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The Rose of Provence
Phiz
July 1843 (sixth) instalment
Steel-engraving
12.7 cm by 10.7 cm (5 by 4 ⅛ inches), vignetted.
Charles Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours" (July 1843), Chapter XXIV (May 1843), facing p. 170 in the 1844 edition, and p. 174 in the 1865 edition.
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I turned my eyes as he spoke, and close beside me, engaged in an eager conversation with an old lady, stood a young and most beautiful girl. Her long hair, through which, in the then mode, violets were wreathed and interwoven, descended in rich masses of curl over a neck white as marble. The corsage of her dress, which, in imitation of Greek costume, was made low, displayed her well-rounded shoulders to the greatest advantage; and though rather below than above the middle size, there was a dignity and grace in the air of her figure, and a certain elegance about her slightest movements, that was most fascinating.
“And the 'Rose de Provence,' — how is she this evening?” said my companion, rising suddenly, and presenting himself with a smile before her.
“Ah! you here, Monsieur de Custine? we thought you had been at Nancy.”
The accent, the tone of voice in which she said these few words, sent a thrill through me; and as I looked again, I recognized the young lady who stood at Madame Bonaparte's side on the memorable day of my fall. Perhaps my astonishment made me start; for she turned round towards me, and with a soft and most charming smile saluted me.
“How they are laughing in that room!” said she, turning towards her other companions. “Monsieur de Custine has deserted his dear friend this evening, and left her to her unassisted defence.”
“Ma foi,” replied he, “I got ill rewarded for my advocacy. It was only last week, when I helped her out through one of her blunders in grammar she called me a 'ganache' for my pains.”
“How very ungrateful! You that have been interpreter to her, her tutor for the entire winter, without whom she could neither have obtained an ice nor a glass of water!”
“So is it; but you are all ungrateful. But I think I had better go and pay my respects to her. Pray, come along with me.”
I followed the party into a small room fitted up like a tent, where, amid some half-dozen persons assembled around like an audience, sat a large, florid, and good-looking person, her costume of scarlet velvet, turban, and robe adding to the flushed and high-colored expression of her features. She was talking in a loud voice, and with an accent of such patois as I should much more naturally have expected in a remote faubourg than in the gilded salons of the Tuileries. She had been relating some anecdotes of military life, which came within her own experience; and evidently amused her auditory as much by her manner as the matter of her narrative. [Chapter XXIV, "The 'Pavillion de Flore'," p. 170 in the 1844 edition; 174 in the 1865 edition]
The turbaned woman in the foreground does not appear in the scene in which De Custine introduces Tom to the beauty he met during the military exercises at the Polytechnique. Since she of the turban is seated in the adjoining room in Lever's text, we may surmise that Phiz has in effect combined the two scenes. He has, moreover, transformed the middle-aged socialite from a "good-looking person" into something of a harridan, perhaps to emphasize the youthful beauty of the Rose of Provence. To the left, somewhat awed, is Tom in his cadet's uniform, and in the foreground the affable Monsieur de Custine. Much to Tom's relief after his carriage has waited in line for the Consul's levee, he discovers that the gathering to which Madame la Consulesse has invited him is the less formal and more intimate soirée of in a distant corner of the Tuileries Palace.
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 2 November 2023