Paris Paper Puppets: Fairy Tale on an 18th-century craze. No U.S. copies.
[Fairy Tales] / [Puppets] / [Thomas L’Affichard]. Pantin, et Pantine, Conte. Paris: “Chés tout le monde, à la Folie,” “L’An du Bilboquet 35” [1747]. 12mo [16.4 x 9.4 cm], [1] f. etching, [1] f. engraved title, 179 pp., [1] p. blank verso, with woodcut tail-piece and factotum initial. Bound in contemporary vellum, gold-tooled spine, sprinkled edges, silk ribbon bookmark. Minor edge wear and rubbing to spine and boards, front endpapers toned and with booksellers’ annotations. Internal toning, the occasional spot, minor edge wear.
Rare first edition (no U.S. copies) of this satirical fairy tale based on the fad for toy pantins that swept Paris in the 1740s. Pantins were jointed paper or cardboard puppets, similar to a jumping-jacks, that moved their limbs jerkily when one pulled an attached string.
Pantin, et Pantine is the work of the novelist-playwright Thomas L’Affichard (1698-1753). The story tells of the fairy Bichette, who falls in love with the young Pantin, son of the priest of the goddess Isis. Disguised as a governess, Bichette manages to smuggle Pantin to her magic castle, where her daughter Lisbette also lives. The giant Attilas, Bichette’s ex (and Lisbette’s father) arrives and soon tries to eat Lisbette. To save the children Bichette turns them into pantins and hilarity ensues.
The book’s full-page etched frontispiece depicts the giant confronting Bichette, who shows him the two children as pantins. Note that the etched figure in the title page vignette holds up a little pantin.The title page is dated “L’An du Bilboquet 35” (“Year 35 of the Cup-and-Ball”), an era that L’Affichard explains in his preface: The toy cup-and-ball craze began in 1712 and so was in its 35th year at the time of the book’s publication in 1747.
“Everybody in France in the Eighteenth Century played with Pantins. Ladies and gentlemen of high degree entertained themselves by holding one of these little toys in one hand and pulling the strings concealed at the back with the other while laughing heartily at the antics the little figures performed. Pantins hung conveniently in drawing-rooms and sitting-rooms to amuse visitors and to while away tedious hours of the dwellers in the house. People also carried Pantins in their pockets and bags and enjoyed them in public also taking delight in the applause of the bystanders. New Pantins were constantly being brought out and every shop tried to have the latest novelty. Contemporary literature is full of allusions to them. Barbier gives a very good account of the craze in his Journal for 1747: ‘At first the Pantins were designed for children’s toys; but after a time they were used to amuse the entire public. They were little figures made of pasteboard. All the parts of the body were separate and were attached by strings at the back of the figure. When these strings were pulled ... the Pantin could be made to dance. These little figures represented Harlequin, Scaramouche, Mitron, Shepherds, Shepherdesses, etc., and were consequently painted in all kinds of ways … You could not go into any house in January 1747, without finding a Pantin hanging by the mantelpiece’ … Of course, the moralists and satirists had much to say about this silly amusement of the upper classes” (E. Singleton, Dolls, pp. 39-41).
In 1750 Pantin, et Pantine was reprinted in La Bibliothèque choisie et amusante (vol. 6), and separately in 1751 (Amsterdam: Michel) under the title Les amusemens spirituels des frivoles ou Pantin et Pantine, conte spirituel. OCLC locates no U.S copies of this work (or of its reprints).
*Brunet, Imprimeurs imaginaires et libraires supposés, p. 189; Jones, A List of French Prose Fiction, p. 94.