The History of the Nineteenth Century in Caricature

Prior to 1830, French political cartoons were neither numerous nor especially significant. Indeed they present a simplicity of imagination rather amusing as compare

than seven to his credit. The éteignoir was constantly used in satire directed against the priesthood, the most famous instance appearing in the Minerva in 1819. It took for the text a refrain from a song of Beranger. In this cartoon the Church is personified by the figure of the Pope holding in one hand a sabre, and, in the other, a paper with the words Bulls, crusades, Sicilian vespers, St. Bartholomew. Beside the figure of the Church, torch in hand, is the demon of discord. From the smoke o

finish and harmony of color. "But," he adds, "they were never able to go below the surface in their satire. It would be a mistake to enroll in the hirsute cohort of caricaturists these witty and charming artists, who were more concerned in depicting the pleasures of mundane life than in castigating its vices and irregularities." The 4th of Nove

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ntirely in the power of the giant who rules the land. The Princess, the press, was so closely watched and guarded (with some little show, nevertheless, o

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g the

s august family, and the numberless placemen and supporters of the monarchy on the other; it was something like Thersites girding at Ajax." Time after time were Philipon and his dauntless aids arrested. More than a dozen times they lost their cause before a jury, yet each defeat was equivalent to a victory, bringing them new sympathy, and each time they returned to the attack with cartoons which, if more covert in their meaning, were even more offensive. Perhaps the most famous of all the cartoons which originated in Philipon's fertile brain is that of the "Pear," which did so much to turn the countenance of Louis Philippe to ridicule-a ridicule which did more than anything else to cause him to be driven from the French throne. The "Pear" was reproduced in various forms in La Caricature, and afterward in Le Charivari. By inferior artists the "Pear" was chalked up on walls all over Paris. The most politically important of the "Poire" series was produced when Philipon was obliged to appear before a jury to answer for the crime of provoking contempt against the King's person by giving such a ludicrous version of his face. In his own defense Philipon took up a sheet of paper and drew a large Burgundy pear, in the lower parts round and capacious, narrower near the stalk, and crowned with two or three careless leaves. "Is there any treason in that?" he asked the jury. Then he drew a second pear like t

e presented by Philipon when o

of the jury, if his Majesty