CHAPTER XIV

'48 AND THE COUP D'ÉTAT

It was only natural that caricature, like every other form of free expression of opinion, should feel the consequences of the general political upheaval of 1848; and these consequences differed widely in the different countries of Europe, according to the degree of civic liberty which that revolutionary movement had effected. In Germany, for example, it resulted in the establishment of a whole group of comic weeklies, with a license for touching upon political topics quite unprecedented in that land of imperialism and censorship. In France, on the contrary, political caricature came to an abrupt close just at a time when it had begun to give promise of exceptional interest. Louis Napoleon, who owed his elevation to the presidency of the republic chiefly to the popular belief in his absolute harmlessness, developed a most unexpected and disconcerting strength of character. His capacity for cunning and unscrupulousness was yet to be learned; but a feeling of distrust was already in the air, and the caricaturists were quick to reflect it. Louis Napoleon, however, was keenly alive to the deadly harm wrought to his predecessor by Philipon's pictorial sharp-shooters, and he did not propose to let history repeat itself by holding him up to public ridicule, after the fashion of the poor old "Poire," the citizen king. Accordingly the _coup d'état_ was hardly an accomplished fact when press laws were passed of such a stringent nature that the public press, and pictorial satire along with it, was reduced to a state of vassalage, dependent upon the imperial caprice, a condition that lasted upward of fifteen years. Consequently, the few cartoons satirizing Napoleon III., that emanate from French sources, either belong to the closing years of his reign or else antedate the law of 1851, which denied trial by jury to all cases of infringement of the press laws. The latter cartoons, however, are of special interest, for they serve to throw important light upon the popular state of mind just prior to the famous _coup d'état_.

The majority of these cartoons appeared in the pages of _Charivari_, and some of the best are due to the caustic pencil of Charles Vernier. A good specimen of this artist's work is a lithograph entitled "The Only Lamps Authorized for the Present to Light up the Path of the Government," showing Louis Napoleon marching along sedately, his hands clasped behind his back and his way illuminated by three lantern-bearers. The lanterns are, respectively, _La Patrie du Soir_, _Le Moniteur du Soir_ and _La Gazette de France_, newspapers then in favor with the government. Just in front of Louis Napoleon, however, may be seen a dark and ominous manhole. Another of Vernier's cartoons is called "The Shooting Match in the Champs Élysées." The target is the head of the Constitution surmounting a pole. Napoleon is directing the efforts of the contestants. "The man who knocks the target over completely," he is saying, "I will make my Prime Minister." The contrast between the great Napoleon and the man whom Victor Hugo liked so to call "Napoleon the Little" suggested another pictorial effort of Vernier. A veteran of the Grand Army is watching the coach of the state passing by, Napoleon holding the reins. "What! That my Emperor!" exclaims the veteran, shading his eyes. "Those rascally Englishmen, how they have changed my vision!" The methods by which Louis Napoleon obtained his election first as President for ten years, and secondly as Emperor of the French, were satirized in _Charivari_ by Daumier in a cartoon called "Les Aveugles" (The Blind). In the center of this cartoon is a huge ballot jar marked "Universal Suffrage." Around this the sightless voters are laboriously groping.

Many were the designs by which Daumier in _Charivari_ satirized Louis Napoleon's flirtation with the French republic. In one of them the Prince, bearing a remote resemblance in manner and in dress to Robert Macaire, is offering the lady his arm. "_Belle dame_," he is saying, "will you accept my escort?" To which she replies coldly: "Monsieur, your passion is entirely too sudden. I can place no great faith in it."

Pictorial expressions of opinion regarding the "great crime" of 1851, which once more replaced a republic with an empire, must be sought for outside of France. But there was one subject at this time upon which even the strictest of edicts could not enforce silence, and that was the subject of Napoleon's marriage to Eugénie. The Emperor's Spanish bride was never popular, not even during the first years of the Second Empire, before she began to meddle with affairs of state; and in many incisive ways the Parisians heaped ridicule upon her. A curious little pamphlet, with text and illustrations, about the new Empress was sold in Paris at the time of the marriage. This pamphlet was entirely complimentary and harmless. The biting humor of it was on the title-page, which the vendors went about crying in the streets: "The portrait and virtues of the Empress, all for two sous!" But for a frank expression of what the world thought of the new master of the destinies of France, it is necessary to turn to the contemporary pages of _Punch_. The "London Charivari" was at this time just entering upon its most glorious epoch of political caricature. John Leech, one of the two great English cartoonists of the past half century, had arrived at the maturity of his talent; the second, John Tenniel, was destined soon to join the staff of _Punch_ in place of Richard Doyle, who resigned in protest against the editorial policy of attacking the Roman Catholic Church. Both of these artists possessed a technical skill and a degree of artistic inspiration that raised them far above the level of the mere caricaturist. And as it happened, the world was entering upon a long succession of stormy scenes, destined to furnish them with matter worthy of their pencils. After forty years of peace, Europe was about to incur an epidemic of war. The clash between Turkey and Russia in 1853 was destined to assume international proportions in the Crimean War; England's troubles were to be augmented by the revolt of her Indian mercenaries; the Russian war was to be closely followed by another between France and Austria; by the enfranchisement of Italy from the Alps to the Adriatic; the bitter struggle between Prussia and Austria; and the breaking up of the Confederation of the Rhine, with the Franco-Prussian War looming up in the near future. It was on the threshold of such troublous times, and as if prophetic of the end of European tranquillity, that Leech signalized the accession of Napoleon III. as Emperor with the significant cartoon, "France is Tranquil!!!" Poor France cannot well be otherwise than tranquil, for Mr. Leech depicts her bound hand and foot, a chain-shot fastened to her feet and a sentry standing guard over her with a bayonet. The artist soon followed this up with another cartoon, evidently suggested by the initial plate of Hogarth's famous series of "The Rake's Progress." The Prince President, in the character of the Rake, has just come into his inheritance, and has cast aside his former mistress, Liberté, to whom he is offering money, her mother (France) standing by, an indignant witness to the scene. His military tailor is measuring him for a new imperial uniform, while behind him a priest (in allusion to the financial aid which the Papal party was receiving from Napoleon) is helping himself from a plate of money standing beside the President. On the floor is a confused litter of swords, knapsacks, bayonets, crowns, crosses of the Legion of Honor, the Code Napoléon, and other miscellaneous reminders of Louis' well-known craze on the subject of his uncle and his uncle's ideas. Mr. Tenniel's early cartoons of Louis Napoleon are scarcely more kindly. The Emperor's approaching marriage is hit off in one entitled "The Eagle in Love," in which Eugénie, represented with the most unflattering likeness, is employed in paring the imperial eagle's talons. In 1853 Tenniel depicts an "International Poultry Show," where we see among the entries a variety of eagles--the Prussian eagle, the American eagle, the two-headed Russian and Austrian eagles--and among them a wretched mongrel, more closely akin to a bedraggled barn-door fowl than to the "French Eagle" which it claims to be. Queen Victoria, who is visiting the show, under escort of Mr. Punch, remarks: "We have nothing of that sort, Mr. Punch; but should there be a _lion_ show, we can send a specimen!!"