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"Feeding the Birds": Rigaud and John Baptist Imprisoned at Marseilles
Harry Furniss
1910
14.2 cm x 9.4 cm, framed
Dickens's Little Dorrit, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, Book the First, "Poverty"; Chapter 1, "Sun and Shadow," facing XII, 8.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"Poor birds!" said the child.
The fair little face, touched with divine compassion, as it peeped shrinkingly through the grate, was like an angel's in the prison. John Baptist rose and moved towards it, as if it had a good attraction for him. The other bird remained as before, except for an impatient glance at the basket.
"Stay!" said the jailer, putting his little daughter on the outer ledge of the grate, "she shall feed the birds. This big loaf is for Signor John Baptist. We must break it to get it through into the cage. So, there's a tame bird to kiss the little hand! This sausage in a vine leaf is for Monsieur Rigaud. Again — this veal in savoury jelly is for Monsieur Rigaud. Again — these three white little loaves are for Monsieur Rigaud. Again, this cheese — again, this wine — again, this tobacco — all for Monsieur Rigaud. Lucky bird!"
The child put all these things between the bars into the soft, smooth, well-shaped hand, with evident dread — more than once drawing back her own and looking at the man with her fair brow roughened into an expression half of fright and half of anger. Whereas she had put the lump of coarse bread into the swart, scaled, knotted hands of John Baptist (who had scarcely as much nail on his eight fingers and two thumbs as would have made out one for Monsieur Rigaud), with ready confidence; and, when he kissed her hand, had herself passed it caressingly over his face. Monsieur Rigaud, indifferent to this distinction, propitiated the father by laughing and nodding at the daughter as often as she gave him anything; and, so soon as he had all his viands about him in convenient nooks of the ledge on which he rested, began to eat with an appetite. [Ch. 1, "Sun and Shadow," 5-6]
The caption, perhaps by the series editor rather than the illustrator, focuses on the contrast between the soft hands of the professional criminal and the hardened hands of the Italian peasant: The jailor's little daughter put the dainties between the bars into the soft, smooth, well-shaped hand,of Monsieur Rigaud, and a lump of coarse bread into the swart, scaled, knotted hands of John Baptist. — Little Dorrit, 6. The writer's intention seems to be to demonstrate the social differences between the cell-mates who stare out through the bars. Furniss's re-interpretation of the opening scene in Marseilles is the reverse of Phiz's The Birds in the Cage (see below) in that, whereas the faces of the jailor and his young daughter are barely discernible in the original, they become the central figures in this 1910 pen-and-ink drawing. Rather than emphasize the darkness and darkness of the cell, Furniss shows two sets of bars and a very substantial stone staircase to imply the stoutness of the walls.
Furniss subordinates his ill-kempt prisoners to the figure of the jailor and his daughter, in complete contrast to their being the focal point in Felix Octavius Carr Darley's frontispiece entitled Feeding the Birds (see below). Whereas Darley emphasizes the villainous Rigaud, a satanically-bearded, gentlemanly accused murderer who in England adopts the pseudonym "Blandois," and becomes an associate of Mrs. Clenham and Henry Gowan, Furniss has the reader experience the scene from the perspective of someone outside the cell. Although Phiz in the monthly parts, December 1855 through June 1857, has not provided Furniss with a useful model for this scene, the earlier illustrator does show Rigaud in Gowan's studio (Book Two, Chapter 6), Instinct Stronger than Training and with the Clenhams' crusty servant in Mr. Flintwich Receives the Embrace of Friendship (Book Two, Chapter 10), and both Rigaud and "Mr. Baptist" in In the Old Room (Book Two, Chapter 28). Thus, Furniss does not initially introduce Blandois-Rigaud as a an "other" (a sophisticated but dangerous bearded foreigner) to the novel's smooth-faced Englishmen, but as a caged beast with a snout who will do damage if he is released or escapes the confines of his cage.
A rather different interpretation of the ill-sorted pair of prisoners occurs in the 1867 Diamond Edition by Sol Eytinge, Jr. illustration Rigaud and Cavaletto (see below) for the opening chapter. Although Phiz's images of Rigaud are acceptable for establishing the novel's dominant tone, Eytinge's character study captures more of Rigaud's robustness and deviousness, qualities which render him a foil to the good-hearted peasant, Cavaletto, who will become an associate of Arthur Clenham. The American editions of the 1860s appear not to have influenced such later British interpretations as Mahoney's in the 1870s Household Edition, the full title for the wood-engraving being In Marseilles that day there was a villainous prison. In one of its chambers, so repulsive a place, that even the obtrusive stare blinked at it, and left it to such refuse of reflected light as it could find for itself, were two men. — Book I, cha 1.
Like Furniss in his 1910 narrative-pictorial sequence for the novel, American illustrator Darley floods the scene with light. However, in the later composition, Furniss shows the same scene from outside the prison bars, as if Rigaud and Cavaletto are animals in a cage, and the jailor and his daughter visitors at a zoo. To aid the reader in comparing the textual description and illustration, Furniss has provided an extensive quotation beneath the lengthy title, changing the wording so that the passage can stand alone: "The jailor's daughter put the dainties between the bars into the soft, smooth, well-shaped hand of Monsieur Rigaud . . . and a lump of coarse bread into the swart, scaled, knotted hands of John Baptist."
The modification of the passage emphasizes the class differences between the two prisoners, differences all too evident in the food each receives. Furniss, however, shows them as equals in their captivity.
Left: Darley's frontispiece for the first of four 1863 volumes, Feeding the Birds (Household Edition, New York). Centre: Phiz's original serial illustration of the Marseilles prisoners, a dark plate communicating little other than atmosphere, The Birds in the Cage (December 1855). Right: Eytinge's interpretation of the Marseilles prisoners as a dual portrait, Rigaud and Cavaletto (1867).
Above: Mahoney's reinterpretation Phiz's original serial illustration of the Marseilles prisoners, In Marseilles that day there was a villainous prison. In one of its chambers, so repulsive a place, that even the obtrusive stare blinked at it, and left it to such refuse of reflected light as it could find for itself, were two men. — Book I, cha 1 (1873).
Dickens, Charles. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). The Authentic Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1901 [rpt. 30 May 1857 volume].
_____. Little Dorrit. Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley and Sir John Gilbert. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1863. 4 vols.
_____. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. 14 vols.
_____. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by James Mahoney. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1873. Vol. 5.
_____. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 12.
"Little Dorrit — Fifty-eight Illustrations by James Mahoney." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, Being Eight Hundred and Sixty-six Drawings by Fred Barnard, Gordon Thomson, Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), J. McL. Ralston, J. Mahoney, H. French, Charles Green, E. G. Dalziel, A. B. Frost, F. A. Fraser, and Sir Luke Fildes. London: Chapman and Hall, 1907.
Vann, J. Don. Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1985.
Created 2 January 2016
Last modified 1 February 2020