This caricature, published in the Trombinoscope, is inspired by the Prince Imperial's love for bicycles and cycling. After the fall of the empire, caricaturists baptised the young prince Napoléon Eugène-Louis-Jean-Joseph Vélocipède IV.
The Trombinoscope (two collective volumes published in 1874 and 1878 covered all of the issues, produced daily, of the paper) was the work of Touchatout, the pseudonym of Léon-Charles Bienvenu (1835-1911), a journalist and writer from Paris who during the Second Empire published satire and caricatures of characters from the worlds of politics, news and arts. In 1867, he published the first editions of his Histoire de France tintamarresque, followed by the Histoire tintamarresque de Napoléon III in 1874.
For more information about the Prince Imperial and his love of all things two-wheeled, see our file on the Prince Imperial's velocipede.
Trombinoscope: Velocipede IV (the Prince Imperial)
Artist(s) : BIENVENU Leon-Charles, known as Touchatout
