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The Bridge
Phiz
September 1844 (twentieth) instalment
Steel-engraving
13.5 cm by 11.4 cm (5 ¼ by 4 ½ inches), vignetted.
Charles Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours", Chapter LXXXIV, "The Bridge at Montereau" (September 1844), facing p. 280 in the 1844 edition, and 332 in the 1869 edition.
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Crouching beneath the parapet, I try to stanch my wound; but the blood is gushing in torrents, my senses are reeling, the objects around grow dimmer, the noise seems fainter. But suddenly I feel a hand upon my neck, and at the same instant a flask is pressed to my lips. I drink, and the wine rallies me; the bleeding is stopped. My eyes open again; and dare I trust their evidence? Who is it that now shelters beneath the parapet beside me? Minette, the vivandière! her handsome face flushed, her eyes wild with excitement, and her brown hair in great tangled masses on her back and shoulders.
“Minette, is it indeed thee?” said I, pressing her hand to my lips.
“I knew you at the head of your regiment some days ago, and I thought we should meet ere long. But lie still; we are safe here. The fire slackens too; they have fallen back since the gate was forced.”
“Is the gate forced, Minette?”
“Ay, the petard has done its work; but the columns are not come up. Lie still till they pass.”
“Dear, dear girl! what a brave heart is thine!” said I, gazing on her beautiful features, tenfold handsomer from the expression which her heroism had lent them.
“You would surely adventure as much for me,” said she, half-timidly, as she pressed her handkerchief against the wound, which still oozed blood. [Chapter LXXXIV, "The Bridge at Montereau," p. 280 in the 1844 edition; 332 in the 1869 edition]
Fittingly, the final instalment concludes the story of Tom's relationship with the young woman who has been in love with him throughout much of his career. The present illustration, therefore, completes Lever's intentions for her character by conferring upon her the status of romantically frustrated but dutiful heroine in the narrative-pictorial series, for which the June 1844 (eighteenth) instalment's illustration In the Summer House has prepared us. Although she has served only a quasi-military function as a sutler and canteen-keeper, she has not been typical of the vivandières of the period in that she is not the wife of one of the eight vivandiers (male provisioners) of a regiment, and she is not technically a femme soldat or female soldier, whose presence in the military the National Convention had formally banned on 30 April 1793, some ten years prior to the action of the present scene. Lever has deliberately chosen the more ambiguous term for Minette, rather than cantinière (female publican) or blanchisseuse (laundress). As with the fictional character in this novel, cantinières were a common feature of camp life, and were even recognized for their battlefield heroism as Minette has been in Minette receiving the "Cross of the Legion" in the February 1844 instalment.
Tom has dared all to enact the Emperor's will by rushing forward, fuse in hand, to detonate the charge sappers have laid against the stout gateway on the bridge at Montereau. Protected by the parapet, he succeeds in his task by using the powder from one of his pistols as musket balls crash about him. Turning to run as the petard discharges, Tom has momentarily risen above the level of the parapet (just above the feather on Minette's cap), and has been shot in the chest. Suddenly a comforting hand is on his neck and a flask pressed to his parched lips by Minette the Vivandière. In a moment she will discover Tom's silver locket around his neck, and will wave her cap to urge the Grenadiers forward, making herself a target.
The illustration is not merely effective in depicting Minette's heroism and her devotion to Tom amounting to unrequited love; it is highly dramatic. Obscured by the sudden discharge of gunpowder in the petard, the actual portal is only partially visible, upper right. In the foreground are the corpses of Tom's Hussar regiment who had failed to win the Emperor's Cross of the Legion of Honour by being shot down by the enemy marksmen, upper left. Tom's pistol, from which he has used the priming powder to ignite the petard and blow the gateway, lies at his side, and his sabre remains in its scabbard. She looks with tender concern into the unconscious Tom's face, disregarding fire from enemy artillery (upper left). Despite the drama surrounding the two figures, the reader's eye remains riveted on Minette's face.
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. Tom Burke of "Ours." Dublin: William Curry, Jun., 1844. Illustrated by H. K. Browne. London: Chapman and Hall, 1865. Serialised February 1843 through September 1844. 2 vols.
Lever, Charles. Tom Burke of "Ours." Illustrated by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. Vol. I and II. In two volumes. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 24 February 2021.
Steig, Michael. Chapter Four: "Dombey and Son: Iconography of Social and Sexual Satire." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 86-112.
Stevenson, Lionel. Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939.
_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.
Created 4 December 2023