A French Alphabet Book of 1814: For Alfred Bourdier de Beauregard, Created by His Uncle Arnaud at the Chateau de Beaumont de Beauregard

but the drawings are a delight. Uncle Arnaud created this charming volume of water colors in 1814 as an alphabet primer for his two-year-old nephew Alfred. Napoleon was on Elba, and the formerly exiled King Louis XVIII was in power. The views include the family chateau and its surrounding landscape and the elegantly furnished interior: kitchens, chapel, workshops, wine cellar, and stables. The book includes detailed drawings of other types of buildings - palaces, churches, cottages and barns. The book also focuses on nephew Alfred. His clothing and pastimes are illustrated. There are images of his instruction in polite manners, music, and the arts. Altogether Uncle Arnaud drew nearly 300 watercolors. The pages are filled with puns and French captions. Many of these have been translated into the English, and the book contains an excellent French to English dictionary of words and terms of the period. Charles Plante, a London art and antique dealer, acquired the book from a Parisian dealer who "bought it directly from one of the family members of the chateau." Plante writes: "I think it did more than train the young nephew about life in the chateau. It's telling him about the larger picture and perhaps things to come in his life, and that's one of the reasons why it survived. It was very much a treasured object within the family." Plante's researches lead him to believe their limited militaristic flavor speaks to the alienation of the French aristocracy from the Revolution. Wordplay and visual humor abound. A theater is placed next to a metal bathtub, or "baignoire", a word that also meant "theater pit." A chamber pot looms under a bed. An infant, an aged man, a skeleton with a scythe, an hourglass and other objects seem to warn of the fleeting nature of time. A whip and a razor in a grouping of toys convey an ominous note. Plante writes that juxtaposition of many of the objects doesn't make sense to him or to other historians. "The picture may become clearer as more research is done. Or in fact it may be rather simplistic and they're all things that the nephew would have come in contact with in the chateau or come to learn about in life. The more I look at it the more I learn from it. I think that's what has given a lot of people pleasure. And its naive charm adds a whole other dimension to one's interpretation of what is art." I found this a fascinating insight into the life of the aristocracy after the French Revolution. Robert C. Ross 2008

Really a wonderful book with great graphics. Got the title from the Movable Book Society. If you like pop-ups JOIN.