The Wrong Spell: A French Defeat in Brabant and Flanders

This etched political print mocks French military failure through animal satire. Anthropomorphic beasts—a wolf, bear, and goat—consult a conjurer at a table while a demon emerges from below, representing the futility of French strategy during the War of Spanish Succession. The accompanying verse narrates the scene in Dutch and French. Etching was the dominant medium for topical prints in early 18th-century Northern Europe, where visual ridicule of foreign powers reached mass audiences. Animal substitution for national leaders became a standard convention alongside caricatured physiognomy. This tradition of graphic political mockery—using exaggeration, allegory, and crude humor to shame enemies and rally public opinion—established visual vocabulary inherited by later satirists and eventually comic printmakers.