Day-Hickman: An Interpretive Study of Prints on the French Revolution

In some cases, French artists presented the revolutionary crowd and its leaders as viable heroes in the new revolutionary regime. “The Arrest of Louis Capet and his family at Varennes” [Image 8] by Berthaut after Prieur provides an interesting contrast to Gillray's bitter rendition of the French king's failed attempt to flee with his family to Austrian territory. Instead of depicting the revolutionary crowd as a group of crazy specters, the French engraver presents a resolute and determined militia who surround and capture the royal family. The current narrative portrays Drouet, the son of the local postal director, in the village of Sainte-Ménéhould as a heroic figure who forces down the door and enters with his ragtag crew of soldiers bearing rifles and bayonets.16 The leader wears the three-cornered hat of a lower-rank officer with a frock coat and boots. His local band displays determination and manly prowess as they break into the king's hideout and point accusingly at the royal entourage seated passively about the table dining on the right side of the print. The queen and dauphin are in the shadows while the king, sporting a broad paunch and broad-brimmed hat, grabs a bottle as his only defense against the unexpected invaders. Disarmed by the threatening gestures of the militia, several elegantly attired members of the king's party, sporting courtly wigs, draw back with gestures of resignation. The leaders of the militia carry torches that illuminate the stark room of the inn and reveal the traitorous plans of the royal family. Torchlight marks the moment of “truth” when the revolutionary militia discovers the king's attempted escape in the sulphurous darkness of the royal refuge. But the sturdy figures in the left foreground have brought the king's deception to light with their torches. Through the contrast between light and shadows, transparency and duplicity, the artist underscores how the revolutionary soldiers who capture the royal party secure a major victory, not merely through their bravery but also by inadvertently divesting the king and his company of their “hidden identities.”

Without seeing the original design by Prieur, it is impossible to identify the engraver's subsequent modifications. Pierre-Gabriel Berthaut senior, who worked as chief engraver for Napoleon in 1809, could have executed a later rendition of this scene to reflect the heroic costume of Napoleon as the democratic “little corporal” wearing his greatcoat, three-cornered hat, breeches, and boots. It is more likely, however, that Berthaut rendered the print closer to the actual event, circ. 1793.17 By accentuating the concerted assault of the revolutionary militia, the artist underscores their heroic mission to capture and unveil the deceitful intrigues of the royal family. In the latter case, the print would have furnished a rationale for the beheading of the king and thus endorsed the establishment of a radical, democratic republic.

The “Fourth Incident of October 5, 1789” [Image 5] likewise underscores the daring efforts of a female crowd intent on displacing male political prerogative in order to participate in the legislative assembly. The entry of women into the Chambers is, for the most part, orderly. While several “mixed” groups discuss assembly proceedings in the foreground of the design, the silhouettes of well-dressed women form a bastion in the upper tribunes located in the background. The only sign of disorder or lack of protocol are the women on the central proscenium who try to be recognized by the gentlemen presiding at the speaker's table. The dismayed expressions of deputies on either side of the speaker indicate their discomfiture but not undue reaction to the dispute over assembly leadership. Only the male figure teetering backward on a chair at the central table suggests that the women's efforts to gain recognition have not produced an entirely tranquil effect. Nonetheless, the presence of women in the foreground, middle ground, and the background of the print demonstrates their determination to remain present and active in assembly proceedings. And because the women are dressed appropriately with caps, shawls, and long dresses, the artist does not imply any sexual indiscretion. He instead portrays the women as respectable and equal in size, though located on levels slightly inferior to the president of the assembly. Moreover, light falls equally on the women who stand at the central table and the leaders who officiate at the speaker's table. The rhetorical action of the narrative appears evenly distributed between groupings of women and the men on the proscenium.

This unusually positive rendition of a heterosexual “crowd” done in pen and ink, nonetheless, accentuates the transitory nature of the figures in the legislative assembly. Though the women's intrusion registers a temporary disturbance in the chambers, the solidity of the neo-classical background overrides any sense of permanent disorder. Instead, the sturdiness of four ionic columns bearing the solid renaissance ceiling conveys the strength of tradition, order, and stability to the revolutionary setting. The women's unexpected entry into public space thus marks a brief moment or unexpected hiatus in which women endeavored to participate as equals in the revolutionary forum. In this instance women appear to have legitimately assumed power in a venue normally open only to men.

The final print “Place Vendôme: The Greatest of Despots Overthrown by Freedom” [Image 11] reveals how crowd members take possession of political space (and power) in the Place Vendôme and replace the absent statue of the king. This somewhat popular allegorical print reveals a disparate group of sans-culottes figures who successfully capture and kill the “monster of despotism.” Concurrently, a triangular grouping of sans-culottes leaders mount a pedestal formerly dedicated to the memory of Louis XIV. The defiant crew of sans-culottes thus takes on the proverbial role of St. George who, according to Christian traditions, impaled and destroyed the villainous dragon of Indo-European folklore. The band of plebeian figures on the pedestal raises the phrygian bonnet (symbol of political freedom) above the fray to celebrate the defeat of the dragon and their liberation from French tyranny. Smoke and fire emitted by the dying dragon encompass the monument, creating an apocalyptic conflagration. 18

But in addition to the triumphal figures at the apex of the composition, the artist locates varied “crowd” members who have approached and assailed the dying demon from both sides of the print. The grouping of sans-culottes men, who tie down the beast with ropes from their improvised barricade to the left of the design, perform an essential role in the capture. Likewise, an infantryman in the foreground left, the sans-culotte artisan on the right, and the tiny figure of liberty who kneels atop the dying monster establish multiple sites for crowd participation in the battle. A varied set of actors (in different places) can thus claim recognition for destroying the statue of the king and slaying the fiery dragon. It is apparent that the crowd refuses to remain a passive witness to the major events of revolutionary history.19 In this final political representation of the “world turned upside down,” a disparate band of plebeian fighters has slain the monster of tyranny and subsequently mounted the king's pedestal to embody the new republican revolution.

In retrospect, the prints selected for this study represent the crowd as political agents as well as witnesses to the events portrayed. Whether praising or ridiculing, engravers portray crowd leaders and their following as protagonists in the revolutionary events. For example, “The Trait of Heroic Courage” [Image 22] and the “Arrest of Louis Capet at Varenne,” [Image 8] demonstrate the courageous efforts of plebeian leaders to express their heroic allegiance to the revolution when confronted with crowd resistance, aggression, and counter-revolutionary reaction. The protagonists in each of these prints—the courageous matron and the heroic leader of the revolutionary militia—demonstrate their resolute determination to contest duplicitous forces that obstruct the new political order. Such prints represent revolutionary leaders and their following as harbingers of revolutionary “virtue” who confront, disarm, or endeavor to overwhelm the alleged enemy. Both compositions demonstrate the triumph of political virtue and heroism in the face of crowd dispersion and disarray. The heroic protagonists in these more dramatic compositions function as agents of “virtue” and “honor” who surpass the foolhardy resistance of counter-revolutionary forces.

In contrast, five satirical prints, “Madame Sans-Culotte” [Image 18], “Pariser Poisarden” [Image 19], “French Liberty, British Slavery” [Image 23], “French Democrats Surprising the Royal Runaways” [Image 9], “The Fourth Event of October, 1789” [Image 5] and “The Return of the French Heroines” [Image 32] present a Rabelaisian world turned upside down to poke fun at revolutionary partisans. Artists who critique the French revolution describe individuals or “the crowd” in terms of an inverted social order where plebeian leaders usurp power from traditional, aristocratic, royal, or male prerogatives. Conservative artists who question radical violence represent revolutionary adherents as irrational or bloodthirsty. Furthermore, artists who wish to put revolutionary leaders or events into question depict the crowd as disorderly and destructive. Through the display of crowd distraction, irrationality, or animalistic furor, satirical artists create a “grotesque” contrast to the presumed dignity and sanity of “traditional” societies.

Gender transgression also explains much of the violence depicted either implicitly or explicitly in the prints. Whether the artist's predisposition is pro-revolutionary or counter-revolutionary, many of the images reveal rampant disregard of acceptable gender boundaries—between masculine and feminine, active and passive, or public and private domains. Such transgressions may be designed to provoke audience indignation at the inappropriateness of the character's behavior. For example, in some of the anonymous prints such as “Pariser Poisarden,” [Image 19] the engraver derides women in public space to underline scandalous disregard for their preordained roles as wives and mothers. In contrast, women observing their maternal duties in the home, such as the matron in “The Trait of Heroic Courage,” [Image 22] are presumed virtuous and honorable. Men who transgress gender norms are likewise liable to political censure. For example, representations of men in private space, such as the figure of “French Liberty” or the “King” respectively in the Gillray [Image 23] and Prieur [Image 8] prints, suggests passivity, cowardice, and emasculation. According to each of the artists, such inordinate transgressions of traditional gender roles merit social censure or violent reprisal.

Artists either endorsed or critiqued revolutionary personae and events by describing the virtual or actual shift in authority from traditional to popular groups. In some cases the transition in power was apparently peaceable and orderly. In other instances, the disqualification or removal of the King from power was rendered through ridicule or violence. And whether the transfer of power from the traditional elite to revolutionary leaders was produced in costly metal engravings or cruder popular etchings, the theme remained constant. Visual art articulated and replayed the fundamental carnival ritual. And though visual narratives seem to be based on the uncomplicated theme of “the world turned upside down,” historians cannot neglect the importance of such visual and perhaps mimetic evidence. This investigation therefore continues to question the ways that artists/artisans/ printers (and their virtual public) endeavored to identify, discredit, and replace those at odds with their own political vision.

16 Michel Vovelle, L'image de la Révolution Française: rapports présentés lors du Congrès mondial pour le bicentenaire de la Révolution (Paris: Sorbonne, 1989) Vol. II. 281.

17 Emmanuel Bénézit, Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs, et graveurs (Paris: Librairie Grund, 1976) Tome premier, 690.

18 The engraving combines the apocalyptic themes and naive style of popular prints sold by traveling peddlers in cities and villages during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. While the dramatic narrative reveals a historical event, i. e. the dismantling and removal of Louis XIV's statue, the composition also incorporates religious, mythical, and pagan themes to indicate how commoners envisaged their release from the experience of tyranny, evil, and oppression. For further information on popular art, religion, and politics, see: Barbara Ann Day-Hickman, Napoleonic Art and the Spirit of Rebellion in France 1815-1848 (Wilmington, Delaware and London: Associated University Presses, 1999).

19 Records in Qb1, 1792, in the Division des Estampes at Bibliothèque Nationale Française, Richelieu, indicate the date of the event portrayed as August 11, 1792, one day after the people's storming of the Tuileries palace and subsequent imprisonment of the king. The print itself, however, might have been produced in the spring of 1793 to underscore the legitimacy of sans-culotte takeover of the National Convention.