Of fans referring to the Russian campaign of 1812 two appear in the Schreiber collection. In the one, Napoleon is seen on horseback, attended by a general, surveying his army, the troops saluting; in the other, the journey to Paris in a sledge drawn by three horses at full gallop, Napoleon, wrapped up in furs, looking back on the wounded and dead lying in the snow. Both fans inscribed, ‘Aventuras de Bonaparte en Rusia en 1812.’
In the subject of the Nicaragua Canal the fan assumes the role of prophet, and with this we must bring to a close this brief carnival of a century. On the 12 Vendémiaire of the year XII., one Martin la Bastide deposited in the Bibliothèque Nationale two prints of a fan setting forth his scheme for uniting two oceans through the lake of Nicaragua. He had already made the suggestion twelve years previously in Laborde’s Histoire abrégée de la mer du Sud.
He was not, however, the first to demonstrate the feasibility of cutting a canal at Nicaragua; a similar proposal had been made by the Portuguese navigator, Antonio Galvão, as early as 1550, and in the following year the Spanish historian, Gómara, submitted a memorial to Philip II., urging in forcible terms that the work be undertaken forthwith. ‘The project was, nevertheless, opposed by the Spanish Government, who concluded that a monopoly of communication with their possessions in the New World was of greater importance than a passage by sea to Cathay.’[150]
Two fans referring to this subject appear in the Schreiber collection; in the one, the map of Central America on the front, and of North America on the reverse, a portion missing: and in the other, the composition complete. The fan is adorned with, on the left, a group of allegorical figures of the four Regions of the world listening to Mercury, the god of commerce, who points out the course of the proposed canal; on the right, a reference to La Bastide’s appeal to the King of Spain, who is here listening to the voice of France urging him to complete the canal; and an elaborate border of ships, tritons, etc., with a summary of La Bastide’s investigations. Alas for vain hopes, and the futility of human endeavour, the best laid schemes are often doomed to disappointment, and it was not until nearly a century had elapsed that the canal, which La Bastide foresaw, though as through a glass darkly, had any prospect of realisation.[151]
IVORY FAN. (Madras. Nineteenth Century.)