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The Chouans
Phiz
August 1843 (seventh) instalment
Steel-engraving
13.1 cm by 10.4 cm (5 ⅛ by 4 ¼ inches), vignetted.
Charles Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours", Chapter XXXI, "The 'Chateau'" (August 1843), facing p. 223 in the 1844 edition, and 230 in the 1865 edition.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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I had not gone far when I saw a portion of the wall which broken and dilapidated, afforded the opportunity desired. I hesitated not, but dashed wildly at it. My horse, unaccustomed to such an effort, chested the barrier, and came rolling head foremost to the earth, throwing me several yards before him. A cry of pain escaped me as I fell; and I scarcely could gain my knees to rise, when the hoarse bay of a savage dog broke upon my ear, and I heard the animal tearing through the brushwood towards me. I drew my sabre in a trice, and scarce knowing at what side to defend myself, laid wildly about me, while I shouted with all my might for help. The furious beast sprang like a tiger at my throat, and, though wounded by a chance cut, seized me in his terrible fangs. Fortunately the strong collar of my uniform served to protect me; but the violence of the assault carried me off my balance, and we rolled one over the other to the ground. Grasping his throat with both hands, I endeavoured to strangle him, while he vainly sought to reach my face.
At this critical moment my cries were heard within, and numerous lights flitted up and down in front of the château, and a crowd of persons, all armed, were quickly about me. Seizing the dog by his collar, a peasant tore him away; while another, holding a lantern to my face, cried out in a voice of terror, “They are upon us! we are lost!”
“Parbleu! you should let Colbert finish his work — he is a 'blue;' they are but food for dogs any day.”
“Not so,” said another, in a low, determined voice; “this is a surer weapon.”
I heard the cock of a pistol click as he spoke. [Chapter XXXI, "The 'Chateau'," p. 223 in the 1844 edition; 230 in the 1865 edition]
The Rose of Provence tells Tom that she has seen her brother's spirit in the little lake near the Trianon. Other eventful moments in the summer months include the overnight visits of the politically outspoken Abbé d'Ervan and of Henri De Beauvaise, cousin of Mademoiselle Marie De Meudon. Tom and De Beauvaise part on less than amicable terms because his Bourbonist sentiments morally compromise Tom's devotion to Napoleon and the Revolution. Even though he is charge of external security, Tom has not been invited to any social events at the Trianon because of deliberate misinformation about his loyalty spread by the notorious spy Mehée de la Touche (according to "The Rose"). Otherwise, the ensuing fall proves uneventful as the Bonapartes depart for Boulogne to review the great army poised to invade Great Britain, and the court returns to the Tuileries Palace in Paris. Then, on 14 January 1804 the préfet de Police in Paris, Colonel Savary, orders Tom to establish pickets at two nearby cross-roads, and detain any travellers who cannot give a good account of themselves. Clearly some sort of plot by "Chouans" (a Breton expression for counter-revolutionaries from the 1793 Vendén royalist uprising) is afoot, and a second (unsigned) note implicates "H. de B."
Marie asks Tom to save her beloved Henri from arrest. Mounting his horse and armed, Tom must locate the Château d'Ancre, where a party directed by Savary intend to arrest the conspirators at midnight. His destination is some two and half leagues away on bad road, according to Tom's sergeant, who has warned his lieutenant about a mastiff who guards the gateway. At the very moment realised in the illustration, just as the chouan points a pistol in Tom's face by the light of the lantern, De Beauvaise intervenes, and ushers him into the royalist château in the background. Apparently he has arrived at the ivy-covered walls (rear) ahead of Savary's dragoons, just in time to save De Beauvaise from arrest. His horse has thrown Tom, and the watchdog has attacked his throat, although Phiz has eliminated the beast's "terrible fangs" (229) and made the hound, Colbert, look far less intimidating than Lever has described him. Presumably, the figure in the background, among the peasants, hand raised, is Beauvaise. The peasants are armed with pikes, but Phiz has included no cutlasses and just the one pistol, and the scene plays out in the light of the lantern. The August 1843 instalment ends with Henri's rescuing Tom from the encircling peasants in the wainscoted foyer of the château.
Buchanan-Brown, John. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.
Lester, Valerie Browne Lester. Chapter 11: "'Give Me Back the Freshness of the Morning!'" Phiz! The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004. Pp. 108-127.
Lever, Charles. Tom Burke of "Ours." Dublin: William Curry, Jun., 1844. Illustrated by H. K. Browne. London: Chapman and Hall, 1865. Serialised February 1843 through September 1844. 2 vols.
Lever, Charles. Tom Burke of "Ours." Illustrated by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. Vol. I and II. In two volumes. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 24 February 2021.
Steig, Michael. Chapter Four: "Dombey and Son: Iconography of Social and Sexual Satire." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 86-112.
Stevenson, Lionel. Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939.
_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.
Created 2 November 2023