Creighton University

Perhaps beginning with this issue was a series on La Fontaine's fables.  This issue contains a full-page illustration featuring a cameo bust of La Fontaine surrounded by characters from his fables, with a book of them in front of the large cameo (p. 769).  The book's title-page mentions A. Pastelot, who did all the fable illustrations in this series.  The engraver has a signature in the lower right of this engraving: Henry Breval(s).  Before (p. 767) and after this engraving is a substantial essay on La Fontaine by Charles Vincent, especially his life.  I presume that this essay is an introduction to the series.  By contrast with the other issues we have, this number does not have a fable item on its first page.  

This issue's first page presents a half-page wood-engraving titled "Le Coche et la Mouche."  There is a follow-up on 92, including a more literal illustration of the fable. four paragraphs by Ch(arles) V(incent), and La Fontaine's text.  The comments by Vincent explain that there will be a fable selected each month which contains the purest morality, with two wood engravings conceived by Pastelot and engraved by Breval, one "représentant exactement la scène racontée par le fabuliste" and the other substituting men for the animals.  In this scene of "The Coach and Fly," I admit to having trouble establishing who is the fly or even what is going on in this apparently aristocratic scene.  This issue is sixteen pages long.  L'Illustrateur des Dames et Demoiselles: Journal des Soirées de Famille seems to have been known as a "Journal de Mode."  It carried items of interest to women, particularly fashion.  Its masthead presents the same engraving of women gathered around sewing, piano playing and singing, reading, and painting.  Pages were three columns wide.

This issue's first page presents a half-page wood-engraving titled "Le Héron."  Here a tall male aristocrat with sword is being offered an apple by a barefoot (colonial?) child.  To judge from comparison with the "straight" fable representation on 168, this scene shows the heron needing to eat a snail.  The stance and even the nose of the male figure echo the stance and beak of the heron.  The two human figures are pictured near the water, with a church steeple and perhaps sailing ships in the background.  This issue is sixteen pages long.  L'Illustrateur des Dames et Demoiselles: Journal des Soirées de Famille seems to have been known as a "Journal de Mode."  It carried items of interest to women, particularly fashion.  Its masthead presents the same engraving of women gathered around sewing, piano playing and singing, reading, and painting.  Pages are three columns wide. 

This issue's first page presents a half-page wood-engraving titled "Le Gland et la Citrouille."  The fable's text and second image are on 272.  The relationship of the two images is curious this time because there is not an animal or plant scene to be "translated" into a human application.  But there is a fascinating turn in the "original" illustration.  A dreamer there is pictured under a tree full of hanging pumpkins!  In the larger picture, apparently an acorn has knocked off a traveler's hat as he is surrounded by huge pumpkins.  This issue is sixteen pages long.  L'Illustrateur des Dames et Demoiselles: Journal des Soirées de Famille seems to have been known as a "Journal de Mode."  It carried items of interest to women, particularly fashion.  Its masthead presents the same engraving of women gathered around sewing, piano playing and singing, reading, and painting.  Pages are three columns wide.

This issue's first page presents a half-page wood-engraving titled "Le Coq et la Perle."  The text and second illustration for this fable are on 349.  That page also has an article and illustration of La Fontaine's home in Château-Thierry.  In this case the human "translation" of the fable in the larger image is already in the fable's text.  I find this human illustration among the best in this series.  This issue is sixteen pages long.  L'Illustrateur des Dames et Demoiselles: Journal des Soirées de Famille seems to have been known as a "Journal de Mode."  It carried items of interest to women, particularly fashion.  Its masthead presents the same engraving of women gathered around sewing, piano playing and singing, reading, and painting.  Pages are three columns wide.

This issue's first page presents a half-page wood-engraving titled "Le Soleil et les Grenouilles."  The second illustration is on 481, while the text of the fable is on 482.  Both illustrations are striking.  In the larger "human" translation on the first page, the son and his wife are humans, surrounded by six little sun-children with haloes.  Frogs on the earth below are laid out belly-up as if dead.  The smaller interior picture apparently shows Aesop explaining to a group that they should not celebrate their tyrant's wedding-day.  This issue is twelve pages long.  L'Illustrateur des Dames et Demoiselles: Journal des Soirées de Famille seems to have been known as a "Journal de Mode."  It carried items of interest to women, particularly fashion.  Its masthead presents the same engraving of women gathered around sewing, piano playing and singing, reading, and painting.  Pages are three columns wide.

This issue's first page presents a half-page wood-engraving titled "Le Pêcheur et le petit Poisson."  The second illustration is on 541, while the text of the fable is on 542.  The second illustration shows the frying pan in which this little fish, hanging from a line, is about to be cooked.  The larger scene seems quite literal.  The expanse of the illustration makes it hard to find the little fish in the fisherman's hand.  This issue is twelve pages long.  L'Illustrateur des Dames et Demoiselles: Journal des Soirées de Famille seems to have been known as a "Journal de Mode."  It carried items of interest to women, particularly fashion.  Its masthead presents the same engraving of women gathered around sewing, piano playing and singing, reading, and painting.  Pages are three columns wide.