Teaching the Old Idea how to shoot — thirty-second illustration engraved by the Dalziels for the 1852 Chapman and Hall edition of The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). Chapter LI, "Vienna," facing 448. 9.3 cm by 12.5 cm (3 ¾ by 5 inches) vignetted. This is the twelfth vertically oriented plate in the two-volume novel. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: The Cadet, Madame de Heidendorf, and the Senior Officers
he drawing-room into which they now entered was filled with officers of different arms of the service, among whom Count Dalton stood conspicuous, both from his size and the soldierlike character of a figure that not even old age seemed able to impair.
“How provoking, my sweet niece,” said he, taking Kate's hand between both his, “now to part, just as I was learning the happiness of knowing you. Here are all these gentlemen grumbling and complaining about leaving their homes and families, and yet I'll wager there is not one amongst them carries away a heavier heart than I do. Come into this room, my dear; let us have five minutes together.” And Kate took his arm, while he led her forward. Madame de Heidendorf, meanwhile, seated herself on a sofa, and summoned the most distinguished officers of the party to inform her as to all that was going forward.
It was one of her favorite affectations to be deeply versed in military tactics; not that she acknowledged herself deficient in any art or science, but soldiering was her strong point. She therefore questioned and cross-questioned these unhappy gentlemen at great length.
“You have no mortars? Do I hear you aright. Colonel Rabowsky? No mortars?”
“None, Madame.”
“And how, may I ask, do you mean to reduce Milan to ashes?”
This was a very puzzling question; and she repeated it in a still more commanding tone.
“Perhaps that may not be deemed desirable, Madame,” modestly insinuated another officer.
“Not desirable, sir? you said not desirable. Why, really I shall begin to fancy I ought to go to school again in military matters. Are you aware, sir, it's the very centre of these wretches; that it is fed from Switzerland and Piedmont with all that is infamous in political doctrine? Milan must be bombarded, Sir!” [Chapter LI, "Vienna," pp. 448-449]
Commentary: The Reactionary Austrian Hostess, Madame de Heidendorf
Deeply knowledgeable about European politics of the period of the late 1840s, British diplomat-turned-novelist Charles Lever makes Kate's Viennese hostess, the haughty dowager Madame de Heidendorf, spokesperson for the reactionary forces that sought to suppress democratic, nationalist uprisings throughout the Italian states. Ironically, both Frank and his uncle have won promotion in the Austrian army just in time to aid in the putting down of a pro-Risorgimento uprising in Milan:
[Kate] arose and opened the window. The whole Platz was crammed with people, eagerly talking and gesticulating. A surging, waving motion, too, seemed to sway them, and at length she could detect that they were slowly proceeding onward towards the gate of the city. The deep roll of a drum then turned her attention, and, in the far distance, she saw the glancing bayonets of an infantry column as they advanced.
Military spectacles are of too frequent recurrence in Vienna to create much surprise or excitement; and yet, evidently, from the looks and gestures of the people, they were both present here. The band of a regiment struck up the national hymn of Austria; and as the proud notes swelled into the air, a dark body of Tyrolese Jâgers poured into the Platz. Still there was no enthusiasm of the people. They listened to the loyal sounds in cold apathy. To the Tyrolese succeeded a Grenadier battalion, after which came a long dense column of infantry of the line, their knapsacks on their backs, and their bread rations strapped above them. Behind these was the artillery, the long-tailed black horses giving a solemn look to the procession, as its clanking sounds fell mournfully on the ear. From the wide Platz they now moved on, and passing out of the Körtner gate, defiled into the “Glacis.” But a moment before and that immense space was empty; and now, from every avenue of the city, troops came pouring in like rivers to the sea. The black-plumed hunters from Tyrol, the gigantic Croat Grenadiers, the swarthy Bohemian Cuirassiers, and the white-cloaked dragoons of Austria,—all were seen advancing and forming as if in battle array. While Kate's eye ranged eagerly over the field in search of the blue uniform of the Hungarians, Madame de Heidendorf entered the room with an open letter in her hand.
“What can this mean?” asked Kate, anxiously. “It is surely not a mere review?”
“Far from it, Madame,” said the Countess, imposingly. “The great drama is about to begin. News has come that Italy is in open revolt, and fresh troops are to be despatched thither with all speed. Twelve thousand are to march today, eight more to-morrow.”
“And Frank —”
She stopped, abashed by the disdainful expression of Madame de Heidendorf's face.
“Your brother's regiment, Madame, will form part of the force, and he will, of course, contribute the importance of his presence. How happily constituted must be the mind that can turn from the grand theme of a whole nation's destiny to the petty fortunes of a corporal or a sous-lieutenant!” [II: pp. 83-84]
The contemporary context: Risorgimento in 1848
The situation in Italy for the past thirty-five years, since the close of the Napoleonic wars, would have been well-known by Lever's original readers. The Vienna Settlement of 1815 had granted the Italian states of Parma, Modena, and Tuscany to the Austrian Habsburgs, thereby impeding the eventual unification of Italy which British Liberals supported. Lombardy and Venetia were annexed to the Austrian Empire, and Sardinia and Genoa were added to the kingdom of Piedmont. Genoa smarted under the humiliation of its subjection to Piedmont. In general, then, the settlement of 1815 had led to excessive provincialism in Italy, which was effectively dominated by Austria the north. As part of the popular revolutions that swept Europe that year, Italian nationalists fought a four-day battle on 22-25 July, 1848, at Custoza, but lost to the better-trained and better-equipped Austrians. The Italians fell back, river by river, to Milan where, amid scenes of riot and turmoil, an armistice was agreed.
How provoking for Lever's British and Liberal readers to learn that the Daltons are about to participate in Austria's crushing the rebellion in Milan. Readers would certainly have viewed Kate's "selling herself" to the wealthy Russian prince in order to secure her father's comfortable retirement in the context of injustice, autocracy, and suppression. Readers would have been dismayed by Madame de Heidendorf's counselling the officers present in her drawing-room to effect with superior Austrian military technology the total destruction of Milan for acting upon its democratic convictions. Phiz renders her fat, smug, over-dressed, arrogant, and imperious, the personification of imperialist Austria. Her masculine visage seems appropriate to a middle-aged aristocrat lacking in Romantic compassion and sympathy for the oppressed.
A Bibliographical Note to the 1859 Cheap Edition
This is another of only eight illustrations reproduced in Volume Two (1859) of the first edition's forty-eight engravings. The other seven are the fine vertical frontispiece, A Journey (ii), Frank Visits his Uncle (facing 18),A Discovery (facing 52), The Benediction (facing 115), Abel Narrowly escapes Caning (facing 161), Norwood's Exit (facing 267), and Retribution (facing 332).
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Browne, John Buchanan. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's, 1978.
Downey, Edmund. Charles Lever: His Life in Letters. 2 vols. London: William Blackwood, 1906.
Fitzpatrick, W. J. The Life of Charles Lever. London: Downey, 1901.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Lever, Charles. The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1852, rpt. 1859, and 1872. [Two volumes as one, with separate page numbers in the 1859 volume, after I: 362.]
_______. The Daltons and A Day's Ride. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). Vol VI of Lever's Works. New York: P. F. Collier, 1882. [This large-format American edition reproduces only six of the original forthy-eight Phiz illustrations.]
Lever, Charles James. The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life. Vol. 2. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32062/32062-h/32062-h.htm
Skinner, Anne Maria. Charles Lever and Ireland. University of Liverpool. PhD dissertation. May 2019.
Stevenson, Lionel. Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell & Russell, 1939, rpt. 1969.
_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.
Last modified 11 April 2022