‘Anticipation for Boney—or, a Court Martial on the Cowardly Deserter from the Grand Army,’ by G. Cruikshank (March 6, 1813), is an imaginary scene of what might happen, did the Emperor meet with his deserts. The Parisian mob have the upper hand, and a cobbler has been proclaimed Emperor in his stead. Before this awful being, Boney is dragged by a ferocious butcher, who, with an enormous axe in one hand, holds in the other the halter which encircles the neck of poor trembling Boney, who is on his knees, with upraised, supplicating hands. The sans-culotte Emperor Crispin is seated in a chair, on a haut pas; a cap of liberty, on a pole, behind him. In one hand he holds a hammer, and one foot rests on a lapstone. Pointing to the wretched culprit, he says, ‘Well! you are found guilty of cowardly deserting from the grand army, and, by repairing here with your cobbling defence, you have done a d—d bad job for yourself, and, as your time waxes near its end, I would have you prepare your Sole for your Last. So off with his head, Mr. Butcher.’ The butcher looks unutterable things at Boney, saying, ‘Ah, D—n you we’ll cut off your head, and your Tail too!’ The poor craven wretch, with streaming eyes, and upstanding hair, pitifully supplicates that at all events his head should be spared. But the yelling mob cry out, ‘Off with his head.’ ‘Aye, Aye, he has butchered Millions.’ And the women and children scream, ‘Where’s my husband, wretch?’ ‘Where’s my Father?’ ‘Where’s my Daddy?’ &c.
Drilling went on, a necessary step to the formation of a new army, and the French temperament is well shown in a caricature, published in April 1813, of ‘Nap reviewing the Grand Army, or the Conquest of Russia anticipated,’ in which, during the march past, he points to his soldiers with his sword, and says to two of his generals, ‘With this Army will I crush those Russian Scourges, and make all Nations tremble at my wrath.’ One general, in his enthusiasm, exclaims, ‘Parbleu! vid dis Armée ve vil conquer de Heaven!!!’ The other, evidently an Anglophobe, says, ‘And de Hell too, dat we may send dere de dam Anglais.’
In April Napoleon judged that his army was in a fit state to take the field, and the caricaturist’s idea of a council of war is humorously told in the picture of ‘Boney and the Gay lads of Paris calculating for the next Triumphal entry into Moscow.’ This broadside, which made its appearance in April 1813, represents Bonaparte and his generals in council. The latter are in different stages of dilapidation, some having lost their noses, others with their feet bound up, and all more or less suffering from frost-bite. One, pointing to a map, says, ‘By Gar, Sire, we had better go to Petersburgh at once.’ Napoleon replies, ‘Aye, and then we can march to Siberia, and release the Exiles, who will gladly join us, and abjure their tyrant.’ Two generals, in conversation together, do not seem to relish the plan. One remarks, ‘Sacre Dieu, I no like de Russia Campaign. I lose my nose, my fingers, and toes, in de last.’ And the other replies, ‘Eh bien, den now we lose all our odds and ends.’ The letterpress is as follows:—
Master Boney was fain, after fighting with Spain,
And loseing some thousands of men;
To make an attack on the Russian Cossack,
With Nations to assist him full Ten.
He began with a boast, that he’d scower their Coast,
And drive them all into the Sea;
He continued his blow, till he got to Moscow,
His designed Winter quarters to be.
But when he got there, Lord how he did stare
To see the whole place in a flame,
Not a house for his head, not a rug for his bed,
Neither plunder, nor victuals, nor fame. ·
So he sent every Scout, who ran in and out,
But brought neither forage, nor food;
For that d—d Wittgenstein, so compleat hem’d him in,
That they dared not to venture a rood.
Now the fire having ceas’d, and the frost much encreas’d,
No cov’ring, no clothes to protect ’em;
Boney thought to be packing, Kutusoff began hacking,
And the Cossacks did fairly dissect ’em.
Says this Corsican wight, Why let my Friends fight,
As for me, the old Proverb I’ll follow,
He that fights and then runs, may, in spite of their guns,
Live! and some future day beat them hollow.