Monsieur Dessein in the 1841 edition of "A Sentimental Journey" (1768)

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Monsieur Dessein

Jacque

Bastin

1841

Engraving on wood

6.0 cm high by x 5.5 cm wide, vignetted

Initial illustration for A Sentimental Journey (1841), page 17.

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.].

Passage Illustrated

I perceived that something darken’d the passage more than myself, as I stepp’d along it to my room; it was effectually Mons. Dessein, the master of the hôtel, who had just returned from vespers, and with his hat under his arm, was most complaisantly following me, to put me in mind of my wants. I had wrote myself pretty well out of conceit with the désobligeant, and Mons. Dessein speaking of it, with a shrug, as if it would no way suit me, it immediately struck my fancy that it belong’d to some Innocent Traveller, who, on his return home, had left it to Mons. Dessein’s honour to make the most of. Four months had elapsed since it had finished its career of Europe in the corner of Mons. Dessein’s coach-yard; and having sallied out from thence but a vampt-up business at the first, though it had been twice taken to pieces on Mount Sennis, it had not profited much by its adventures, — but by none so little as the standing so many months unpitied in the corner of Mons. Dessein’s coach-yard. Much indeed was not to be said for it, — but something might; — and when a few words will rescue misery out of her distress, I hate the man who can be a churl of them. ["Calais," pp. 16-17]

Commentary

So popular did A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy become in the years after its initial publication that the inn-keeper at Calais' Hôtel d'Angleterre, Pierre Quillacq (1726-73), became something of a celebrity to English tourists starting their own Grand Tour in Yorick's footsteps. According to Katherine Turner, "He apparently boasted to later travellers that he made more money than Sterne from the publicity A Sentimental Journey generated" (note 2, p. 63). The nickname "Dessein" means "Design," perhaps reflecting his business acumen.

Bibliography

Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. Illustrated with one hundred engravings on wood, by Bastin and G. Nichols, from original designs by Jacque and Fussell. London: Joseph Thomas, 1841.

Turner, Katherine. "Introduction" to Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. Peterborough, ON: Broadview, 2010. Pp. 11-46.

Last modified 18 September 2018