In 1992, with the exhibition in Nancy, an important stage was reached in the knowledge of the works of Jacques Callot (1592-1635). [1] A number of studies were concerned, in particular, with the historical reality of the engraver's works B an opportunity to clarify the precise and often complex relations that connect certain engravings with the recently lived historical reality of the time, particularly that of the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) and the Counter Reformation. It was recalled that Les Misères et les Malheurs de la guerre (The Miseries and Misfortunes of War) has inspired multiple interpretations, often in contradiction with one another, given that the information at the historian's disposal for retracing the historical facts of this particular work remains fragmentary. With the help of new investigations and a more positive understanding of the work's context, creation and circulation, new directions were proposed for its interpretation. In studying those works by Callot that were variously inspired by the theme of war, Paulette Choné, Pierre Béhar, Alain Larcan and Jean-Marc Depluvrez proposed, in particular, that the juridical and political preoccupations of the European states of the period be considered attentively, the focus thus being brought to bear on the nature and limits of sovereign power, and the organisation and discipline of the army in occupied territory.



1. The historical facts of the work: its conception, execution, and circulation remain a subject of investigation

Historians can only suggest a hypothetical date in order to pinpoint the genesis and execution of the series engraved by Jacques Callot of Lorraine and published in Paris by Israël Henriet in 1633; whilst the possible commissioner of the work remains unknown. [2] Most probably the years 1629 to 1632 are those that should be considered in estimating more accurately the conception of Misères et Malheurs de la guerre. And above all, perhaps the year 1632? The common hypothesis that the work was created in 1633, and was thus related to the penetration of Louis XIII's troops into Lorraine (then an independent duchy) and to the siege of Nancy at the end of the summer of 1633, has been definitively refuted. [3] Certain works of this four-year period offer particularly pertinent indications for evaluating the presence of military and political reality within Callot's activities. This reality is both Lorrainese and French, and thus is related to the their rival B indeed hostile B political destinies (France exerted a strict surveillance over the foreign politics of Lorraine, pro-Imperial by tradition, and over the Imperial troops stationed within the duchy); it can also include the writings of diplomats, jurists, or military officers close to the ruling powers and capable of influence.

In 1629, Callot engraved L'arbre Généalogique de la maison de Lorraine (The Genealogical Tree of the House of Lorraine) for Duke Charles IV of Lorraine (1604-75). Designed to recall the house of Lorraine's alleged Carolingian origins, this work of propaganda was aimed at contributing to the affirmation of the ducal authority's legitimacy. [4] In addition, the artist designed two contemporary views of Paris depicting celebrations given in honour of Louis XIII by the city of Paris following the victory of La Rochelle, which marked the defeat of the Protestant party against the king in 1628: the engraver most probably attended "La triomphante reception du Roy en sa ville" (The Triumphant Reception of the King in His City), a political celebration sumptuously arranged around the allegorical representation of the twelve royal virtues necessary to the government of the state: Mercy, Piety, Renown, Love, Justice, Virtue, Prudence, Majesty, Force, Valour, Honour and Magnificence. [5] In Nancy, Callot was also involved in printing the proofs of Siège de Breda (Siege of Breda). Commissioned in 1626 by the Infanta Isabella of Spain, cousin of the Duke of Lorraine, the work was designed to commemorate the triumph of the Spanish army, led by Spinola, over the strategic northern city of Brabant, at stake in the conflict between the United Provinces and Spain. The siege, the subject of the engraved work, had lasted several months, mobilising the outstanding resources of military engineering and capturing the interest of numerous observers. [6]

In 1629 and 1630 Callot was close to Gaston d'Orléans, drawing a series of Lorrainese landscapes for him and also engraving a portrait of his doctor Charles Delorme. Orléans, the brother of Louis XIII, went into exile in Nancy before returning to Brussels where he contributed, alongside Marie de Médicis, to the organisation of a resistance army against France in 1632, with the support of the Spanish. The engraved composition Supplices (Punishments) most probably dates from 1630: in a style reminiscent of Breughel's depiction of Justice, the different punishments foreseen by the law are represented through a juxtaposition of figures. From this date onwards, Callot seems to show a particular interest in the theme of military discipline and punishment, a theme that makes reference, in particular, to the important reflection on the "righteousness" of wars, on their causes, their development, and the subject of peace treaties, by Hugo de Groot, known as Grotius (1583-1645). The famous Dutch humanist, jurist and diplomat had just completed the De jure belli ac pacis, dedicated to Louis XIII. [7] It is more than likely that this work held the attention of both the king and Richelieu, so preoccupied at the time with justifying the monarchical power and its military operations through an official art and a literature of propaganda; for Grotius's work proposed a study of the nature and limits of sovereignty, and had inspired Gustavus II of Sweden to draw up a military code.

In 1631 Callot often worked in Paris in the presence of his friend the engraver and publisher Israël Henriet, who attended to the edition of two important works: Siège de Saint-Martin de Ré and Siège de La Rochelle, the design of which refers back to that of Siège de Breda. These works, officially commissioned by Louis XIII, commemorate the French victory against the English and the Protestant Party in 1627 and 1628. Conceived with regard to a synoptic vision of events that developed over a period of several months and devoted as much to picturing the art and strategy of siege as its politics, these groups of engravings attest to the official aspect of Callot's inspiration and his sympathy for French rule, and most particularly for Richelieu. [8] The year 1631 saw the publication of Coustumes générales du duché de Lorraine (General Customs of the Duchy of Lorraine), by Ambroise Epinal, introduced with a frontispiece engraved by Callot. [9] This customary permitted the duchy to ratify its juridical authority. Finally that same year, the engraver produced a plate commemorating the Combat d'Avigliano. On 10 July 1630 the town and the forts of Avigliano in the Duchy of Mantua B strategically at stake for the French on one side and the Spanish and the Imperials on the other B were the site of a violent confrontation between French troops and those of Victor-Amédée de Savoie. The French were victorious, but with the war over, an epidemic of the plague affected the northern half of the peninsula, and the pillage of the city of Mantua by the Imperials remained a striking event. Callot's engraving does not evoke this tragic aspect, but merely associates the location, i.e. the site of battle, with the portrait of the Marquis of Effiat (1581-1632), field-marshal in 1631, who had courageously fought at the head of the light cavalry of the French guard, contributing to the victory.

It is not easy to find exact references to Callot's activities in 1632. Paulette Choné suggests situating the composition of the Petites Misères series within this period, presaging the more ambitious series of 1633. [10] Recently proposed identification of iconographic details appears to suggest a reference to the historical events of 1628-31 within the finished series. The blazon of Savoy, present notably on the frontispiece, and the blazon of the town of Stralsund, present in the composition L'Arquebusade, provide a connection, if only partially, between the work and the armed conflict that settled the succession of the Duchy of Mantua (1628-31) as well as a link to the defeat of the Imperials, under the leadership of Wallenstein, by the Swedish, who had succeeded in lifting the siege before the Hanseatic port of Stralsund in 1628.

Historical knowledge of the work's circulation remains equally obscure. The excudit belonging to the Paris publisher Israël Henriet appears on the plate of the frontispiece in its second and third state, dated 1633. However, the exact time of the year when the printing of the series was completed cannot be determined. Could it have been before September, the date of the intervention of the French army in the duchy of Lorraine? The silence of the archives as to an eventual commission is regrettable in this instance. Could it be the case of a work conceived independently by the engraver, without any external inspiration? This is far from likely; in the case of the former engravings Callot had worked with the help of precise documentation, brought together in the context of a commission with specific demands. It is tempting to imagine that a similar process accompanied the conception of the Misères et Malheurs de la guerre. However, nothing yet enables the identification of the person behind the possible commission. Could it be the case of an art enthusiast, a politician, or a high commander of the army? Paulette Choné suggests the name of the Marquis of Effiat, a Field Marshal, one of the key figures in the French victory over the Imperials and a witness to the massacres connected with the pillage of the town of Mantua.



II. The meaning of the work: implications of the image and the "letter"

In 1992, Paulette Choné pointed out the extent to which the interpretations of Callot's work have, since the seventeenth century, been divergent and insubstantial. Following recent research by historians, thanks to new sources of knowledge of both the engraver's work and the historical period under consideration, previous interpretations have been seriously brought into question: in particular, the interpretation that identifies Callot's work with a patriotic protest against the invasion of the duchy by the troops of Louis XIII (Félibien, Meaume, Levertin), and the interpretation that privileges a definition of the work by way of social realism or the ironical condemnation of the war and the interests that incited it (Sadoul). [11] The meaning of certain elements of the work should be examined more closely, with respect to the particular functions that are traditionally assigned to them in the representation of the subject matter: these are the title, the frontispiece, the sequence of the series, the expressive style and the captions.

Was the work entitled by Callot himself or was the title chosen in collaboration with his publisher or commissioner? The title induces a negative evocation of war, suggesting a critical intent. In the inventory of the artist's belongings, drawn up after his death in April 1635, another title, La vie des soldats, also appears as a description of the series. [12] In 1686, it was repeated by Federico Baldinucci when he evoked La Vita del Soldato. This title corresponds more accurately to a series of scenes depicting military life, purely descriptive and free from judgmental intent, in which the essential stages of a soldier's life would be portrayed: from his enlistment to the Exercices militaires (military training) inspired by the instruction manuals, after the manner of the Exercices engraved by Jacob of Gheyn for Prince Jean of Nassau-Siegen in 1596-98, and in a genre comparable to that of Exercices de Mars, engraved around 1680 by Nicolas Guérard and dedicated to Monsignor the Duke of Burgundy. [13] The influence of a number of treatises on war and the army which appeared at the beginning of the seventeenth century undoubtedly contributed to Callot's inspiration, but it would appear to have gradually shifted towards a more allusive (not to say more historical) depiction, charged with political intent.

The historiated frontispiece has not yet yielded a clear interpretation. In general its role should simultaneously be comparable to that of a foreword or synopsis and that of a dedication: the work's subject and its intention should appear in a suggestive manner through a pictorial summary. For a commissioned work, a personalised frontispiece was expected, composed around a portrait whose identity would be validated by several emblems or mottoes in conformity with the fashion of the time. Eight figures spread symmetrically around the title introduce the subject. Like protagonists entering a stage, they portray the military authority and the life of the soldier. These eight figures appear to bring together the military leaders, footmen, halberdiers or musketeers, and the children who, along with the families and vivandières, follow the troops. However, all attempts at further identifying these figures remain speculative: all that can be endorsed, in taking into account the historical reality of Callot's work, are hypotheses. Are the military leaders depicted here those of the Imperial army, more precisely those who supported the Commander-in-Chief Wallenstein (1579-1634), at that time much in demand in the Baltic, Italy, and Lorraine? [14] Are they the leaders of the Swedish army whose military operations at Stralsund (1628) are referred to by the presence, in the engraved series, of the flag of the sea port? Could the crown engraved in the centre of the trophies be the symbol of the hegemony at stake in the conflict between the two armies? Or rather, are these military leaders those who were associated with the Field-Marshal of Effiat and the Duke of Montmorency in the French victory over the Imperials and the Spanish at Avigliano in July 1630?

The sequence of the engraved series follows a logical progression. The life of the soldier begins with his enlistment which commits him to serving in the "hostilities of war" on foreign soil; hostilities that B through lack of discipline B cruelly continue in the aftermath of the battle. The portrayal of the violations and cruelty committed by the soldiers during the ransacking of conquered towns, during the establishment of winter quarters, or the retreat of disbanded troops constitutes the disclosure in five scenes of these acts of indiscipline. This is followed by the exemplary depiction of the punishment and penalties foreseen by the military code, and the plagues, illnesses, destitution, and revolts ineluctably linked to the end of war. The epilogue, La distribution des récompenses (The Distribution of Rewards), is depicted as an aulic ceremony, the solemnity of which is underscored by the rigorous symmetry of the composition. It depicts the ritual of power, distant from suffering, while the caption exalts the virtues of the leaders who knew how to fight the temptations of dishonour. [15] Here, the theme has progressed towards a conclusion, being that of punishment or reward depending on the decision each soldier had taken: indiscipline and violence incurring punishment, and virtue, the fact of having shown respect for conquered territory, leading to official and honorary recognition. The development of the theme is not so far removed from one that might illustrate a parable, or a holy chronicle. Callot, who had engraved The Life of the Prodigal Son and The New Testament (published posthumously by Israël Henriet in 1635), skilfully masters the balance of these compositions which lead progressively to a conclusion carrying a moral judgement. The lesson thus given finds its influence not in a heroic model, but in the ordeal of the lived drama and the reminder that an alternative path B virtuous and honorific B exists for the soldier: the example, in this particular context of war, must have the power of dissuasion. And in this skilful development, Callot's work creates a convincing effect, far more successful than the series engraved by an anonymous craftsman after Vinckboons in 1610, by Hans Ulrich Franckh in 1656, or by Simon Grimm in 1665: in these cases, the soldier's life and the horrors of war were or would be portrayed without showing the sanctions against undisciplined conduct.

The personal choices of composition, layout, style of drawing and light all contribute to the demonstrative tone of the engraved series. No doubt these choices are dependent on the work's intention, but they also owe a great deal to the engraver's individual artistic style. The engravings of Les Misères et les Malheurs de la guerre follows the form of an animated tableau, and it should be remembered that during his stay in Florence (1612-21) Callot was taught by Giulio Parigi, engineer, organiser and director of performances, interludes and ceremonies in the Tuscan city. From this period, the engraver retained a predilection for in-depth compositions, vanishing lines towards the side wings, a multiplicity and vivacity of action, the presence of key witnesses in the foreground, etc.

The placing of the key figures, each according to their particular roles, is effectively conceived, with multiple variations. Callot judiciously understood how to impose the frontal and solemn position of the leading figures, combined with an elaboration of rigorous symmetry, following the visual tradition of what would correspond to a prologue and an epilogue (frontispiece: La Distibution des récompenses). He chose a multiplicity of perspectives leading the eye simultaneously to different actions, in order to depict scenes altogether unrestrained by discipline. Le pillage d'une ferme (The Pillaging of a Farm) is a space invaded by violence opening onto the back rooms of the farmhouse: in this setting the dramatic narrative attains a particularly evocative significance. The static and controlled presence of the enlisted soldiers, their training, and their leaders giving or receiving honours is opposed to the confused and violent presence of soldiers left to their own devices in Bien loing de l'exercice et des soings militaires (Far from Military Training and Concerns). The postures and movements are nuanced: in La Maraude, evasion, training and violence are simultaneously expressed as a tragic ballet. Gestural language and its plastic form are employed to solicit emotion, even more so than the facial expressions; these dramatic scenes sometimes acquire a heightened resonance through the presence of silent witnesses, often depicted from behind or in profile, whose role is visibly indicated by their finger or hand pointing towards the principle scene of action. This manner of inviting attention is particularly present in the compositions which reveal the punishments incurred by the disgraced soldiers (L'Estrapade, La Pendaison, L'Arquebusade, Le Bûcher, La Roue, et La Distribution des récompenses [The Stappado, The Burning at the Stake, The Hanging, The Arquebusade, The Wheel, The Distribution of Rewards]).

Michel de Marolles, Abbot of Villeloin, an important art enthusiast, has been suggested as the author of the captions which, in repeated six line stanzas and Alexandrine verse, underscore the didactic intention of the engraved series. No proof, however, permits the certainty of this attribution. A close relationship is maintained between the "letter" and the engraved motif, whilst the choice of the poetic writing bestows on it both a conventional and slightly solemn tone. However, its rhetoric remains sober and does nothing to diminish a work which is also the attestation of a dramatic reality. This long poem testifies to the author's sensibility to the rhetoric of his era: stances, sonnets, odes and hymns, found for example in the works of Charles Beys, Boisrobert or Chapelain, poets close to the ruling power. [16] If Mars, Pluto and Astraea are invoked, the allusions to mythology are of minor importance and the myth never leads to a heroic vision. The poetic description is, above all, forceful in its simplicity and in the measured rigour of the verses. Although the poem describes B without reserve B the acts of cruelty and the pains of destiny, it refrains at all times from condemning warfare as such. What is expressly called into question are the conditions of the soldier's life during the military campaign and the return from the war. The moralising intent is addressed both to the commanders of the army and to the soldiers. For Callot's contemporaries the work was charged with significance, intimately related to a history that was still unfolding.



III. The actuality of the work: from the remembrance of the facts to official propaganda

Without being clearly definable, the relations between Callot's work and the political events and thoughts of his epoch are undeniable, whether at the time the engraved series was conceived or during its circulation. Its factual strength did not diminish during the reign of Louis XIII. The parallel observation of the plates of Les Misères and the European events of the second quarter of the seventeenth century is rich in correspondences.

Already for over a decade in the Germanic countries, the Netherlands, Italy, and even in Lorraine, the enlistment of soldiers and the levy of troops had become familiar scenes, sometimes associated with terror. These recruitments, accomplished under the authority of colonels, affected more often than not the peasant populations or unemployed townsmen tempted by the opportunity to change their circumstances. Footmen or horsemen forming the undisciplined soldiery were enlisted in this way; as mercenaries, initially eager to join the regiment needed to reinforce the army, they were ignorant of the harsh destiny awaiting the soldier's return from military operations. In 1626, the recruitment of regiments in the electorate of Mainz by Duke Rudolph-Maximilian of Saxe-Lauenburg for the Emperor Ferdinand II of Habsburg was accompanied by the worst atrocities. In Lorraine, Duke Charles IV had undertaken several levies of troops in order to lend support to the army of the Catholic League led by Tilly in Bavaria in 1631, to assist the army of Gaston d'Orléans, in Luxembourg in 1632, or to fight against the French presence on ducal territory in 1633. In 1632, the Mercure Français stated that Charles IV of Lorraine, who had obtained money from the bishops of Cologne and Mainz, was organising "great levies of men of war by all his estate in Luxembourg and in Franche-Comté (ordering each village to furnish him with six men elect, that is to say six men chosen for war and a horse of two hundred crowns, harnessed and furnished with two pistols for the mounting of a horseman: to which he obliged even the Abbeys and Priors of his lands)Y"

The looting and ransacking sometimes authorised in order to avoid the mutiny of soldiers deprived of rations generally increased during the establishment of winter quarters for the armies in the course of operations. From 1627 to 1630, extortion within the Imperial army was the object of heated debate during the annual meetings of the princes of the Catholic League at Würzbourg, Mülhausen, and then Mergentheim. The Commander-in-Chief Wallenstein and his captains were held directly responsible for the extortion committed by their troops. The complaints of the Catholic princes, which were also favourably received by Richelieu in his anxiety at seeing France gradually encircled by the forces of the house of Austria, were heard as far away as Vienna. In 1630, following the Diet of Ratisbon, the Emperor Ferdinand II of Habsburg decided to reorganise the Imperial army; Wallenstein was dismissed as Commander-in-Chief. In addition, the destitute state of the soldiers following certain battles was made tragically evident. Thus in the spring of 1632, several weeks after the battle of Breitenfeld in which Tilly lost two thirds of his army, he wrote to Maximilian of Bavaria "For three days now, I am here with my men and those of his Highness the Duke of Lorraine, unable to move, for my poor soldiers are naked and nearly dying of hunger; moreover, bad weather has arrived with such severe force that the regiments melt like snow. The army has so badly diminished that it is not possible to hold out for much longerY"

The devastation of towns and villages and the destruction of religious monuments were particularly prevalent between 1628 and 1632. They were just as often sanctioned by the Imperials, at Mantua in 1630 and at Magdeburg in 1631, as they were by the Swedish at Speyer, Worms or Mannheim in 1631, and in Munich in 1632, or by the Lorrainese in the area of Strasbourg in 1631. [17] A series of events that would again be tragically recalled in 1635 during the ransacking of the town of Saint-Nicolas-de-Port in Lorraine by the Swedish and French armies. At the same time, the offensive directed at churches and monasteries, on Catholic League territory, must be understood within the particular context of the Edict of Restitution. Proclaimed in 1629 by Ferdinand II of Habsburg, this edict was to permit the Catholics to recover archdioceses, dioceses and convents that had been secularised in Germany. Tilly and Wallenstein had been specifically charged with the task of applying the edict with the support of their respective armies. Moreover, in 1632 France voiced its concern to Gustavus II of Sweden, ally to France following the treaty of Bärwalde in 1631, to ensure the respect of Catholic places of worship by Swedish troops in occupied Germanic territory. As a devout Lutheran, did the Swedish king not gloriously celebrate the Protestant cult in the town of Augsburg recovered from the Imperials on 24 April 1632? An important engraving of propaganda by Johann Oeder was rapidly commissioned to commemorate the event.

The year 1632, which is perhaps the year of the definitive composition of Callot's work, saw the drama of the war come to a head. With the extortion of the Swedish soldiers becoming more frequent and taking place closer to France, the ambition of Gustavus II of Sweden, leader of a powerful and modernised army, became patently clear right up until the combat of Lützen, on 16 November 1632, during which the heroic strategist and monarch met his death. Several months earlier, the leader of the Catholic army of Bavaria, Tilly, also met his death in Ingolstadt, following the defeat of Breitenfeld and Rain am Lech; and in April 1632, Ferdinand II of Habsburg called General Wallenstein, of otherwise sinister repute, back to service. Finally, during the French army's engagement in Italy for the settlement of the succession of the duchy of Mantua, Richelieu was in a position to learn from the lessons of a military campaign that he himself had directed. Two of the State's civil servants drew up reports or reflections pointing out the need to revise the organisation of the armies and their discipline: the Rapport sur l'affaire des Grisons et de la Valteline, lodged by Paul Ardier, principle clerk to the Secretary of State Pontchatrain, and the report of Duke Henri de Rohan, who fought the Spanish in Valtellina and, in 1631, authored a critical work entitled Le Parfait Capitaine. [18]

Can Callot's work be understood as inscribed within an official deliberation, with, as its objective, the propaganda, if not the justification, of a foreign policy then led by Louis XIII and Richelieu? The king and his minister never underestimated the power of images to ratify their actions, to inspire belief in their legitimacy, and to crown the prince as both "bellator" and "juste". Did Abraham Bosse and Pierre Firens not contribute, in 1629, to illustrating the triumph of the virtues of the monarchy? L'Eloge et discours sur la triomphante reception du Roy en sa ville après la reddition de La Rochelle (The Eulogy and Oration on the Triumphant Reception of the King in his City following the Surrender of La Rochelle) inspired them to design a series of engravings representing ephemeral scenes that express the theme of the necessary virtues for the governance of the State. [19] The accompanying text praises "les Roys qui sont les flambeaux de l'Univers, ceux que Dieu donne pour nettoyer les vices et maintenir les hommes en leur repos" (The Kings who are the flames of the Universe, those chosen by God to purge vices and maintain men in their station). Its views are akin to those expressed in L'Advis au Roi, composed by Richelieu in January 1629. [20] The engraver Michel Lasne (1590-1667) also offered his artistic contribution to the apology of royal politics, when, in 1631, he illustrated the title page of Guez de Balzac's Prince: Louis XIII, victorious at La Rochelle and Susa, is represented by a bust in the style of a Roman emperor reflecting above all his glory and "divine force", conducive to harmony. [21]

Could it be that Callot's work, in an implicit and articulate critique of the behaviour of the Swedish and Imperial armies, served the concern to justify France's involvement in 1632 in the European conflict? In any event, it is contemporaneous with a hostile and anxious current opinion towards the evolution of the conflict, and the reproaches ardently expressed by the religious faction towards France's alliance with the Protestant princes and Sweden. And soon a number of texts would appear, beginning in 1635, clearly praising the French army and its participation in the Thirty Years' War. Among these texts, three particularly stand out. In 1635, several authors combined their talents to compose Le Sacrifice des muses au grand cardinal de Richelieu (The sacrifice of the Muses for the Great Cardinal de Richelieu) and stated their intention to convene regularly as a literary group, the French Academy: the Courses guerrières (Paths of War) towards the Meuse and the Rhine were depicted by Chapelain and Maynard:

Le Rhin dans sa grotte profonde
Tremble au récit de nos efforts,
Et prévoit qu'il faut que son onde
Soit Française en tous ses deux bords"
...
"Mais quoi... les mal-heurs de la guerre
Sont bien loin de la Fleur de lys [22]

FOOTNOTES