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Updated: May 31, 2025
Daumier became more and more the political spirit of the Charivari, or at least the political pencil, for M. Philipon, the breath of whose nostrils was opposition one perceives from here the little bilious, bristling, ingenious, insistent man is to be credited with a suggestive share in any enterprise in which he had a hand.
Prosecutions, seizures, fines, regiments of furious legal officials, were first brought into play against poor M. Philipon and his little dauntless troop of malicious artists; some few were bribed out of his ranks; and if they did not, like Gilray in England, turn their weapons upon their old friends, at least laid down their arms, and would fight no more.
Thus, while yet a child, without discipline or the friendly instruction that wisdom might have lent, he was launched on the tossing tide of commercial life. His "Hercules" was immediately published and made a most decided hit a palpable hit. Paris wanted more, and Philipon wished to supply the demand.
This drawing had appeared in the Caricature, an organ of pictorial satire founded in those days by one Philipon, with the aid of a band of young mockers to whom he gave ideas and a direction, and several others, of whom Gavarni, Henry Monnier, Decamps, Grandville, were destined to make themselves a place.
The fact is, there is no religion in Paris; even clever M. Philipon, who satirizes everything, and must know, therefore, some little about the subject which he ridicules, has nothing to say but, "Preach a sermon, and that makes a religion; anything will do." If ANYTHING will do, it is clear that the religious commodity is not in much demand.
M. Eugène Montrosier, in a highly appreciative article on Daumier in L'Art for 1878, says that this same Philipon was le journalisme fait homme; which did not prevent him rather in fact fostered such a result from being perpetually in delicate relations with the government. He had had many horses killed under him, and had led a life of attacks, penalties, suppressions and resurrections.
It was the action of one absorbed and lost in an idea. Had he taken thought he would have hesitated, been abashed, self-conscious and probably been repulsed by the flunkies before seeing Monsieur Philipon. It was all the sublime effrontery and conceit or naturalness, if you please of a country bumpkin who did not know his place. Philipon glanced at the pictures and then looked at the boy.
The new artist's pictures in the "Journal pour Rire" boomed the circulation, and more illustrations were in demand. Philipon suggested that the four hours a day at school was unnecessary Gustave knew more already than the teachers. Gustave agreed with him, and his pay was doubled.
Philipon refused to let the lad leave the office, and dispatched a messenger for his father. When the father arrived, a contract was drawn up and signed, whereby it was provided that the "infant" should remain with Philipon for three years, on a yearly salary of five thousand francs, with the proviso that the lad should attend the school, Lycee Charlemagne, for four hours every day.
We shall, therefore, say no more of French and English caricatures generally, or of Mr. Macaire's particular accomplishments and adventures. They are far better understood by examining the original pictures, by which Philipon and Daumier have illustrated them, than by translations first into print and afterwards into English. It runs in the blood.
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