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Headpiece: The Quais at Calais
Tony Johannot.
J. Brevier.
1857
Engraving on wood
7.3 cm high by 9.1 cm wide, vignetted
Second illustration for A Sentimental Journey (1857), page 1.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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You have been in France? said my gentleman, turning quick upon me, with the most civil triumph in the world. — Strange! quoth I, debating the matter with myself, that one and twenty miles sailing, for ’tis absolutely no further from Dover to Calais, should give a man these rights: — I’ll look into them: so, giving up the argument, — I went straight to my lodgings, put up half a dozen shirts and a black pair of silk breeches, — “the coat I have on,” said I, looking at the sleeve, “will do;” — took a place in the Dover stage; and the packet sailing at nine the next morning, — by three I had got sat down to my dinner upon a fricaseed chicken, so incontestably in France, that had I died that night of an indigestion, the whole world could not have suspended the effects of the droits d’aubaine; [page 1]
The illustration gives the reader no clue as to whether the sleepy eighteenth-century port depicted is Dover or Calais. The tranquil scene belies the chance that Sterne's protagonist, the Reverend Mr. Yorick, is taking in crossing from Great Britain to France towards the end of the Seven Years War (early May, 1762). When he finally arrives in Paris, he receives a visit from the Lieutenant of Police, enquiring about whether he has obtained an official passport that permits his unrestricted travel throughout the country. The official seems to suspect Yorick of being a spy.
Since the writer provides no description of the port, mentioning merely a packet-boat sailing at 9:00 A. M. on the following day, one may assume that Yorick arrives by the London to Dover coach on the previous evening, when he goes straight to his lodgings. The activity on the quais seems to suggest the early morning; one vessel has already sailed, but the other is not yet the subject of activity. Perhaps through a lack of distinguishing features Tony Jahonnot, a French illustrator of historical novels, implies that the differences between the two ports is nugatory.
If, indeed, the physical setting is Dover in the late eighteenth century, the picture may anticipate the opening of Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (1859), when Lucie Manette and Mr. Jervis Lorry of Tellson & Co. arrive at Dover on their journey to bring the Bastille prisoner home. In the accompanying illustration for the opening number, however, Hablot Knight Brown emphasizes the mysterious atmosphere of their mission dubbed "Returned to Life" in The Mail (June 1859), whereas Johnannot communicates only the tranquility of the port scene in the early morning.
Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. With 100 illustrations by Tony Johannot. London: Willoughby, 1857.
Last modified 21 October 2018
