Jim's Lucky Score--the 1846 Levasseur Gironde and Loire

In an earlier post, I explained why I like skulking through antique malls and junk stores for oild maps and prints instead of going to "reputable" professional dealers--the thrill of the hunt is a little sharper. Professional map and print dealers know their business way too well to get a steal, and the really good deals generally outweigh the bad decisions.

I had such an experience recently at the South County Antique Mall on Lemay Ferry in south St. Louis county. Hanging on a wall, between black and white photos of Elvis and Johnny Cash and a framed sports page from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch with the screaming headline "CARDS WIN," I found these two for twenty bucks a pop.

I wasn't sure what I had. I just knew they were good, and I snapped them both up and ran home to look them up. 

As it turns out, they are maps of the Gironde and the Loire from the Atlas National de France Illustre des 86 Departements et des Possessions de France, which was published in at least two editions, 1846 and 1856 under the direction of an artist and cartographer named Victor Levasseur, engraved by A.M. Perrot working off illustrations provided by Raymond Bonheur, and published by Laguillermie & Renaud of Paris.

What strikes me most about these maps is their uselessness.

I don't mean to denigrate them. From what I can tell, they are superbly accurate and detailed. But what arrests the eye isn't the map itself--it's the decorative borders. In fact, the borders are so decorative that you begin to wonder whether they're decorate at all, or if they're not the main focus of the piece. The maps themselves are tucked cozily into the middle of the prints, almost as an afterthought. These maps weren't meant to be used for getting around France by train or carriage or bicycle. They exist to be looked at.

And you could look at them for hours. In addition to the map, there's a wealth of other information packed into these things:

Images of regional heroes, like Montaigne and Vernet (this last was particularly fun for me. Sherlock Holmes, in "The Greek Interpreter," mentions offhandedly to Watson that "my grandmother was the sister of Vernet, the French painter. Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms," and so here, tucked away on my map of the Loire, is the Great Detective's great-uncle)... 

Lists of celebrities and other noteworthy people from the region, lists and descriptions of their sites of interest, agricultural and industrial output... 

Scenes of the region and its cities (apparently stilt-walking was popular at the harbor in whatever coastal city this scene depicts)...

Statistics like population, economic data, and other vital information...

Agricultural and industrial products...

Even pathos, as this little goat grazes among the forlorn ruins of abandoned castles.

No, these maps served no utilitarian purpose--at least not the traditional purpose served by maps, which is showing you how to get from one place to another. Educational? Perhaps... there's certainly a lot of information there, and reading every map in the book would have provided at least a thumbnail sketch of the 86 "departements," or administrative districts, that constitute France--but any almanac of the time would have given you much more useful information than the Atlas Illustre would have.

But I don't believe they were purely decorative, either. I think there's another, more deeply embedded purpose to them.

These and the other maps in the book are a celebration of France--her personalities, the richness of her lands, the beauty of her cities and landscape, the accomplishments of her people. There is an unmistakably Gallic joie de vivre and amour de la patrie about them. These maps are an exercise in French patriotism.

Which is understandable, given the context of the times. The 1840's and 1850's were a time of tremendous upheaval and instability in France. The reign of Louis Philippe, the "Citizen King," had been marked by crop failures, economic anxiety, violent uprisings, attempted assassinations, and severe curtailings of liberties and political repression. The Revolution of 1848 ended the reign of Louis Philippe and ushered in the Second Republic, which was soon done away with by the election of Louis Napoleon, the nephew of Bonaparte, who instituted authoritarian rule, arrested his enemies, and established the Second Empire.

In difficult and turbulent times, it must have been comforting to turn to a book that extolled the country, celebrated her past and present glories, and that reassured the beleaguered people of France that, no matter what else happens, we are still French... and France is still France.