A barber in Rouen dressing a man's hair. Coloured engraving by G.R. Lewis after himself.

An incident in the bibliographical, antiquarian, and picturesque tour in France and Germany undertaken by T.F. Dibdin and G.R. Lewis, and published in London in 1821, but this incident is not described in Dibdin's publication. "Plate 4 is the French postilion. An artist fond of the ludicrous might indeed devote a whole volume solely to the illustration of this important class of personages. The individual represented under the barber's hands was of the ancienne régime: the jack-boots, hat, and the whole dress, had weathered the storm of the Revolution and the inroad of fashion. It has been objected, that the jack-boots (of which I have endeavoured to give a correct representation) are never put on but when just preparing to mount, and that the wearing them in the barber's shop is not correct: in the present case, the postilion was prepared to mount; but it was Sunday; the operation of shaving had been forgotte ; it was on a sudden recollected; and not even the impatience of an English party, post-haste for Paris, could persuade him to postpone this important affai : but that no time might be lost, he stalked into the barber's shop with his boots still on his legs. I believe he was much flattered by my making a sketch of him, and was gravely warned to be in no hurry. He was pleased with the performance, accepted with becoming solemnity my compliment on his physiognomy, and desired that his name (Jean François Victor Tirmont) should be written under the drawing."--Lewis, loc. cit.