English Caricature and Satire on Napoleon I. John Ashton
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one Arm and Eye can take our Ships by Dozens, then vat shall we do against the autres, wid two Arms and Eyes, dey will have two dozen at a time.’ A stolid Dutchman is baking a batch, grumbling the while, ‘Donder and Blaxam to dis Fraternization; instead of smoaking mine Pipes and sacking De Gold, dis French Broders make me build ships dat Mynheer Jan Bull may have de Fun to take dem.’ Another Frenchman adds, ‘Well you may talk, make haste, when dat English Nelson take our ships by the Douzaine.’
John Bull, who holds a whip in his hand, says, ‘What! you could not find that out before, you stupid Dupes; but since you began the fun, you shall keep on. So work away, Damn ye, else Jack Tar will soon be idle.’ A sailor carrying a trayful of ships on his head, calls out, ‘Push on, keep moving, I’ll soon come for another cargo. Old England for ever. Huzza!’
‘Fighting for the Dunghill—or—Jack Tar settling Buonaparte,’ is by Gillray, November 20, 1798. Napoleon is terribly punished, his body being a mass of bruises and wounds, the worst being a large one in the breast, and labelled Nelson. Blood is streaming from his nose, and Jack is driving him out of the world altogether, having his foot upon Malta, whilst Napoleon is insecure in Turkey. This engraving is an extremely typical one of the burly, beef-fed Englishman, and the ‘skinny Frenchman,’ the ‘Johnny Crapaud’ of the time, any number of whom an Englishman was supposed to be a match for—
One skinny Frenchman, two Portugee,
One jolly Englishman beat ’em all three.
Napoleon is depicted by Gillray (December 8, 1798) as being in a fearful rage—and an extremely diverting sketch it is. It is called ‘Buonaparte hearing of Nelson’s Victory, swears by his sword to extirpate the English from off the Earth. See Buonaparte’s Speech to the French Army at Cairo, published by authority of the Directory in Volney’s Letters.’ His melodramatic pose, and costume, are superb. A huge cocked hat and feathers, the hat adorned with a crescent (to show his supposed Mahometan proclivities), as well as a tricoloured cockade, surmounts his head, which bears a most ferocious expression, somewhat heightened by the formidable pigtail which he wears. A huge green necktie is round his neck, and he wears a tricoloured scarf, in which are stuck a pistol and dagger; boots, with huge spurs, add to the dignity of the costume. He is waving his bloody sword, and stamps upon a paper, ‘Nelson’s Victory over the Fleet of the Republic,’ while he shouts out: ‘What? our Fleet captured and destroyed by the slaves of Britain? by my sword and by holy Mahomet I swear eternal Vengeance! yes, when I have subjected Egypt, subdued the Arabs, the Druses, and the Maronites; become master of Syria; turn’d the great river Euphrates, and sailed upon it through the sandy deserts; compelled to my assistance the Bedouins, Turcomans, Kurds, Armenians, and Persians; formed a million of cavalry, and pass’d them upon rafts, six or seven hundred miles over the Bosphorus, I shall enter Constantinople. Now I enter the Theatre of Europe, I establish the republic of Greece, I raise Poland from its ruins, I make Prussia bend ye knee to France, I chain up ye Russian bear, I cut the head from ye Imperial Eagle, I drive the ferocious English from the Archipelago, I hunt them from the Mediterranean, and blot them out from the catalogue of Nations. Then shall the conquer’d Earth sue for Peace, and an Obelisk be erected at Constantinople, inscribed “To Buonaparte, conqueror of the World, and extirpator of the English Nation.” ’
This brings the year 1798 to a close of the prosperity, or otherwise, of which we may judge by the price of the quartern loaf, which averaged 8½d. for the year, and by the three per cent. Consols., which were 49–⅝ in January, and 52–⅝ in December; but in this, as in other stocks, there was much fluctuation: for instance, in September Consols. were 49–⅞; then came the news of the victory of the Nile, and up they went to 56½, only, however, to fall to 50½. But they rose again in November to 57–⅝, fell again to 52–⅛, and rose in December to 56.
CHAPTER XIII.
REPORTED ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE NAPOLEON—HIS AMOUR WITH MADAME FOURÉS—THE EGYPTIAN CAMPAIGN—THE ‘SAVANTS’—CARICATURES ON THEM.
The new year opens with a somewhat curious print by I. Cruikshank, January 1, 1799, of the ‘Ghost of Buonaparte appearing to the Directory.’ The latter are in fearful dismay at the apparition, which, attired in the airiest of costume, shakes his notched sword at them, saying, ‘Regicides, Parricides, Matricides, and Patricides, this is the effect of your insatiable thirst for Conquest; this is your reward for my glorious Achievements in Italy, Germany, &c.—to die by the hand of an Assassin, a d—d Mussulman: and all my Brave Legions Destroyed by Water melons and the Arabs. Go, Murderers in cold blood, may your conscious guilt ever prey upon your vitals, and may the name of Nelson ever haunt you, sleeping and waking’! What is meant by his dying ‘by the hand of an Assassin,’ I do not know; but probably some rumour was afloat to that effect, as Barre observes: ‘Whilst Buonaparte and his army were thus cut off from Europe, the most absurd reports were spread (no doubt by the partisans of the artful Corsican) representing him as a victim of the Directory, who had thought proper to remove so great, famous, and fortunate a general.
‘They pretended that the Directory, unable to repay the signal services of Buonaparte, and, fearing, at the same time, his popularity, had contrived, with Talleyrand, to flatter the ambitious vanity of that young conqueror with an expedition, which would raise his fame above the glory acquired by Alexander, or Cæsar. They added, that, as Buonaparte was sure of being director at the next election, the Directory had resolved to put him out of the way, by sacrificing him and his army; having even directed that the fleet should be exposed to certain destruction, in order that no possibility could exist of his return.’
The ‘Times’ of January 2, 1799, has the subjoined:—
The following Epigram has been handed about in Paris. The French points are all that can be remembered by the Gentleman who has put it in an English dress.
‘France, to get rid of Turbulence,
Sends her best Soldiers far from hence,
With promises, and wishes, hearty;
Pleas’d and content that what so e’er
May happen either here or there,
To hazard all in Bonâ-parte.
‘And still, though rous’d by home alarms,
Nay, threatened by the world in arms,
France holds her head up bold and hearty—
Since now each Directorial Elf,
By losing Bonaparte’s self Enjoys the loss in Bonâ-parte.’
Meanwhile Napoleon was taking things pretty easily in Egypt, enjoying himself after his manner. It is a marvel that none of the English caricaturists ever depicted this portion of his life. True, Gillray, as we have seen, drew him in Turkish costume; but he never wore it but once, and then but for a very short time. But why did they spare him in his amour with Madame Fourés (Pauline, or Queen of the East, as the army christened her)? De Bourrienne makes no secret of it. He says: ‘About the middle of September in this year (1798), Buonaparte ordered to be brought to the house of Elfy Bey, half a dozen Asiatic women, whose beauty he had heard highly extolled. However, their ungraceful obesity displeased him, and they were immediately dismissed. A few days after, he fell violently in love with Madame Fourés,44 the wife of a lieutenant of Infantry. She was very pretty, and her charms were enhanced by the rarity of seeing a woman, in Egypt, who was calculated to please the eye of a European. Bonaparte engaged, for her, a house adjoining the palace of Elfy Bey, which he occupied. He frequently ordered dinner to be prepared there, and I used to go there with him at seven o’clock, and leave him at nine.
‘This connection soon became the general subject of gossip at head-quarters. Through a feeling of delicacy to M. Fourés, the General in Chief gave him a mission to the Directory.