Monsieur Crillac's Saloon (facing p. 165 in the 1844 edition, p. 169 in the 1865 edition) horizontally-mounted, 9.2 cm high by 14.5 cm wide, (3 ⅝ by 5 ¾ inches), vignetted steel illustration for Charles Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours," Chapter XXIII, "A Surprise" (July 1843). [Click on the image to enlarge it; mouse over links.]
Passage Illustrated: Tom as a Sous Lieutenant of the Hussars needs a Uniform
I can scarcely avoid a smile even yet as I call to mind the awe I felt on entering the splendid shop of Monsieur Crillac, — the fashionable tailor of those days, whose plateglass windows and showy costumes formed the standing point for many a lounger around the corner of the Rue de richelieu and the Boulevard. His saloon, as he somewhat ostentatiously called it, was the rendezvous for the idlers of a fashionable world, who spent their mornings canvassing the last gossip of the city and devising new extravagances in dress. The morning papers, caricatures, prints of fashions, patterns of waistcoats, and new devices for buttons, were scattered over a table, round which, in every attitude of indolence and ease, were stretched some dozen of the exquisites of the period, engaged in that species of half-ennui, half-conversation, that forms a considerable part of the existence of your young men of fashion of every age and every country. Their frock-coats of light cloth, high-collared, and covered with buttons; their bottes à revers reaching only mid-leg, and met there by a tight pantalon collant; their hair studiously brushed back off their foreheads, and worn long, though not in queue behind, bespoke them as the most accurate types of the mode. [Chapter XXIII, "A Surprise'," 165 in the 1844 edition; pp. 168-169 in the 1865 edition]
Commentary: The Wished-for Promotion leads to A Duel Better Avoided
The next scene in the tailor's shop has both a fortunate cause and an unfortunate consequence for Cadet Tom Burke suddenly transformed (probably at Napoleon's intervention) into a sou-lieutenant in the hussars. Tom has in fact been promoted to the very rank to which his friend and roommate, Sous-Lieutenant Tascher of the 21st Regiment of Foot (and, significantly, the nephew of Madame Bonaparte) had aspired — a vacant commission in the huitieme hussars. His savings from what De Meudon gave him now running out, Tom determines to use his last bank note to have a fashionable tailor design him a suitably splendid uniform in which to attend Madame Bonaparte's soirée.
Thus, Tom finds himself in the exquisite shop of Monsieur Crillac in the Place Vendome, looking out of place in his cadet's uniform. Lever indicates that a dozen fashionable young men are lounging indolently about the Boulevard showroom. In the plate, ten are customers; the tailor himself is sipping sweetened water, one elbow on the mantlepiece (upper left), and Tom has just entered the shop, right. Immediately that he makes his intention known, Tom is insulted as a Polytechnique "Pompier" by an expert duellist, De Beauvais (possibly the tall swell with the dog at his feet, centre). Without hesitation the hot-headed Tom accepts the officer's challenge, determined to pay the swaggerer back for his insolence. Only once outside does Tom reflect that his embroiling himself in a duel on the first day of his promotion will not sit well with the First Consul. In all likelihood, the date is August 1802, when Napoleon redrew the constitution, and made himself or "had just been chosen Consul for life" (162).
The illustration brilliantly captures the nonchalant ease of the young aristocrats by their fashionable period costumes (including beavers), their lounging, and their perusing the newspapers as a slender Tom enters in simple, unpretentious uniform, and studies these posers.
Further Information
- Charles Lever's Fourth Novel, Tom Burke of "Ours" (February 1843 — September 1844)
- Instalment-by-instalment Synopsis of the Novel's Plot and Characters: Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours" (February 1843)
- Instalment-by-instalment Synopsis of the Novel's Plot and Characters: Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours" (March 1843)
- Synopsis of the Novel's Plot and Characters for Tom Burke's Adventures in France in Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours" (April 1843 through June 1844)
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.]
Bibliography
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