Paris : J.-J. Dubochet, Le Chevalier et cie, eds, 1846. 704 pages. Published in one volume together with Lazarillo de Tormes illustrated by J.L.E. Meissonier. Read it here.
’ve started reading The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, a very entertaining comic novel by the French writer Alain-René Lesage written between the years 1715 and 1735 (that is, a few years before Richardson’s Pamela or Fielding’s Joseph Andrews, and inspired partly by Don Quixote as well as the picaresco style of novels in Spanish which followed in the 17th century such as Guzmán de Alfarache by Mateo Alemán.) I am reading the very swashbuckling translation of Tobias Smollett and using Smollett’s words to caption each of the illustrations created by Gigoux for an illustrated edition of 1836.
So far, book 1 has been quite an adventure indeed “on the road from Oviedo to Salamanca,” as our young hero has been conned like three or four times (a very gullible lad, our Gil Blas), been kidnapped by bandits, helped the bandits raid a carriage escort and kidnap a lady, freed both himself and the lady, wound up in prison, got himself out of prison with the lady’s help, got rewarded with bundles of money and a pretty ring, and then lost all the money and the ring to yet more con artists. (Watch out for con artists, you idiot!) In the last chapter of book one, our hero’s friend persuades him against going into the ministry and instead seeks a place for him as a liviried servant in an old gentleman’s house.
Book I of Gil Blas of Santillane illustrations by Jean Gigoux
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- Title page to Gil Blas by Alain-René Lesage
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- Portrait of Gil Blas
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- Headpiece to the Notice at the beginning of Gil Blas
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- Vignette of dragonfly.
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- “I publicly own that my purpose is to represent life as we find it: but God forbid that I should undertake to delineate any man in particular!”
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- “Here is interred the soul of the Licentiate Peter Garcias.”
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- Headpiece to Book I of Gil Blas
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- “… I might have got my education as I could, had it not been for an uncle of mine in town, a canon, by name Gil Perez.”
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- “Before my departure, I took a last leave of my papa and mama, who loaded me with an ample inheritance of good advice.”
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- “He took me home to his house from my infancy … He bought me a primer, and undertook my tuition as far as reading went.”
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- “Pray, honored master, have pity on a poor maimed soldier!”
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- “Oh! most willingly,” cried he: “with all my heart and soul. My fortunate star predominates, now that I have the honor of being in company with the illustrious Gil Blas of Santillane, and I shall certainly make the most of my good fortune as long as it lasts.”
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- “Master Gil Blas,” said he as he rose from the table, “I am too well pleased with my princely entertainment to leave you without a word of advice, of which you seem to stand in much need. From this time forward be on your guard against extravagant praise.”
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- “Having been fleeced most shamefully for a supper, which stuck in my stomach though I had scarcely come in for a morsel of it …”
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- “Who goes there?” As my alarm prevented me from giving an immediate answer, they came to close quarters, and holding each of them a pistol to my throat, required me to give an account of myself.
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- “This is our abode,” said one of these sequestered gentlemen. I looked about in all directions, but the deuce a bit of either house or cottage, nor a vestige of human habitation!
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- “Here, dame Leonarda,” said one of the horseman as he presented me to this angelic imp of darkness, “we have brought you a young lad.”
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- From that time forth their retreats have served as a rendezvous for the gentlemen of our profession. … Captain Rolando, at your service!”
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- They fell too most voraciously. My place was to wait; and I handed about the glasses with so butler-like an air, as to be not a little complimented on my dexterity.
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- In short, the eight robbers told their tale one after another, and when I had heard them all, I did not wonder that the destinies had brought them together.
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- “Beside this, as if it were not enough to be buried alive at eighteen, my misery is to be aggravated by being in the service of a banditti; by passing the day with highwaymen, and the night in a charnel-house.”
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- I found my way back to my charnel-house, where I passed the remainder of the night in weeping and wailing.
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- I kept my eye on Domingo, with the hope of outwitting him: but the thing was not feasible; he was always on the watch.
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- They made me change my dress, which consisted in a plain short cossack a good deal worse for wear, and tricked me out in the spoils of a gentleman lately robbed.
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- I was armed, like them, with a carabine, two pistols, a sword, and a bayonet, and was mounted on a very good horse, the property of the gentleman in whose costume I appeared.
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- … he did not wait for second bidding, but stuck his heels into the mule, which, giving the lie to my opinion, for I thought it on a par with my uncle’s, set off at a good round pace.
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- All I know about the matter is, that after a grand discharge of musquetry, I heard my companions hallooing Victory! Victory! as if their lungs were made of leather.
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- Tailpiece from the end of Book I, Chapter X of Gil Blas.
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- Within was a lady of from four to five-and-twenty, beautiful as an angel in his eyes, in spite of her sad condition. She had fainted during the conflict, and her swoon still continued.
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- “That is right, girl,” said the old hag, “cry your eyes out, sob away plentifully, you know the good effect of woman’s tears.”
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- I raised her from the ground, and assured her she might rely on me.
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- While my orders were in a train of execution, the lady was shown to a room, where we began to scrape acquaintance with one another.
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- Nor would it have been possible for me to steel mu heart against a return of passion, though our ages were so disproportioned, had not every soft sentiment been buried in Don Alvar’s grave.
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- He it was whom they killed with all his attendants, and it is for him the tears flow, which you see me shedding at this moment.
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- Their staunch fingers, with slow but certain scent, routed me out from top to toe; they whisked me round and round, and stripped me even to the shame of modesty, for fear some sneaking portrait of the king should slink between my shirt and skin.
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- Take it for all in all, said I, there were fewer grievances than in this dungeon. I was hail fellow well met with the banditti!
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- The hostess of the inn I put up at was a little withered, spiteful, emaciated bit of mortality. I saw at a glance, by the mouths she made at me aside, that my frock did not hit her fancy; and I thought it proof of her taste.
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- One after another, there they came, peeping in at a little window of my prison.
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- The next moment I ran into his chamber, and threw myself on my knees by his bedside, with a face running with tears and a heart oppressed with the most lively sorrow.
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- I will frankly own the relish of life to be extinct in me; so that I mean to end my days in this convent, and to become a benefactress to it.
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- Having settled with my landlord, I set out from Burgos the next morning before sun-rise, on my way to Madrid.
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- “What an agreeable surprise will it be to him to find a man under hos roof to whom our family is so much indebted!”
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- She took me by the hand, and playing with my ring, “You have a mighty pretty brilliant there, ” said she, “But it is small. Are you a judge of jewellery?”
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- … for getting out of bed, and seeing no portmanteau, I suspected him to have stolen it during the night.
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- L initial showing someone smoking a hookah.
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- “I am going to introduce you to a man, to whom most servants resort when they are on the ramble. … He knows at once where the servants are going away, and keeps a correct register, not only of vacant p!aces, but of vacant masters, with their good and bad properties.”
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- “Halt there, Signor Arias de Londona,” cried Fabricip at that passage; “We will stick to the church. The Licentiate Sedillp os one of my master’s friends, and I am very well acquainted with him.”
Pictorial initials from Book I of Gil Blas of Santillane
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- L initial from the Notice to Gil Blas.
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- C initial in “Gil Blas to the Reader”.
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- A initial at the beginning of the “Declaration of the Author” in Gil Blas.
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- B initial to Chapter I, Book I of Gil Blas.
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- M initial from the start of Book I, Chapter II of Gil Blas.
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- J initial at the beginning of Gil Blas, Book I, Chapter III.
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- J initial at the beginning of Book I, Chapter IV of Gil Blas
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- C initial at the beginning of Book I, Chapter V of Gil Blas.
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- A initial from the beginning of Book I, Chapter VI of Gil Blas.
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- J initial at the beginning of Book I, Chapter VII of Gil Blas.
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- Initial C at the beginning of of Book I, Chapter VII of Gil Blas.
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- N initial at the beginning of Book I, Chapter IX of Gil Blas.
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- I initial at the beginning of Book I, Chapter X of Gil Blas.
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- J initial at the beginning of Book I, Chapter XI of Gil Blas.
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- D initial at the beginning of Book I, Chapter XII of Gil Blas.
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- T initial at the beginning of Book I, Chapter XIII of Gil Blas.
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- J initial from the beginning of Book I, Chapter XIV of Gil Blas.
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- O initial at the beginning of Book I, Chapter XV of Gil Blas.
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- N initial at the beginning of Book I, Chapter XVI of Gil Blas.
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- L initial showing someone smoking a hookah.
Stay tuned for more illustrations from this book!
Paris : J.-J. Dubochet, Le Chevalier et cie, eds, 1846. 704 pages. Published in one volume together with Lazarillo de Tormes illustrated by J.L.E. Meissonier. Read it here.
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