Francis-antoine Conscience (1795-1840) Legion Of Honor, Beautiful… But Useless! Besancon

Francis-Antoine CONSCIENCE
(Besançon1795 - Luxeuil1840)
Legion of Honor, beautiful… but useless!
Watercolor on pencil lines
H. 25 cm; L. 19 cm
Signed and dated lower left
Captioned lower
1831

Related work: lithograph published in number 103 (October 25, 1832) of the magazine La caricature, for which our drawing is preparatory.

This superb caricature is a variation on the theme of La Fontaine's fable The Cock and the Pearl. "She is beautiful, he says, but the smallest grain of millet would do my job much better" Here the pearl is replaced by the Legion of Honor, which makes many French people dream (represented by the Gallic rooster), but does not feed its man, and whose usefulness is quite relative. At the beginning of his reign, Louis-Philippe made the Legion of Honor the only French order, and distributed it very widely, to the point that in 1840 the Chamber of Deputies finally voted to limit it. As for the choice of the rooster to embody the French, it corresponds, after having been denigrated by Napoleon who considered it too weak and not very rewarding, to a return to grace of the animal under Louis-Philippe, who installed it, for example, on the top of the pole of the tricolor flags and on the buttons of the uniforms. The author of the drawing, Francis Conscience, nicknamed Francis, was a gifted artist, friend of his fellow Franche-Comté Jean Gigoux, fanatic of horses and admirer of Géricault, but unfortunately very fond of drink, which brought him to an end. miserable. However, he had been able to exhibit many works at the Salon between 1831 and his death, mainly with animal themes and in particular equestrian.