The Foraging Party (facing p. 173 in the 1844 edition, p. 220 in the 1869 edition) horizontally-mounted, 8.7 cm high by 16.5 cm wide (3 ½ by 6 ½ inches), vignetted steel engraving for Charles Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours," Chapter LXXII, "A Chance Meeting" (June 1844). [Click on the image to enlarge it; mouse over links.]
Passage Illustrated: A Jolly Military Scene involving Abundant Stores
As we approached the village, I was soon made aware of the objects of the party who occupied it. The little street was crowded with cattle, bullocks, and sheep, fast wedged up amid huge wagons of forage and carts of corn; mounted dragoons urging on the jaded animals, regardless of the angry menaces or the impatient appeals incessantly making by the peasantry, who in great numbers had followed their stock from their farms.
The soldiers, who were detachments of different corps, were also quarrelling among themselves for their share of the spoil; and these altercations, in which more than once I saw a sabre flash, added to the discord. It was, indeed, a scene of tumult and confusion almost inconceivable. Here were a party of cuirassiers, carbine in hand, protecting a drove of sheep; around which the country people were standing, seemingly irresolute whether they should essay an attack, a movement often prompted by the other soldiers, who hoped in the mêlée to seize a part of the prey. Many of the oxen were bestrode by hussars or lancers, whose gay trappings formed a strange contrast with the beasts they rode on; while more than one stately horseman held a sheep before him on the saddle, for whose protection a cocked pistol seemed no ineffectual guarantee. [Chapter LXXII, "A Chance Meeting," pp. 172-173 in the 1844 edition; Chapter XXVIII, 220 in the 1869 edition]
Commentary: Returning on foot to France from Prussia
In the company of an aged priest (a veteran of the Egyptian and more recent Napoleonic campaigns), Tom makes his way westward, but leaves the ailing cleric to get help at a nearby village when the old traveller collapses. He now encounters a unit of the Fourth Cuirassiers of the Guard, Milhaud's brigade, whose officer agrees to lend Tom two of his men to bring back the sick priest to the village of Heimbach (an actual place in Westphalia). When Tom's companions see the good priest of Sèvres, they immediately recognize him as Père Arsène, who served with them in Italy. The present scene of "foraging" in the square of the village greets Tom and his companions as they enter Heimbach with Père Arsène. Needless to say, the peasants and village-folk are not happy about the French soldiers' robbing them of their flocks and farm-yard animals. One of the corporals gives up his billet in the summer-house of the Trauben, the local inn, in order to accommodate the exhausted priest. We encounter the interior in the very next illustration, The Summer House in the same chapter.
Further Information
- Phiz and Lever: A Fascination with Napoleon (1840-43; seven plates)
- 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, 1869. 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 22 November 2023