Boney tir'd of War's Alarms, Flies for Safety to his darlings Arms

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George Cruikshank
1792-1878
Boney tir'd of War's Alarms, Flies for Safety to his darlings Arms
hand colored etching
image: 220 x 336 mm; sheet: 249 x 351 mm
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1900.
Peel 1958
Published: 
[London] : Pubd- by Walker & Knight Sweetings Alley Royal Ex Jany 1813-, 1813 January.
Provenance: 
Formerly owned by Sir Robert Peel.
Notes: 

Lettered below image "GCK" "Boney Tir'd of War's Alarms, Flies for Safety to his darlings Arms-" and "{Pubd- by Walker & Knight Sweetings Alley Royal Ex Jany 1813-."
Library's copy trimmed within plate mark.

Summary: 

Napoleon Bonaparte in ragged uniform, enters Empress Marie Louise's apartments, complaining "My reputation is gone forever - I must plead for Peace - Infandum Regina juves renovare dolorum"; he rides on the back of the winged Devil who advises Marie Louise to "Take him to bed my lady & Thaw him, I am almost petrified in helping him to escape from his Army! I shall expect him to say his prayers to me every night!"; on seeing her husband, Marie Louise, in a floral robe, rushes forward to embrace him, crying "Come to my arms my Hero & tell me all the Secrets of your Glorious Campaign", observed by two attendant ladies dressed in red and blue; her lapdog scared of the Devil, to their left a monkey; seated on a violin and wearing Revolutionary cap and cockade, reads a menu of food eaten during the Retreat from Moscow, whilst another lapdog shoulders the bow as a musket; by the fire place (above which hangs a picture of "A Damn'd Cossack"), the infant King of Rome is asking his nurse; "Nursey has Papa cowed the Russians as the English Cowed us", the nursemaid replies, "No your Majesty the Russians fought like Bulls & their Nobility proved Staunch Patriots."

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