Page:The illustrators of Montmartre.pdf/101

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CHARLES LÉANDRE
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Jewish head on his fork previous to making a meal of it. In fine irony a cross hangs on his breast.

His drawings of concerts and musical conductors throb and thrill with sound, the very paper on which they are printed seems to vibrate with the volume of it.

The Comédie Française supplied him with subjects for a splendid set of caricatures; and the rustic inhabitants of his native village of Champsecret form the foundation of yet another delightful series entitled "Ma Normandie,"

That the tragic side of life touches Léandre deeply is evident, if only from a couple of drawings which appeared in "L'assiette au Beurre", The first is entitled "Saison des eaux — chacun va aux eaux suivant ses moyens"; and we see a starving, distracted mother, plunging to eternity in the foul depths of a canal, while her tiny children, all unconscious of their fate, clutch her skirts and are being hurled to death with her. The other drawing bears the legend, "What have they been doing, sir? Sleeping without paying for it!" — which is given as the conversation passing between a little milliner's girl and an old gentleman, who are watching a long procession of dejected outcasts being led to the lock-up by ferocious-looking policemen, while behind them is a wall inscribed with the mocking legend, "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité." The poor prisoners are evidently not criminals, but merely the crowded-out failures of a great city,