Little Bony sneaking into Paris with a white feather in his tail / [graphic]

"A night scene, broadly burlesqued. Napoleon, in profile to the left, strides in furtive haste towards a massive gate, directing the beam of a dark lantern against it. From between his coat-tails a long white feather (see British Museum Satires No. 12613) floats behind him, emerging from a cluster of shorter ones. He wears an enormous bicorne, with a plume set in an ornament composed of a crown and olive-twigs (as in British Museum Satires No. 11998), a sash and sabre over his long coat, tasselled Hessians with huge spurs. A head wearing a night-cap looks through the bars which form the top of the gate under a stone arch, to say: "Rap--Rap--Ra--Who comes there--what Midnight disturbers are you." An officer (actually Caulaincourt) crouches at the gate holding the knocker which is set in a great lion's mouth, and beckons towards Napoleon, answering, "It's only Count Vincen"--Alias--Little Boney. the Imperial Fugitive--returned from Victory." The gate-keeper: "Alias-- who"--Alias the Divil you mean." In front of Napoleon's foremost foot a large frog leaps forward; behind him a lean fierce cur barks: "A Russian Cur-- Bow--Wow--Wow." A large label floats back from Napoleon's mouth, inscribed: "hist--is that the Croaking of Frogs I hear--I mistake--its' only the Sycophant Lads in Paris--hurra-ing at My unexpected and precipate [sic] return. thank my Luckey Stars--I have got out of the clutches of them Damd Cossack Curs"--or I should have been food for Bears--long before this time." Beside the gate is a sentry-box, in which a sentry completely muffled up and wearing a night-cap, sleeps, seated with folded arms, clasping his musket. A frog looks from behind the box."--British Museum online catalogue