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The Scene Shifted
Phiz
November 1843 (tenth) instalment
Steel-engraving
14.6 cm by 11.1 cm (5 ¾ by 4 ⅜ inches), vignetted.
Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours", Chapter XL, "A Night in the Tuileries Gardens" (November 1843), Vol. I, facing p. 290 in the 1844 edition, and 299 in the 1865 edition.
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While I noticed these details, my very heart was chill within me. The dark figure at the window, which stirred not, seemed as if turned towards me, and more than once I almost thought I could see his eyes bent upon me. This was, however, but the mere suggestion of my own fears for in the shade of the seat no light whatever fell, and I was perfectly concealed.
In the deep stillness I could hear the scraping sound of the pen on the paper, and scarcely dared to breathe lest I should cause discovery, when the figure retired from the window, and moved towards the table. For some minutes he appeared to stoop over a large map, which lay outstretched before him, and across which I could see his finger moving rapidly. Suddenly he stood erect, and in a voice which even now rings within my heart, said, “It must be so, Duroc; by any other route Bernadotte will be too late!” What was the reply I know not, such terror now fell over me. It was the Emperor himself who spoke. It was he who the instant before was standing close beside me at the window; and thus, a second time in my life, did I become the unwilling eavesdropper of the man I most feared and respected of all the world. Before I could summon resolution to withdraw, Napoleon spoke again. [Chapter XL, "A Night in the Tuileries Gardens," 290 in the 1844 edition; 299 in the first volume of the 1865 edition]
The presence of so many verifiably historical figures and in particular recurring appearances by First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte provide the necessary "real world" background that early nineteenth-century historical novelists such as Sir Walter Scott established was necessary for such a work of fiction. Although Tom Burke, the fictional protagonist, constantly occupies the foreground in this first-person narrative, the middle ground in this novel often features such figures as Napoleon and Josephine Bonaparte, General Murat, and Mehée de la Touche, as is consistent with the models such as Ivanhoe (1817) and Waverly (1814) provided by Scott and dealing with the daily life of the time, the inner life of the fictional protagonist, and the great historical personages and events of the era conjured up.
Thus, at the close of Napoleon's first year as Emperor, a joyful ascendancy checked by Admiral Villeneuve's disastrous loss of the French fleet at Trafalgar (21 October 1805), Tom finds himself once more in Paris. His mentor, Lieutenant-General Auvergne, has been reassigned, and Tom has just left his position as Auvergne's aid-de-camp at the fortress of Mayence to join the head of a new unit, Auvergene's Cavalry, at the middle of August, 1806. Told to wait in Paris rather than join his mentor in Versailles, Tom, irresistibly drawn to the palace, wanders the gardens of the Tuileries. Finding himself locked in the gardens for the night after curfew, Tom suddenly encounters Napoleon at his French windows, dictating despatches to his aid Duroc at the writing desk, covered with a large map, exactly as in the illustration. Who, then, the reader wonders, is the dragoon in the bushes, about to seize Tom by the wrist? This turns out to be none other than the celebrated Corporal Pioche, about whom Tom has heard so much from Auvergne.
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 5 November 2023