Creighton University

This twelve page leaflet magazine (7½" x 10¾") is the one I found available online after returning home from Europe with numbers 108 and 120.  I found reference online to about six of these colored cover illustrations, all apparently done between 1900 and 1902.  This issue's illustration is "Conseil tenu par les rats."  La Fontaine has all the mice of Ratopolis dressed up for this council meeting, and the proponent of the great idea even holds the bell in his paw.  Again Christophe has fun with the actions surrounding the central encounter.  Various mice gesticulate.  Is one even sleeping?  Page 244 has a discussion of the fable, signed by Christophe.  This issue is dated April 21, 1900.

This twelve-page leaflet magazine (7½" x 10¾") along with another of its numbers was one of many pleasant surprises on this European trip.  I found it at the last of the many bookstores I visited in the gallery on Rue de la Madeleine.  The pleasant owner found these two issues.  I enjoy the update on La Fontaine so much that I hunted on the web.  I found about six of these colored cover illustrations, all apparently done between 1900 and 1902.  I even found another issue that I was able to order online.  This issue's illustration is FS.  The upper panel shows the stork agape at the meal she is supposed to eat.  A rabbit servant looks on as the fox in a gentleman's coat smirks.  In the lower panel an outdoor meal with table cloth and duck servant has two characters saying something.  The stork asks the bewildered fox "You are not hungry then?"  Two crows ask Master Fox if he would not like cheese!  The fox himself scratches his head, wondering what to do with food inside a huge narrow-necked flask.  The verso of this cover has a discussion of the fable, signed by G.C.  This issue is dated December 21, 1901.

This issue's illustration is "Le Chat, la Belette et le petit Lapin."  Christophe presents a large older anthropomorphized cat in an easy chair with crutches and eyeglasses, whose gesture suggests that she cannot hear so well.  So, I suppose, the hare and weasel, both beautifully dressed up, should come closer.  I love the color work and the situating of the fable.  I am beginning to understand that Christophe's "modernizing" is not meant to challenge any of the traditional meaning.  He is finding a good recent exemplification.  If I were these two smaller animals, I would run away fast now!  This issue is dated February 8, 1902.

This twelve page leaflet magazine (7 1/2" x 10 3/4") along with another of its numbers was one of many pleasant surprises on this European trip.  I found it at the last of the many bookstores I visited in the gallery on Rue de la Madeleine.  The pleasant owner found these two issues.  I enjoy the update on La Fontaine so much that I hunted on the web.  I found about six of these colored cover illustrations, all apparently done between 1900 and 1902.  I even found another issue that I was able to order online.  This issue's illustration is "Les animaux malades de la peste."  La Fontaine had the animals turning on the poor mule as scapegoat for all their crimes.  In this playful adaptation, we see a monkey as the doctor giving animals shots.  Christophe has fun with all the actions surrounding the central encounter with the hypodermic needle.  Mice nurses carry in their sick comrade on a stretcher.  Frightened young rabbits cling to their mother's skirts.  Four crows in tophats look down from the top of the doctor's bookcase.  A frog escapes with his arm bandaged up.  An aproned stork assists.  Is that a nurse snake beneath the ape doctor's feet?.  A comment below reads "Not  everyone died…."  This issue is dated March 15, 1902.

This issue's illustration is SS.  In La Fontaine's version, a mule-driver rides the rear mule carrying sponges.  The lead mule happens to stumble into the water and soon has dissolved his load of salt.  The second mule then follows the leader's example, only to occasion the result that all three -- mule, sponge, and driver -- are filling up with water.  Christophe's contemporary example is a pair of anthropomorphic backpack load carriers.  The leader steps along rather briskly with a light load.  The second sweats, wipes his brow, and uses his walking stick to struggle along with his large load of sponges.  In this case I also took a look at Christophe's commentary on the fable, found on the following page of the magazine.  After laboring through it like a mule, I would say that Christophe is a better visual artist than essay-writer.  This issue is dated July 5, 1902.

This issue's illustration is "The Rat Who Retired from the World."  La Fontaine places this fat hermit enjoying retirement in a cheese that provides both food and shelter.  The smug, professedly religious hermit rejects the pleading of his fellow rats to offer some modest alms to help in their cause at a desperate time for their Rat Republic.  The religious retiree makes excuses and contents himself with offering a prayer for them.  With that, he shuts his door.  La Fontaine is clearly critical of this man's approach to life.  Christophe places the hermit in religious garb in a well-stocked basement.  At least five rats surround him as he holds his arms folded across his chest and weeps.  Has Christophe abandoned the cheese-home but kept everything else?  This issue is dated October 4, 1902.