- Museum number
- 1868,0822.7196
- Title
- Object: Acts of adhesion!!! / Satirist June 1st. 1814
- Description
-
Plate from the 'Satirist', xiv (n.s. iv). Louis XVIII, seated on the throne, flanked by an officer with drawn sword and by Talleyrand, is surrounded by Marshals and officers of Napoleon, eager to 'adhere' to the restored king. He turns his head in profile to the right, where Talleyrand stands at his left hand, saying, "Welcome my Honest Friends!!!" Talleyrand, who stands with his left foot on the lower dais, the right, in its surgical shoe, on the upper dais, close to the King, says: "I was born to be your Slave." He wears clerical gown and bands. The officer on the King's right says: "Vive le Roi & l'Amour." (He is presumably Marmont, the traitor par excellence of the abdication, see No. 12237.) At the steps of the throne (right) kneels an officer who extends his left arm in a dramatic gesture, saying, "A Vice of Kings may be a good Subject," showing that he is Eugène de Beauharnais. Behind him stands a grotesquely hideous officer who holds behind his back a plate inscribed 'Duke D. Eng[hien]' on which is a decollated head; he holds out his right hand to Louis, saying, "I had no hand in seizing him," showing that he is Caulaincourt. Behind him is a fat plebeian-looking man with a birch-rod tied to his waist, who says: "Make way for the Lady-flogging Hoggendrop [? Augereau]." On the extreme right stands another rough-looking man, wearing a cocked hat with a white cockade, and holding a tiny guillotine behind his back [? Jourdan]. Less conspicuous is another 'adhering' officer, and behind the throne (right) a turbaned figure who is presumably Roustan, Napoleon's faithless Mameluke.
Three officers are on the left One doffs his cocked hat with white cockade; behind his back he holds a paper inscribed 'Plan of the Sacking of Sarragosa', suggesting that he is Mortier. Next him stands Soult, with framed pictures hanging from his shoulders; he bows, saying, "I adhere, provided all my robberies adhere to me Spanish Pictures & all." The third, Davout, stands with a model of a building inscribed 'Hamburg Bank' hanging from his shoulders; he says: "Da! Vos!" On the extreme left two men hasten off to the left, one is a priest, wearing a skull-cap, long robe, sandals, and rosary; he says: "Im blown - no hopes of being Pope," showing that he is Cardinal Fesch. His companion, a ruffianly fellow, registers rage, saying, "Are there no Daggers still in the World."
1814
Hand-coloured etching
- Production date
- 1814
- Dimensions
-
Height: 202 millimetres (cropped)
-
Width: 347 millimetres (cropped)
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- (Description and comment from M. Dorothy George, 'Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum', IX, 1949)
After Napoleon's abdication his marshals hastened competitively to adhere to Louis XVIII. See Aulard, 'Les Adhésions aux Bourbons en 1814', L'a Rév. fr.', Apr. 1890. The 'Moniteur' from 7 to 14 Apr. was filled with these acts of adhesion or professions of loyalty, notably from Augereau (see No. 10362) and Jourdan. Houssaye, '1814', ed. of 1915, p. 641. See 'Examiner', 1 May 1814 (p. 283), where the adhesions of Brune, Augereau, Masséna, Soult, and Suchet are noted. On the arrival of the King in Paris the marshals dined with him. Ibid., p. 292. Soult had accumulated works of art and church treasures in Spain. Davout marched out of Hamburg only on news of the abdication. On returning to France he was disgraced and ordered to stand his trial on three charges, one being that he had seized the Bank of Hamburg. Though Caulaincourt, like Davout, remained faithful to the Emperor, and was excluded from the House of Peers, he was presented to Louis XVIII. He had been deliberately implicated by Napoleon in the seizure of the Duc d'Enghien, see No. 10251, but was guiltless of his death. See 'Memoirs of Caulaincourt', 1938, ii. 391-5. Eugène de Beauharnais, the Viceroy of Italy, did not adhere to Louis XVIII. He came to Paris to visit Josephine on 9 May,, and then paid his respects to the King. Geer, 'Napoleon and his Family', iii, 1929, p. 122.
Reid, No. 338. Cohn, No. 720.
- Location
- Not on display
- Associated titles
Associated Title: Satirist
- Acquisition date
- 1868
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1868,0822.7196
