Thus, week after week, for many a month, did Le Charivari "utilize" these impossible characters to expose and satirize the plausible scoundrelism of the period. Mr. Thackeray, who ought to be an excellent authority on any point of satirical art, praises highly the execution of these pictures by M. Daumier. They seem carelessly done, he remarks; but it is the careless grace of the consummate artist. He recommends the illustrator of "Pickwick" to study Daumier. When we remember that Thackeray had offered to illustrate "Pickwick," his comments upon the artist who was preferred to himself have a certain interest: "If we might venture to give a word of advice to another humorous designer [Hablot K. Browne], whose works are extensively circulated, the illustrator of 'Pickwick' and 'Nicholas Nickleby,' it would be to study well those caricatures of M. Daumier, who, though he executes very carelessly, knows very well what he would express, indicates perfectly the attitude and identity of the figure, and is quite aware beforehand of the effect he intends to produce. The one we should fancy to be a practiced artist taking his ease, the other a young one somewhat bewildered—a very clever one, however, who, if he would think more and exaggerate less, would add not a little to his reputation." Possessors of the early editions of "Pickwick" will be tempted to think that in this criticism of Mr. Browne's performances by a disappointed rival there was an ingredient of wounded self-love. The young author, however, in another passage, gave presage of the coming Thackeray. He observes that in France ladies in difficulties who write begging letters, or live by other forms of polite beggary, are wont to style themselves "widows of the Grand Army." They all pretended to some connection with le Grand Homme, and all their husbands were colonels. "This title," says the wicked Thackeray, "answers exactly to the clergyman's daughter in England;" and he adds, "The difference is curious as indicating the standard of respectability."
Housekeeping.
"Gracious, Dorothy, I have forgotten the meat for your cat!"
"Have you, indeed? But you didn't forget the biscuit for your bird, egotist! No matter! No matter! If there is nothing in the house for my cat, I shall give her your bird, I shall!"—From Impressions de Ménage, by Gavarni.
Many caricaturists who afterward attained celebrity were early contributors to M. Philipon's much-prosecuted periodical. Among them was "the elegant Gavarni," who for thirty years was the favorite comic artist of Paris roués and dandies—himself a roué and dandy. At this period, according to his friend, Théophile Gautier, he was a very handsome young man, with luxuriant blonde curls, always fashionably attired, somewhat in the English taste, neat, quiet, and precise, and "possessing in a high degree the feeling for modern elegances." He was of a slender form, which seemed laced in, and he had the air of being carefully dressed and thoroughly appointed, his feet being effeminately small and daintily clad. In short, he was a dandy of the D'Orsay and N. P. Willis period. For many years he expended the chief force of his truly exquisite talent in investing vice with a charm which in real life it never possesses. Loose women, who are, as a class, very stupid, very vulgar, most greedy of gain and pleasure, and totally devoid of every kind of interesting quality, he endowed with a grace and wit, a fertility of resource, an airy elegance of demeanor, never found except in honorable women reared in honorable homes. He was the great master of that deadly school of French satiric art which finds all virtuous life clumsy or ridiculous, and all abominable life graceful and pleasing.
Albums of this kind are extant in which married men are invariably represented as objects of contemptuous pity, and no man is graceful or interesting except the sneaking scoundrel who has designs upon the integrity of a household. Open the "Musée pour Rire," for example. Here is a little family of husband, wife, and year-old child in bed, just awake in the morning, the wife caressing the child, and the husband looking on with admiring fondness. This scene is rendered ridiculous by the simple expedient of making the wife and child hideously ugly, and the fond father half an idiot. Another picture shows the same child, with a head consisting chiefly of mouth, yelling in the middle of the night, while the parents look on, imbecile and helpless. Turn to the sketches of the masked ball or the midnight carouse, and all is elegant, becoming, and delightful. If the French caricatures of the last thirty years do really represent French social life and French moral feeling, we may safely predict that in another generation France will be a German province; for men capable of maintaining the independence of a nation can not be produced on the Gavarnian principles.
Marriage and civilization we might almost call synonymous terms. Marriage was at least the greatest conquest made by primitive man over himself, and the indispensable preliminary to a higher civilization. Nor has any mode yet been discovered of rearing full-formed and efficient men capable of self-control, patriotism, and high principle, except the union of both parents striving for that end with cordial resolution longer than an average life-time. It is upon this most sacred of all institutions that the French caricaturists of the Gavarni school pour ceaseless scorn and contempt. As I write these lines, my eyes fall upon one of the last numbers of a comic sheet published in Paris, on the first page of which there is a picture which illustrates this propensity. A dissolute-looking woman, smoking a cigarette, is conversing with a boy in buttons who has applied for a place in her household. "How old are you?" she asks. "Eleven, madame." "And your name?" "Joseph!" Upon this innocent reply the woman makes a comment which is truly comic, but very Gavarnian: "So young, and already he calls himself Joseph!"