F—H Pacification or the Q—N of H—Y Strip

This copper engraving satirizes Cardinal Fleury's role in the partition of Austrian territories during the War of Austrian Succession. A seminude allegorical female figure—representing contested lands—stands at center while crowned rulers, clergy, and officials gesture and grab at her, each seeking advantage. The sexual metaphor employs female bodies to symbolize territory in political argument. Engraved in the Netherlandish tradition of political satire, this print descends from Hogarth's moral narratives and prefigures Gillray's bite. The stock characters and legible symbolic language—costume, posture, gesture—encode political argument for a print-literate public. Such sheets circulated widely, establishing visual codes that would flow into caricature, broadsheets, and eventually comic narrative.