When the Devil Grew Old He Became a Hermit, plate 476

Carnivalesque humor and bodily deformation take an occult turn in this print, in which Louis Philippe and his ambassador to Great Britain, Charles de Talleyrand, are transformed into demonic friars. Daumier highlighted the hypocrisy of the regime through details such as the crucified figure of Liberty, the rosary made of coins, Talleyrand’s cloven hoof, and Louis Philippe’s hooked toenail. Yet Talleyrand’s feline familiar appears more domesticated than devilish, a sign of bourgeois respectability embedded in the fantastical.