A Rout by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne), facing page 371. (November 1855). Steel-engraving. 10.4 cm high by 16.8 cm wide (4 ⅛ by 6 ¾inches), vignetted, full-page illustration for The Martins of Cro' Martin, Chapter XXXVII, "An Evening of One of the 'Three Days'." [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: A Confrontation in Parisian Society amidst Revolution
To have heard the sentiments then uttered, the disparaging opinions expressed of the middle and humbler classes, the hopelessness of ever seeing them sufficiently impressed with their own inferiority, the adulation bestowed on the monarch and all around him, one might really have fancied himself back again at the Tuileries in the time of Louis the Fourteenth. All agreed in deeming the occasion an excellent one to give the people a salutary lesson; and it was really pleasant to see the warm interest taken by these high and distinguished persons in the fortunes of their less happy countrymen.
To Lady Dorothea's ears no theme could be more grateful; and she moved from group to group, delighted to mingle her congratulations with those around, and exchange her hopes a nd aspirations and wishes with theirs. Kate Henderson, upon whom habitually devolved the chief part in these “receptions,” was excited and flurried in manner; a more than ordinary effort to please being dashed, as it were, by some secret anxiety, and the expectation of some coming event. Had there been any one to watch her movements, he might have seen the eagerness with which she listened to each new account of the state of the capital, and how impatiently she drank in the last tidings from the streets; nor less marked was the expression of proud scorn upon her features, as she heard the insulting estimate of the populace, and the vainglorious confidence in the soldiery. But more than all these was her haughty indignation as she listened to the confused, mistaken opinions uttered on every side as to the policy of the Government and the benevolent intentions of the king. Once, and only once, did she forget the prudent resolve she wished to impose upon herself; but temper and caution and reserve gave way, as she heard a very distinguished person amusing a circle around him by an unfair and unfaithful portraiture of the great leaders of '92. It was then, when stung by the odious epithet of canaille applied to those for whose characters she entertained a deep devotion, that she forgot everything, and in a burst of indignant eloquence overwhelmed and refuted the speaker. This was the moment, too, in which she replied to Villemart by a word of terrible ferocity. Had the red cap of Liberty itself been suddenly hoisted in that brilliant assemblage, the dread and terror which arose could scarcely have been greater.
“Where are we?” cried the Marquise de Longueville. “I thought we were in the Place de Vendôme, and I find myself in the Faubourg St. Antoine!”
“Does my Lady know that her friend and confidante is a Girondist of the first water?” said an ex-Minister.
“Who could have suspected the spirit of Marat under the mask of Ninon de l'Enclos?” muttered Villemart. [Chapter XXXVII, "An Evening of One of the 'Three Days'," pp. 369-370]
Commentary: The Revolutionary Kate causes the Consternation among High Society
Thanks to Kate and her friend the young duchesse, Lady Dorothea has received numerous invitations to receptions in the highest levels of Parisian society. Following up the scene of riot and military repression in the first November 1855 illustration, A Spill, Phiz now dramatises the consternation among the socialites at the outbreak in the streets near the Martins' suite of rooms in the Place Vendôme on the opening night of Cette révolution se déroule sur trois journées, les 27, 28 et 29 juillet 1830. Here, amidst Lady Dorothea's fashionable, aristocratic guests, sympathizers with the royalist government rather than the mob outside the windows, stands the defiant Kate Henderson. In his figure of Kate as advocate for revolution Phiz seems to invoke the figure of the Charlotte Corday; with more than "a dash of haughty superiority" (338) and nothing of the dependant about her Kate seems to command the room. Terrifying the guests with dire predictions of the government's being overthrown, Kate seems to point towards the judgment of the proletariate upon them all, as well as to "a terrible crash of artillery, followed by the rattle of musketry" (371). Terrified, the crowd begins to rapidly disperse.
A Polish aristocrat in conversation with Jack Massingbred has already alluded to Kate as Charlotte Corday at the club in the previous chapter:
“Ah! you came too late to hear that,” said the Pole, in a whisper to Massingbred; “but it seems La Henderson became quite a Charlotte Corday this evening, and talked more violent Republicanism than has been heard in a salon since the days of old Égalité.” [Chapter XXXVI, "The Club," 365]
Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armont (27 July 1768 – 17 July 1793), was a memorable figure from the first French Revolution. Corday is largely remembered as the assassin of French Revolutionary leader, Jean-Paul Marat while he rested in his bath at home. Lever has already at the Club invoked the name of Charlotte Corday as a revolutionary model for Kate Henderson. Despite her friendship with a young French duchesse, the governess is a political radical who advocates the overthrow of the aristocracy and the foundation of a republic based on "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." She was, Lever tells us, in love with a young radical whose political agitation resulted in his being sentenced to hard labiour in the galleys. Rose Ellen Hendrks had published a fictionalized account of the revolutionary heroine in Charlotte Corday: An Historical Tale (London: Groombridge, 1846).
Material Related to the Paris Revolt of 27 through 29 July 1830
- John Wilson Croker's Image of France
- The Spirit of Freedom by Augustin Dumont
- The French Revolution as Symbolic History
- Revolution and Authority: 1830-1837 The French Revolution and Victorian England
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Buchanan-Brown, John. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.
Lester, Valerie Browne Lester. Chapter 11: "'Give Me Back the Freshness of the Morning!'"Phiz! The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004. Pp. 108-127.
Lever, Charles. The Martins of Cro' Martin. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. London: Chapman & Hall, 1856, rpt. 1872.
Lever, Charles. The Martins of Cro' Martin. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Introduction by Andrew Lang. Lorrequer Edition. Vols. XII and XIII. In two volumes. Boston: Little, Brown, 1907.
Steig, Michael. Chapter VII, "Phiz the Illustrator: An Overview and Summing Up." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 299-316.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter XII, "Aspirant for Preferment, 1854-1856." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell and Russell, 1939; rpt. 1969. Pp. 203-220.
Created 3 October 2022