31 x 25, on sheet 47 x 32 (centimeters, height x width)
Notes:
Paul Hadol's map satirizes French society at the end of the Second Empire, based on M. De Scudery's Carte de Tendre of two centuries earlier. See Notes for ID # 1029. The text on the verso attacks the obsession with wealth ("a new sun shines, the gentle, the beautiful, the sacred 100 Sous Piece, nailed steadfastly into the sky as a fixed star . . . and . . . now all women worship the sun"). This is reflected in the map; among other things, the "Billet doux" of love are bank notes, and the scales of measurement are coins. The text is focused on the much-hated Empress Eugenie, referred to in the text as la "Grue," a word that can mean either a crane or a woman of loose morals. For more detail, see Barron, Rod, http://www.barron.co.uk/Imaginary+Maps+Pt+1/item1142, accessed November 24, 2014.
Hadol was among "the foremost exponents" of a "new map genre," blurring the boundary between cartoon art and cartography (Barron 2008, 9).