Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Single Illustrations of Boufflers's Reine de Golconde

Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century Single Illustrations of Bouffiers's Reine de Golconde Alex Sokalski As Philip Stewart has observed, the decision to illustrate a literary text is as much commercial as aesthetic.1 In the eighteenth century, while publishers rarely provided illustrations for new texts, the tried and true were illustrated many times over. Moreover, new illustrations often resembled previous ones in fundamental ways. Eighteenth-century illustrations thus have three intertexts, all simultaneously operative: 1) the current, prevalent iconographie repertory; 2) the internal series to which they belong; 3) the literary work to which they are attached. Single illustrations created for Boufflers's Reine de Golconde from 1782 through the early nineteenth century support Stewart's argument. By the beginning of the new century, however, these intertexts were beginning to break down; illustrations from this period are less determined by current iconographie repertories and, although they recall elements from earlier plates, they are not necessarily part of an internal series. Later illustrators will become even more independent and more personalized in their vision. A literary text never determines how it is illustrated, although as Stewart observes "there are ways in which it can flag the attention of a 1 Philip Stewart, Engraven Desire: Eros, Image and Text in the French Eighteenth Century (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1992), p. ix. References are to this edition. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION, Volume 10, Number 3, April 1998 342 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION potential illustrator" (p. 2). Yet, if essentially the manner of treating the subject is not imposed, that of its content is, primarily through the existence of previous illustrations of the text chosen or through the confluence of memories of other illustrations not necessarily related to this chosen text. As illustrations of the same scene are repeated, they tend to imbue that scene with greater importance and added power. The young chevalier de Bouffiers's short story La Reine de Golconde (1761) presents in its first-person narrative four encounters of the anonymous narrator with the heroine Aline in her several metamorphoses—as innocent country girl, as Marchioness of Castlemont, as Queen of GoIconda , and, finally, as an old, withered hag living alone in a desert. It is the first encounter to which the earliest and subsequently all eighteenthcentury illustrators of this text were drawn. The narrator, lost while out hunting, sees Aline in the distance, carrying a jug of milk on her head. She crosses over a bridge; he goes to meet her; and they begin to chat. As the young man tries to kiss the maid, she attempts to defend herself and in the process spills the milk. Unfortunately for her, she slips and falls. Bouffiers' s text reads: aline voulut se défendre de mes caresses, et dans les efforts qu'elle fit, son pot tomba et son lait coula à grands flots dans le sentier. Elle se mit à pleurer, et se dégageant brusquement de mes bras, elle ramassa son pot et voulut se sauver. Son pied glissa sur la voye lactée, elle tomba à la renverse; je volai à son secours, mais inutilement. Une puissance plus forte que moi m'empêcha de la relever et m'entraîna dans sa chute.... J'avois quinze ans, et aline quatorze. C'étoit à cet âge et dans ce lieu que l'Amour nous attendoit pour nous donner ses premieres leçons.2 Pictures illustrating the different moments of this first meeting were probably overdetermined by La Fontaine's well-known fable "La Laitiere et le pot au lait" and its illustrations, and bear a striking family resemblance to them. For the first illustrators of La Reine de Golconde, then, the most important decision, the moment of choice, was already predetermined ; this meeting with its added spice of sexual suggestion fitted a defined topos and was naturally chosen for illustration. Pierre-Clément Marillier's design for the 1782 Cazin edition of the Œuvres of Bouffiers, engraved by Nicolas De Launay, recalls not only illustrations of La Fontaine's fable but also Moreau the Elder's "La cruche cassée ou le villageois entreprenant" (fig. 1), known principally 2 Stanislas de Bouffiers, "La Reine de Golconde," Contes, ed. Alex Sokalski (Paris: Soci...