When Louis XIII. came to the throne, the wit of the caricaturists was little keener, if we may judge by the coarse pictorial lazzi inspired by the disgrace and death of the Maréchal d'Ancre, and the Dutch and Spanish prints designed in ridicule of the French; but some years later, when Callot had introduced into the treatment of burlesque a keenness and delicacy which it could hardly have been expected to attain, the comic prints assumed under the burin of certain engravers an appearance of greater ingenuity and less brutality.
It is needless to remark that at the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV.—indeed, during the whole time of the Fronde and the foreign occupation of a part of French territory—it was Mazarin and the Spaniards who came in for all the epigrams. In the caricatures of the day the Spaniards were invariably represented with enormous ruffs, in tatters superbly worn, and, to complete the allusion to their poverty, with bunches of beetroot and onions at their belts. There is nothing particularly comic, nor especially refined, in the execution of the prints. In piquancy and truth, these jokes about Spanish manners and Spanish food recall those presently to be made in England about Frenchmen, who are there invariably represented as frog-eaters and dancing-masters. Yet comparing the facetiæ of that period with the exaggerated or obscene humours which preceded them, it seems as though the domain of caricature were even then being opened up to worthy precursors of the lively draughtsmen of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: in fact, as though some Attic salt were already penetrating to Bœotia.
This advance is visible in the satires published towards the end of the reign of Louis XIV. The "Procession Monacale," a set of twenty-four engravings which appeared in Holland (where many Protestants had taken refuge), attacked with considerable vigour the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and the principal persons who had participated in that measure. Louvois, Mme. de Maintenon, and all the privy councillors of Louis XIV., are represented under the cowl, and with significant attributes. Even the king figures in this series of heroes of the New League; he is in a monk's frock like the others, but a sun, in allusion to his lofty device, serves for his face, and this hooded Phœbus bears in his hand a torch to light himself through the surrounding darkness. The prints that make up this set, as well as many more in the same style, are designed and engraved with a certain amount of spirit. They serve to prove that in the frivolous arts, as well as in the comic literature of the day, the object was to make "decent folk" laugh, and to keep joking within bounds. In a word, in comparison with former caricatures they are as the vaudevilles of the Italian comedy to the farces once played on the boards of strolling theatres.
Every sort of engraving being cultivated in France with more success than anywhere else, under Louis XIV. the trade in prints became one of the most flourishing branches of French industry. The great historical plates, it is true—those at any rate which, like the "Batailles d'Alexandre," were published at the king's cost—were chiefly sold in France, and were not often exported, save as presents to sovereigns and ambassadors. But portraits, domestic scenes, and fashion plates, were shipped off in thousands, and flooded all parts of Europe. Before the second half of the seventeenth century, the chief printsellers (for the most part engravers themselves and publishers of their own works) were established in Paris on the Quai de l'Horloge, or, like Abraham Bosse, in the interior of the Palace. Rather later than this, the most popular shops were to be found in the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Sèverin. If we examine the prints then published in Paris, we may count as many as thirty publishers living in the Rue St. Jacques alone, and amongst the number are many famous names: as Gérard Audran, "at the sign of the Two Golden Pillars;" François de Poilly, "at the sign of St. Benedict," and so forth.
Hence, we may mention, in passing, the mistake which attributes to engravers of the greatest talent the production of bad plates, to which they would never have put finger except to take proofs. For instance, the words "Gérard Audran excudit," to be found at the bottom of many such, do not mean that they were engraved by the master, but only published by him. Often, too, pseudonyms—not always in the best possible taste—concealed the name of the publisher and the place of publication: a precaution easily understood, as it was generally applied to obscenities, and particularly to those called "pièces à surprise," which were then becoming common, and continued to increase indefinitely during the following century. True art, however, is but little concerned with such curiosities; and it is best to look elsewhere for its manifestations.
The superior merit of the engraving of the masters of the French school had attracted numbers of foreign artists to Paris. Many took root there, amongst them Van Schuppen and the Flemings commissioned to engrave the "Victoires du Roi," painted by Van der Meulen; others, having finished their course of study, returned to their own countries, the missionaries of French doctrine and of French manner. The result of this united influence was an almost exact similarity in all the line engravings produced, by men of whatever nationality or from whatever originals. Thus, the portraits engraved by the German Johann Hainzelmann from Ulrich Mayer and Joachim Sandrart, scarcely differ from those he had formerly engraved from French artists: the "Michel Le Tellier," for instance, and the "Président Dufour." The historical plates published about the same time in Germany prove the same lively zeal in imitation. In them art appears as, so to speak, a French subject; and Gustave Ambling, Bartholomew Kilian[43] and many more of their countrymen—pupils, like these two, of François de Poilly—might be classed amongst the engravers of the French school, if the style of their work were the only thing to be considered.
An examination of the prints published by Flemish and Dutch artists later than the school of Rubens and Van Dalen, would justify a like observation. We may fairly regard Van Schuppen only as a clever pupil of Nanteuil, and Cornelius Vermeulen as an imitator, less successful, but no less subservient. And when we turn to the Italian engravers of the seventeenth century, we find that, as a rule, their work is marked by so impersonal a physiognomy, is so much the outcome of certain preconceived and rigid conventions, that one could almost believe them inspired by the same mind, and done by the same hand.
Whilst French influence reigned almost supreme in Germany and the Low Countries, and Italian art became more and more the slave of routine, English engraving had not yet begun to feel the influence of the progress elsewhere achieved since the beginning of the century. The time was, however, at hand when, in the reign of Louis XV., London engravers who came to study in Paris should return to their own country to practise successfully the lessons they had learned. We must, therefore, presently turn to them; but, before speaking of the pupils, we must briefly mention the achievements of the masters, and narrate the story of French engraving in France after the death of the excellent artists of the age of Louis XIV.