We have seen the European monarchs sitting down to a game of quadrille. Ansell (August 1808) gives us its conclusion. Spain has suddenly arisen, and, upsetting the table, seizes Napoleon by the throat, accusing him of foul play: ‘I tell you, you are a Scoundrel, and if you do not restore my King, whom you have stolen from the other table, and reinstate Ponto—by the honor of a Spanish Patriot, I will strangle you.’ Trembling Bonaparte replies, ‘Don’t be so boisterous, I only borrowed him, merely to make up the pack.’ The Pope is on the floor, and the stolid Dutchman, with his hat in hand, says, ‘Donder and Blixens, I be quite tired of de game. Yaw! Yaw! now is de time for me to rise.’ At the other table all take a lively interest in the squabble. George the Third rises from his seat and grasps his ‘heart of oak’ stick, saying, ‘What! what! a dust, eh? so much the better. Boney got the worst of the game. I must lend a hand.’ Russia, with hand on sword, turns in his chair, remarking that ‘Now is the time to rub off the rust of Tilsit.’ Prussia rises, exclaiming, ‘If I don’t take advantage of the present opportunity, I shall indeed be a Prussian Cake.’ Austria reaches his hat and sword from its peg on the wall, and says, ‘Ah! Ah! the game has taken a different turn from what I expected, I must not be idle.’
The next caricature relates to the bad success of Napoleon’s arms. The raising the siege of Saragossa, the defeat of Vimiera, and the Convention of Cintra, by which the French were to evacuate Portugal, were not facts likely to be relished in France.
‘The Fox and the Grapes’ is another of Woodward’s (September 15, 1808), where the Corsican Fox interviews the Gallic Cock. The former says, ‘Believe me, my dear Doodle doo, you would not like them—I found them so sour that I absolutely could not touch them,’ in answer to the Cock’s query—‘But my good friend, you promised to bring me home some Spanish Grapes and Portugal plums: where are they?’
‘Prophecy explained’ is by Rowlandson (September 17, 1808), and the text taken is from the Revelation of St. John (chap. xvii. verse 10): ‘And there are seven kings, five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come, and when he cometh he must continue but a short space.’ The five that are fallen are the Kings of Würtemberg, Saxony, Holland, Bavaria, and Prussia, and these have fallen into a ‘Slough of Disgrace and Ridicule.’ The ‘one that is,’ it is needless to say, is Napoleon; and the ‘one that continued but a short space,’ is King Joseph, who, having been chased beyond the Pyrenees, has his crown snatched from him. There are many other caricatures on this subject of the flight of Joseph, but, although interesting, they hardly come within the scope of personal satire on Napoleon.
Rowlandson gives us (September 20, 1808) ‘Napoleon the little in a Rage with his great French Eagle!!’ Napoleon, with his sword drawn, and his hands clenched, is in a terrible rage with his brother Joseph, who, under the guise of a crowned eagle, is limping along with one leg in a sling. Napoleon thus addresses him: ‘Confusion and Destruction—what is this I see? Did I not command you not to return till you had spread your Wing of Victory over the whole Spanish Nation?’ And the poor bird meekly replies: ‘Aye, its fine talking Nap, but if you had been there, you would not much have liked it—The Spanish Cormorants pursued me in such a manner, that they not only disabled one of my legs, but set me a moulting in such a terrible way that I wonder I had not lost every feather; besides, it got so hot, I could not bear it any longer.’
There is a caricature (September 24, 1808) of ‘A hard passage, or Boney playing Base on the Continent.’ He is here represented as playing on the bass viol from the score of the ‘Conquest of Spain and Portugal.’ His task seems hard, and he exclaims: ‘Plague take it! I never met with so difficult a passage before. But, if I can once get over the Flats, we shall do pretty well, for you see the Key will then change into B sharp.’ A muzzled Russian bear is trying to play on the French horn, and says: ‘Why that is Natural enough, brother Boney, though this French horn of yours seems rather out of order.’
CHAPTER XLVI.
PENINSULAR WAR, continued—MEETING AT ERFURT.
‘The Valley of the Shadow of Death’ is, as far as I know, the last caricature of Gillray (September 24, 1808) in connection with Napoleon—if, indeed, it can be called a caricature, for it is far too serious in its conception. Napoleon’s situation at the moment is here firmly grasped. He is surrounded by enemies. With notched sword in hand, he leads the Russian bear. He is pursued by the German eagle and the spirit of Charles XII. Above is the ‘Turkish New Moon Rising in blood,’ the obscured portion of which is represented by ‘French Influence,’ the bright crescent as ‘English Influence,’ and the whole is dropping blood. A fiery comet, with a tiara as a nucleus (the Pope), is darting thunderbolts of excommunication upon him; whilst Junot and Dupont, shackled together at their necks, amidst clouds, seem to warn him of his fate. Immediately in front of him is a Portuguese wolf, which has broken its chain, a Sicilian terrier, and the Leo Britannicus. Death also appears, lance in one hand, hour-glass in the other, on a mule of ‘True Royal Spanish breed.’ In the Ditch of Styx is disappearing ‘Rex Joseph,’ whose hands and crown alone appear above water. Creeping upwards from the slime of the Lethean Ditch, is ‘The Rhenish Confederation of starved Rats, crawling out of the Mud,’ also ‘Dutch Frogs spitting out their spite’; whilst the ‘American Rattle Snake is shaking his tail,’ and the ‘Prussian scarecrow is attempting to fly.’