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1856

Founds the satirical weekly “Uylenspiegel”

Together with Charles De Coster and Victor Hallaux, Rops moves on from student magazines to a weekly artistic and literary satirical review of his own: he contributes one or two lithographs to each issue, more than 180 in all; later he gives up his managerial role but goes on drawing for the magazine until 1862.

June 1857

Marries Charlotte Polet de Faveaux

The bride is the daughter of a wealthy magistrate and owner of Thozée Castle near Mettet; for the first years Rops lives there as a country gentleman, devoted to painting and botany, and in 1862 he founds a rowing club, the Royal Nautical Club of Sambre and Meuse.

1858

Uproar over the cartoon “The Waterloo Medal”

A decrepit, peg-legged Napoleon is shown on a medal guarded by his devotees from a horde of skeletons rising from the dead — a criticism of those who honoured the emperor with no regard for the havoc and loss of life he had brought to Europe; the cartoon causes outrage in France and Belgium but only adds to Rops’s notoriety.

1858–1859

Birth of his son Paul and daughter Juliette

In 1858 Rops’s son Paul is born, and in 1859 his daughter Juliette, who is to die at the age of five.

1858–1867

Illustrates books by Charles De Coster

Rops illustrates several books by Charles De Coster, his co-founder of “Uylenspiegel”: “Flemish Legends” (1858), “Brabant Tales” (1861) and “The Legend of Uylenspiegel” (1867).