Les contes drolatiques
An illustrated French edition of Balzac's Contes drolatiques, his mock-medieval tales in archaic prose, drawn by Albert Robida and issued in Paris by Jules Tallandier around 1900 for general readers of illustrated classics. Robida's pen work runs to hooded funeral processions with torches, shouting monks among scattered books, courtroom and tavern crowds, and small marginal vignettes pairing a woman's head with a knight's helm and heraldic shield, useful for silhouetted crowd groups, captioned comic scenes, and spot ornaments.
