--- title: L'Homme a la boule (Draner), French caricature of a Prussian leader on a globe url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/lhomme-a-la-boule-draner-1870/ description: A full-page caricature by Draner shows a moustached figure with an oversized head and a spindly body in a spiked helmet with a Prussian eagle, teetering… section: Collection --- [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/) [![L'Homme a la boule (Draner), French caricature of a Prussian leader on a globe](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/lhomme-a-la-boule-draner-1870.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/lhomme-a-la-boule-draner-1870.jpg) # L'Homme a la boule (Draner), French caricature of a Prussian leader on a globe A full-page caricature by Draner shows a moustached figure with an oversized head and a spindly body in a spiked helmet with a Prussian eagle, teetering on a globe on which 'Prusse' and 'France' are marked. The caption puts a mock German-accented French in his mouth ('Il me semple que je affre perdu l'egilipre'). The tell is the accent joke and the shrunken body beneath a giant head, which mock the enemy leader as a clumsy acrobat about to fall. - **Date:** 1870 - **Period:** [Pre-1914](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=pre-1914) - **Made by:** Draner (caricaturist), sold by Strauss and Madre, Paris; printed by Vallee - **Region:** [Western and Central Europe](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=western-central-europe) - **Country:** [France](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=france) - **Medium:** [Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=cartoon) - **Issuer type:** [Individual](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=individual) - **Regime:** [Government of National Defense](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=government-of-national-defense) - **Leader:** [Louis Jules Trochu](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=louis-jules-trochu) - **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public) - **Purpose:** [Reassure](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=reassure) - **Theme:** [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military) - **Event:** [Franco Prussian War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=franco-prussian-war) - **Techniques:** [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/) - **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are - **Source:** [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2008679014/), retrieved September 29, 2026 - **Rights:** Public domain (published 1870-71, before 1931; LoC rights statement: No known restrictions on publication in the U.S.) Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-21823 ## Text on the object Original (French) · read from the image, not independently checked ``` L'HOMME A LA BOULE par DRANER. Tarteifle ! je ne gonprends pas ce que j'ébrouve ? Il me semple que je affre perdu l'égilipre, et que mon pied il affre clissé sur la poule. En vente chez STRAUSS, 7, rue du Croissant, & chez MADRE, 20, rue du Croissant. 843. — Paris. — Imprimerie VALLÉE, 16, rue du Croissant. [on the globe:] PRUS[illegible] ... FRANCE [signature lower right:] DRANER [engravers' credit lower left, partly legible:] [illegible] sc. ``` English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader) ``` THE MAN ON THE BALL, by Draner. 'Devil take it! I don't understand what I am feeling? It seems to me that I have lost my balance, and that my foot has slipped on the ball.' [The spellings gonprends, j'ebrouve, semple, affre, egilipre, clisse and poule mimic a German accent, with hard consonants and voiced/unvoiced swaps: comprends, j'eprouve, semble, ai, equilibre, glisse, boule.] On sale at Strauss, 7 rue du Croissant, and at Madre, 20 rue du Croissant. No. 843, Paris, printed by Vallee, 16 rue du Croissant. ``` Read from the committed image. 'Tarteifle' is a mock-German oath, plausibly from Teufel (devil); the gloss is Claude's inference. The globe labels and the engravers' credit are small and only partly legible. Machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader. [← Das ganze Deutschland soll es sein. Haut sie auf den Chassepot! (German broadsheet song and caricature, Franco-Prussian War)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/das-ganze-deutschland-soll-es-sein-chassepot-1870/) [¡¡Viva Chile!! Suscrición popular para comprar una Nueva Esmeralda (Popular Subscription to Buy a New Esmeralda) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/suscricion-popular-nueva-esmeralda-1879/) ## Using the same techniques - [Passional Christi und Antichristi: the emperor kisses the pope's foot (leaf 'Antichristus')](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passional-christi-antichristi-emperor-kisses-pope-1521/) (1521 · Name-calling, Card stacking) - [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling) - [Ondersoeckt de Geesten, ofse van den Duyvel syn, of niet (the De Witt brothers as devils)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ondersoeckt-de-geesten-de-witt-devils-1672/) (1672 · Scapegoating, Name-calling) - [The Highlanders Medley, or The Duke Triumphant (A Loyal Song)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/highlanders-medley-duke-triumphant-1746/) (1746 · Name-calling, Transfer) - [The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/revere-bloody-massacre-king-street-1770/) (Mar 1770 · Name-calling, Card stacking) - [Marche du Dom Quichotte moderne pour la deffence du Moulin des Abus (March of the Modern Don Quixote in Defence of the Mill of Abuses)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dom-quichotte-moulin-des-abus-1791/) (1791 · Name-calling, Transfer) - [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling) - [Exit Liberté a la Francois! or Buonaparte closing the Farce of Egalité, at St. Cloud (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/exit-liberte-buonaparte-gillray-1799/) (Nov 21, 1799 · Name-calling)