[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Phiz (Hablot K. Browne) —> Tom Burke of "Ours" —> Next]
The Lady of the Lake
Phiz
August 1843 (seventh) instalment
Steel-engraving
13.5 cm by 10.4 cm (5 ¼ by 4 ¼ inches), vignetted.
Charles Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours", Chapter XXIX, "La Rose de Provence" (August 1843), facing p. 205 in the 1844 edition, and 211 in the 1865 edition.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
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.]
We sat down upon a grassy bench beside the stream, where I at once began the narrative of my first acquaintance with De Meudon. At first the rush of sensations that came crowding on me made me speak with difficulty and effort. The flutter of her dress as the soft wind waved it to and fro, the melody of her voice, and her full, languid eye, where sorrow and long-buried affection mingled their expression, sent thrilling through my heart thoughts that I dared not dwell upon. Gradually, as I proceeded, my mind recurred to my poor friend, and I warmed as I spoke of his heroic darings and his bold counsels. All his high-souled ardour, all the nobleness of his great nature, his self-devotion, and his suffering, were again before me, mingled with those traits of womanly softness which only belong to those whose courage was almost fanaticism. How her dark eyes grew darker as she listened, and her parted lips and her fast-heaving bosom betrayed the agitation that she felt! And how that proud look melted into sorrow when I told of the day when his outpouring heart recurred to home and her, the loved one of his boyhood!
Every walk in that old terraced garden, each grassy alley and each shady seat, I knew as though I saw them. Although I did not mention Claude, nor even distinctly allude to the circumstances which led to their unhappiness, I could see that her cheek became paler and paler; and that, despite an effort to seem calm, the features moved with a slight jerking motion, her lip trembled convulsively, and, with a low, sad sigh she fell back fainting.
I sprang down the bank towards the lake, and in an instant dipped my chako in the water; and as I hastened back, she was sitting up, her eyes staring madly round her, her look wild almost to insanity, while her out-stretched finger pointed to the copse of low beech near us.
“There, there! I saw him!” said she. “He was there now. Look! look!” [Chapter XXIX, "La Rose de Provence," 205 in the 1844 edition; 211 in the 1865 edition]
Ever since he had his first glimpse of Marie De Rochford, The Rose of Provence, Madame Bonaparte's confidant, on the parade ground of the Polytechnique in the scene which Phiz realizes as Tom distinguishes himself in Chapter XXI, "The 'École Militaire'," he has been obsessed by her stunning beauty and frank personality. How fortunate, then, that she turns out to be the cousin of his new best friend, the aristocratic De Beauvaise, who is quite prepared to arrange a rendezvous with her in "the green alleys of Versailles" (187). This scene on the grounds of the Bourbon palace occurs just after the British ambassador has demanded his passports and fled Paris after the collapse of the Treaty of Amiens and the sudden prospect of a renewal of hostilities in what historians will now call "The Napoleonic Wars" rather than "The Revolutionary Wars."
Whereas all the other Hussar regiments have been reassigned to the coming offensive with Great Britain, by some odd turn of events (which Tom ascribes to Henri De Beauvaise's influence) his own squadron, the huitiéme, has been ordered to Versailles, "to execute le service des dépéches from St. Cloud and Versailles to Paris." And so, at the conclusion of Chapter XXVII, "The March to Versailles," Tom finds himself quartered in a building adjoining the Palace of Versailles, where he discovers a sumptuous supper awaiting him. In Chapter XXVIII, "The Park of Versailles," it immediately becomes apparent that his unit's mission is not despatches, but guarding the palace and its grounds, and the court of Madame Bonaparte and her hordes of guests, but Tom for three weeks himself remains a social isolate, uninvited to any soirées and other social functions.
From his friend the Abbé D’Ervan Tom learns that Henri De Beauvaise had asked for the permission of Madame Bonaparte to marry his beautiful cousin Marie, nicknamed the Rose of Provence. However, since the Bonapartes regard the youth from a prominent Bourbonist family as a “chouan” (Breton slang for an insurrectionist), they refuse. From his friend the Abbé D’Ervan Tom also learns that the Rose of Provence is Charles de Meudon’s sister, and that De Beavaise is in love with her: Marie de Rochford (to avoid using her proscribed, Bourbonist last name, De Meudon) even looks the female counterpart of her dead brother, and yet Tom had failed until now to detect the resemblance. And now, as the officer on duty, Tom makes his rounds between the pickets and deliberately approaches a dark alley in the trees near the Trianon that leads to a little lake, the setting for his meeting with “Mademoiselle de Meudon.” When he encounters her by the lake on her favourite walk, Tom addresses her by her proscribed surname, and reveals his relationship with her brother Charles. She, of course, immediately wants to know about the circumstances of her brother's death. She had received letters from Charles describing the Irish "youth that loved him so tenderly" (210) — and Tom is that very youth. Suddenly she experiences a fit as she believes that she has just seen the spirit of her dead brother reflected in the water.
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