Le Fer rouge

This text, originally entitled “La Mouche du coche,” was renamed “Le Fer rouge” by Poulet-Malassis. It is a cycle of Republican and patriotic poems.

Following an in-12 edition published in 1870, the publisher, an Alençon native then exiled in Belgium, had a small number of copies réimposé on Hollande printed, along with a still smaller number on China paper. These copies contain an anonymous etching by Félicien Rops depicting “Napoleon III and Bazaine locked in each other’s arms upon a pillory, on whose post can be read the names Sedan and Metz, surmounted by the Gallic cock; hands emerging from the clouds brand their shoulders with the letters R.F.; the platform of the pillory is the top of a cage in which the moulted eagle of the Empire finishes gnawing on human skulls” (description of the copy from Glatigny’s own library, a Hollande copy, cited by Oberlé). Our frontispiece is present in both states, black and sanguine.

A very rare printing, here delicately bound in a woven silk cartonnage only slightly later than the edition.

A few small losses at the edge of the title-piece.