Passage Illustrated: Lorrequer Bound for Paris via Calais

At length we reached London, and having been there safely installed at "Mivart's," I sallied forth to present my letter to the Horse Guards, and obtain our passport for the continent.

"Number nine, Poland-street, sir" said the waiter, as I inquired the address of the French Consul. Having discovered that my interview with the commander-in-chief was appointed for four o'clock, I determined to lose no time, but make every possible arrangement for leaving London in the morning.

A cab quietly conveyed me to the door of the Consul, around which stood several other vehicles, of every shape and fashion, while in the doorway were to be seen numbers of people, thronging and pressing, like the Opera pit on a full night. Into the midst of this assemblage I soon thrust myself, and, borne upon the current, at length reached a small back parlour, filled also with people; a door opening into another small room in the front, showed a similar mob there, with the addition of a small elderly man, in a bag wig and spectacles, very much begrimed with snuff, and speaking in a very choleric tone to the various applicants for passports, who, totally ignorant of French, insisted upon interlarding their demands with an occasional stray phrase, making a kind of tesselated pavement of tongues, which would have shamed Babel. Nearest to the table at which the functionary sat, stood a mustachoed gentleman, in a blue frock and white trowsers, a white hat jauntily set upon one side of his head, and primrose gloves. He cast a momentary glance of a very undervaluing import upon the crowd around him, and then, turning to the Consul, said in a very soprano tone —

"Passport, monsieur!"

"Que voulez vous que je fasse," replied the old Frenchman, gruffly.

"Je suis j'ai — that is, donnez moi passport."

"Where do you go?" replied the Consul.

"Calai." [Chapter XXII, "The Journey," 167]

Commentary: A Transitional Chapter from Ireland to France

Having taken leave of Tom O'Flaherty in Ireland, Harry hopes to catch up with his wealthy friends, the Callonbys, at Paris. A journey of just six hours has taken him from Kingstown, the harbour for Dublin, to Wales; and he has proceeded by carriage with a middle-aged widow, Mrs. Bingham, and her teenaged daughter to London. Here he reports to the French consulate to pick up a passport, witnessing an amusing exchange between the gruff official and a "gentilhomme" named Lorraine Snaggs who attempts to speak French, but merely looks pretentious. This rather than Harry is the figure that Phiz has positioned in the centre of those awaiting their passports. Notice of Harry's four-months' leave from his regiment catches up with him at Mivart's Hotel, enabling him to study medicine at Weimar. He and the Binghams then travel to Dover, and across the Channel to Calais, which is where the next chapter opens.

Bibliography

Buchanan-Brown, John. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.

Lester, Valerie Browne Lester. Phiz! The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.

Lever, Charles. The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Dublin: William Curry, Jun. London: W. S. Orr, 1839.

Steig, Michael. Chapter Two: "The Beginnings of 'Phiz': Pickwick, Nickleby, and the Emergence from Caricature." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 24-85.

Steig, Michael. Chapter Seven: "Phiz the Illustrator: An Overview and a Summing Up." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 299-316.

Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter V, "Renegade from Physic, 1839-1841." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 73-93.

_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.

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Created 27 April 2023