1814.
January 1, 1814. The Double Humbug, or the Devil's Imp Praying for Peace. Published by R. Ackermann.—In two compartments: Napoleon before his Slaves, and Napoleon before his Conquerors. The first view represents the Senate; the Emperor is standing on his throne, which is propped upon the crowns of conquered kingdoms; his dark friend, the Devil, is leaning over the back of the Imperial chair and prompting the specious harangue which Napoleon is addressing to the senators, who do not seem to be much interested in the proclamation, and, on the whole, according to the artist's showing, look very like a body of imbeciles. Extracts from Buonaparte's Speech. Sunday, December 19, 1813.—'Senators, Councillors of State, Deputies from the Departments to the Legislative Body,—Splendid victories have raised the glory of the French arms during this campaign. In these weighty circumstances it was my first thought to call you all around me. I have never been seduced by prosperity; I have conceived and executed great designs for the prosperity and the happiness of the world. As a monarch and a father, I feel that peace adds to the security of thrones and that of families. I have accepted proposals and the preliminaries. It is necessary to recruit my armies by numerous levies, and an increase of taxes becomes indispensable. I am satisfied with the sentiments of my people of Italy, Denmark, Naples, America, and the nineteen Swiss Cantons, and have acknowledged the laws which England has in vain sought, during four centuries, to impose on France. I have ordered discharges of artillery on my coming and leaving you.'
The other side of the picture displays the fallen Emperor under an entirely opposite aspect; this time he has to confront his enemies, and a totally changed demeanour is adopted. The Corsican is on his knees; before him is his sword, a pile of standards, and the diadems he had abstracted from numerous crowned heads; the crown of France he has tucked under his arm; all the rest he is offering to restore to his enemies, the rightful owners, who have mustered in force and are completely masters of the situation. The attitudes of the Allies are expressive of their indignation at 'Boney's' shameful avowals; while Talleyrand, on his lame leg, in the greatest trepidation at the dangers which face him, is offering to swear to the truth of the damaging admissions which his master has found it expedient to make, since falsehood will not serve him in this quarter.
'Gentlemen, Emperors, Rhenish Confederations, &c., &c., &c.,—Behold before you a fallen impostor, who has for many years been drunk and intoxicated with ambition, arrogance, and insolence; who has deceived, cheated, and tricked you on many occasions; who has foolishly and wickedly lost, within a twelvemonth, a million of brave but deluded Frenchmen; who has conceived the great and diabolical design of enslaving the world, and has lost all his friends except Yankee Maddison. Now, gentlemen, to make amends for my sins, I solicit your pardon and ask for peace on your own terms, gentlemen, and I will strictly adhere to it till.... You may take all those crowns back again, except the one belonging to the Bourbons. My Empress sends you also back the twenty flags I found in some of the churches, in the course of my flight from Leipzig. As for the story, gentlemen, of the corporal and the blowing up of the bridge, you must know 'twas mere humbug to gull the lads of Paris.'
January 1, 1814. Death and Buonaparte. Published at Ackermann's Repository.—The Corsican, who had faced and conquered Fate on so many fields of battle, is at length confronted with the grim foe under circumstances which lend additional terrors to his proximity. The reverses which overtook the conqueror at Leipzig are already threatening the downfall of that intrepid will and shaking a self-possession hitherto imperturbable.
Rowlandson has taken advantage of the thickening disasters, which had then commenced to check the prowess of the Emperor's armies, to represent the Corsican in a fit of despondency, forlorn and abstracted, seated on a drum in an attitude of dejection, with his head between his hands, staring in the face of the King of Terrors, of whose close company he is seemingly too self-occupied to take much heed. The grim destroyer, as the skeleton Death, is watching the baffled general face to face, assuming a parody of his attitude, and seated on a gun, with a broken eagle standard at his bony feet. The Russian, Austrian, Prussian, Bavarian, and other allied armies are streaming along in unbroken hosts, scattering the dismayed legions of France, and making havoc amidst the ranks of the discouraged Grand Army, which is melting away before the combined forces.
The transparency exhibited at Ackermann's Repository (See Nov. 5, 1813) on the occasion of the illuminations for the victory of Leipzig.
January, 1814. [Madame Véry], Restaurateur, Palais Royal, Paris. T. N. del., Rowlandson sculp. (348).