments philosophical that Millers, though
falsely so reputed, yet in reality are not thieves, with an intervening
argument that Taylors likewise are not so."
[Illustration: A Quaker Meeting, 1710--Aminidel exhorting Friends to
support Sacheverell.]
A strange episode in the conflict between Whig and Tory was the career
of Sacheverell, a clergyman who preached such extreme doctrines
concerning royal and ecclesiastical prerogative that he was formally
censured by a Whig Parliament, and thus lifted into a preposterous
importance. During his triumphal tour, which Dr. Johnson remembered as
one of the events of his earliest childhood, he was escorted by
voluntary guards that numbered from one thousand to four thousand
mounted men, wearing the Tory badges of white knots edged with gold, and
in their hats three leaves of gilt laurel. The picture of the Quaker
meeting reflects upon the alliance alleged to have existed between the
high Tories and the Quakers, both having an interest in the removal of
disabilities, and hence making common cause. A curious relic of this
brief delirium is a paragraph in the _Grub Street Journal_ of 1736,
which records the death of Dame Box, a woman so zealous for the Church
that when Sacheverell was relieved of censure she clothed herself in
white, kept the clothes all her life, and was buried in them. As long as
Dr. Sacheverell lived she went to London once a year, and carried a
present of a dozen larks to that "high-flying priest."
The flight of the Huguenots from France, in 1685 and 1686, enriched
Holland, England, and the American colonies with the _elite_ of the
French people. Holland being nearest to France, and honored above all
lands for nearly a century as the refuge of people persecuted for
opinions' sake, received at first the greatest number, especially of the
class who could live by intellectual pursuits. The rarest of all
rarities in the way of caricature, "the diamond of the pictorial
library," is a series of burlesque portraits, produced in Holland in
1686, of the twenty-four persons most guilty of procuring the revocation
of the wise edict of Henry IV., which secured to French Protestants the
right to practice their religion. The work was entitled "La Procession
Monacale conduite par Louis XIV. pour la Conversion des Protestans de
son Royaume." The king, accordingly, leads the way, his face a sun in a
monk's cowl, in allusion to his adoption of the sun as a device. Madame
De Maintenon, his married mistress, hideously caricatured, follows. Pere
la Chaise, and all the ecclesiastics near the court who were reputed to
have urged on the ignorant old king to this superlative folly, had their
place in the procession. Several of the faces are executed with a
freedom and power not common in any age, but at that period only
possible to a French hand. Two specimens are given on the following
page.
Louis XIV., as the caricature collections alone would suffice to show,
was the conspicuous man of that painful period. The caricaturists
avenged human nature. No man of the time called forth so many efforts of
the satiric pencil, nor was there ever a person better adapted to the
satirist's purpose, for he furnished precisely those contrasts which
satire can exhibit most effectively. He stood five feet four in his
stockings, but his shoe-maker put four inches of leather under his
heels, and his wig-maker six inches of other people's hair upon his
head, which gave him an imposing altitude. The beginning of his reign
was prosperous enough to give some slight excuse for the most richly
developed arrogance seen in the world since Xerxes lashed the
Hellespont, but the last third of his reign was a collapse that could
easily be made to seem ludicrous. There were very obvious contrasts in
those years between the splendors of his barbaric court and the
disgraceful defeats of his armies, between the opinion he cherished of
himself and the contempt in which he was held abroad, between the
adulations of his courtiers and the execrations of France, between the
mass-attending and the morals of the court.
[Illustration: Archbishop of Paris--A Better Friend to Ladies than to
the Pope. (Holland, 1686. By an Exiled Huguenot.)]
[Illustration: Archbishop of Rheims--Mitred Ass. (Holland, 1686. After
the Expulsion of the Huguenots.)]
The caricaturists made the most of these points. Every town that he
lost, every victory that Marlborough won, gave them an opportunity which
they improved. We have him as a huge yellow sun, each ray of which bears
an inscription referring to some defeat, folly, or shame. We have him as
a jay, covered with stolen plumage, which his enemies are plucking from
him, each feather inscribed with the name of a _lost_ city or fortress.
We have him as the Crier of Versailles, crying the ships lost in the
battle of La Hogue, and offering rewards for their recovery. He figures
as the Gallic cock flying before that wise victorious fox of England,
William III., and as a pompous drummer leading his army, and attended by
his ladies and courtiers. He is an old French Apollo driving the sun, in
wig and spectacles. He is a tiger on trial before the other beasts for
his cruel depredations. He is shorn and fooled by Maintenon; he is
bridled by Queen Anne. He is shown drinking a goblet of human blood. We
see him in the stocks with his confederate, the Pope, and the devil
standing behind, knocking their heads together. He is a sick man
vomiting up towns. He is a sawyer, who, with the help of the King of
Spain, saws the globe in two, Maintenon sitting aloft assisting the
severance. As long as he lived the caricaturists continued to assail
him; and when he died, in 1715, he left behind him a France so
demoralized and impoverished that he still kept the satirists busy.
[Illustration: Caricature of Louis XIV., by Thackeray.]
Even in our own time Louis XIV. has suggested one of the best
caricatures ever drawn, and it is accompanied by an explanatory essay
almost unique among prose satires for bitter wit and blasting truth. The
same hand wielded both the pen and the pencil, and it was the wonderful
hand of Thackeray. "You see at once," he says, in explanation of the
picture, "that majesty is made out of the wig, the high-heeled shoes,
and cloak, all _fleurs-de-lis_ bespangled.... Thus do barbers and
cobblers make the gods that we worship."