[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Harry Furniss —> Little Dorrit —> Charles Dickens —> Next]
John Baptist runs away from his Patron
Harry Furniss
1910
14.2 cm x 9.3 cm, framed
Dickens's Little Dorrit, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, Book the First, "Poverty"; Chapter 11, "Let Loose," facing XII, 129.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
As he stretched out his length upon it, with a ragged handkerchief bound round his wicked head, and only his wicked head showing above the bedclothes, John Baptist was rather strongly reminded of what had so very nearly happened to prevent the moustache from any more going up as it did, and the nose from any more coming down as it did.
"Shaken out of destiny's dice-box again into your company, eh? By Heaven! So much the better for you. You'll profit by it. I shall need a long rest. Let me sleep in the morning."
John Baptist replied that he should sleep as long as he would, and wishing him a happy night, put out the candle. One might have supposed that the next proceeding of the Italian would have been to undress; but he did exactly the reverse, and dressed himself from head to foot, saving his shoes. When he had so done, he lay down upon his bed with some of its coverings over him, and his coat still tied round his neck, to get through the night.
When he started up, the Godfather Break of Day was peeping at its namesake. He rose, took his shoes in his hand, turned the key in the door with great caution, and crept downstairs. Nothing was astir there but the smell of coffee, wine, tobacco, and syrups; and madame's little counter looked ghastly enough. But he had paid madame his little note at it over night, and wanted to see nobody — wanted nothing but to get on his shoes and his knapsack, open the door, and run away. [Book the First, "Poverty," Chapter 11, "Let Loose," 138: the wording of picture's original caption has been emphasized]
Furniss's handling of this situation in the inn at Chalons is probably his direct response to the original serial illustration for this chapter by Phiz, Making Off (see below), Part Three (February 1856). Although Rigaud has put a great deal of distance between himself and the prison at Marseilles, his evil reputation as the murderer of his wife has preceded him, as the landlady at the backstreet inn where Rigaud has taken refuge curses him as the Devil incarnate. Thus, Rigaud instructs his former cellmate, Giovanni Battiste Cavaletto ("John Baptist"), whom he meets by coincidence at Chalons, that henceforth he will be known as "Lagnier" — a nom-de-guerre made necessary by word of his crime and the "unproven" verdict having reached this part of France by the country's canal system. However, the alias is not the only aspect of their renewed relationship that the former Genoese smuggler finds disconcerting since "Monsieur Lagnier" has taken it into his head to treat John Baptist as his servant. Wisely, Cavaletto decides to make off as soon as possible, and escape from his "Patron" while he is still asleep at the Break of Day, rather than get caught up in another of Rigaud's confidence schemes. Furniss's John Baptist looks terrified at the prospect of awkening the vengeful Frenchman as he tries to make good his escape by turning the key in the lock, but the oblivious sleeper does not wake. And the snoring Rigaud, with his spiky hair, hand-bar moustache, and prominent nose seems suitably satanic.
Whereas Phiz in the original serial illustration for this chapter, Making Off focusses on the escaping John Baptist (the description of his flight from Chalons appears on the facing page, clarifying the identity of the figure fleeing along the tree-lined avenue) at the close of "Let Loose," James Mahoney in the Household Edition instead depicts the disgruntled, inwardly cursing traveller who by his nose, moustache, and nutcracker chin must be Rigaud, the former Marseilles prisoner. Both of Furniss's predecessors give the reader a sense of the French landscape, but Furniss instead sets the scene in the room at the Chalons backstreet inn, The Break of Day, to focus in close-up on the apprehensive Cavaletto in the very act of turning the key in the lock as Rigaud (now, "Lagnier") sleeps noisily in the foreground. Furniss makes the focal point of the composition the large, powerful right hand of the professional criminal, as if to suggest the very real danger the Italian faces if Rigaud feels his former cell-mate has betrayed him. The scene is animated by the contrasting expressions of the two figures, and by the kinetic sense of energy with which Furniss embues the entire composition.
Left: The initial frontispiece in the New York "Household Edition" volumes, Darley's engraving of the Marseilles cellmates, Feeding the Birds (1863). Right: Sol Eytinge, Junior's study of the little smuggler and the wife-killer, Rigaud and Cavalletto.
Above: Phiz's February 1856 dark plate of the escape of John Baptist from Chalons, Making Off.
Above: Mahoney's Household Edition characterisation of Rigaud's approaching Chalons along the canal at dusk, One man slowly moving on towards Chalons (1873).
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. , 1990.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
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.
Hammerton, J. A. "Chapter 19: Little Dorrit." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Vol. 17, 398-427.
Kitton, Frederic George. Dickens and His Illustrators: Cruikshank, Seymour, Buss, "Phiz," Cattermole, Leech, Doyle, Stanfield, Maclise, Tenniel, Frank Stone, Landseer, Palmer, Topham, Marcus Stone, and Luke Fildes. Amsterdam: S. Emmering, 1972. [Rpt. of the London 1899 edition]
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
"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.
Schlicke, Paul, ed. The Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. , 1999.
Steig, Michael. "VI. Bleak House and Little Dorrit." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. , 1978, 131-298.
Vann, J. Don. Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1985.
Created 12 May 2016
Last modified 28 January 2020