Napoleon's Burden.
From a German cartoon of the period.
This was followed on the 1st of January by a large satirical print by Gillray, of "The Grand Coronation Procession," in which the feature that gave special offense was the group of three princesses, the Princess Borghese, the Princess Louise, and the Princess Joseph Bonaparte, arrayed in garments of indecent scantiness, and heading the procession as the "three imperial Graces." The English caricatures of this period relating to the new Emperor and Empress are as a rule not only libelous, but grossly coarse. At the same time, the political conditions of the times are cleverly hit off in "The Plum Pudding in Danger; or, State Epicures Taking on Petit Souper," published February 26, 1805, which depicts the rival pretensions of Napoleon and Pitt. They are seated at opposite sides of the table, the only dish between them being the Globe, served up on a shallow plate and resembling a plum pudding. Napoleon's sword has sliced off the continent—France, Holland, Spain, Italy, Prussia—and his fork is dug spitefully into Hanover, which was then an appanage of the British crown. Pitt's trident is stuck in the ocean, and his carver is modestly dividing the Globe down the middle.
During the summer of 1805 the third coalition against France was completed, its chief factors being Great Britain, Russia, and Austria. A contemporary print entitled "Tom Thumb at Bay" commemorates the new armament. Napoleon, dropping crown and scepter in his flight, is evading the Austrian eagle, the Russian bear, and the Westphalian pig, only to run at last pell-mell into the gaping jaws of the British lion. It is somewhat curious that the momentous events of the new war—the annihilation of the French fleet at Trafalgar, the equally decisive French victory at Austerlitz—were scarcely noticed in caricature, and a few exceptions have little merit. But in the following January, 1806, when Napoleon had entered upon an epoch of king-making, with his kings of Wurtemburg and Bavaria, Gillray produced one of his most famous prints. It was published the 23d of January (the day that Pitt breathed his last), and was entitled "Tiddy-Doll, the Great French Gingerbread Baker, Drawing out a new Batch of Kings, His Man, 'Hopping Talley,' Mixing up the Dough." The great gilt gingerbread baker is shown at work at his new French oven for imperial gingerbread. He is just drawing from the oven's mouth a fresh batch of kings. The fuel is shown in the form of cannon-balls. Holland, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Venice and Spain are following the fate of the French Republic. On top of the chest of drawers, labeled respectively "kings and queens," "crowns and scepters," "suns and moons" is arranged a gay parcel of little dough viceroys intended for the next batch. Among them are the figures of Fox, Sheridan, Derby, and others of the Whig party in England.
The French Gingerbread Baker.
In the comprehensive and ill-assorted Coalition ministry which was formed soon after Pitt's death, the caricaturists found a congenial topic for their pencils. They ridiculed it unmercifully under the title "All the Talents," and the "Board Bottomed" ministry. A composite picture by Rowlandson shows the ministry as a spectacled ape in the wig of a learned justice, with episcopal mitre and Catholic crozier. He wears a lawyer's coat and ragged breeches, with a shoe on one foot and a French jack-boot on the other. He is dancing on a funeral pyre of papers, the results of the administration, its endless negotiations with France, its sinecures and patronages, which are blazing away. The creature's foot is discharging a gun, which produces signal mischief in the rear and brings down two heavy folios, the Magna Charta and the Coronation Oath, upon its head.