A starving miner holds a bloated employer at the mercy of his pick, in the bottom of a mine-shaft, and claims his vengeance.
A wild-eyed figure, symbolising the proletariat, brandishes a knife tragically, and cries, “Je voudrais que la société n’eût qu’une seule tête pour la lui couper d’un seul coup.”
A nude woman, at once voluptuous and august, enthroned before a guillotine, proclaims,—
“Je suis la Sainte Démocratie, J’attends mes amants.”
Pour la Prochaine Exposition: A sans-culotte, saucily puffing a cigarette, displays a guillotine of the most approved pattern, with this comment, “Et elle sera à vapeur, mon bourgeois!”
Marquis Talons-Rouges: De Gallifet, “the butcher of the Commune,” stands transfixed with terror while the massacred rise up against him from under the paving-stones.
Vendredi Saint: M. Bérenger,[136] attired as a Protestant clergyman, glowers at the Magdalen, who is weeping over the Crucified One, and says, “Si j’avais été de ces temps, il n’y aurait pas eu de scandale au pied de la croix.”
On the other hand, Willette is not tenderer with his bewitching dreamland lovers than he is with the abused and the oppressed.
He has contributed to nearly all the illustrated organs of revolt, beginning with the Père Peinard, and at one time made all the illustrations for a most impertinent little sheet, known as Le Pied de Nez, the text for which was furnished by Camille St. Croix. His stained-glass window at the Chat Noir, representing the worship of the golden calf and bearing the inscription “Te Deum Laudamus,” will be remembered as long as the Chat Noir itself.