The Terror, which many justified then as now as an unfortunate necessity, raised enormous anxieties. A hostile cartoon equates the Revolution with severed heads.
This engraving depicts a revolutionary club as a circus act complete with dancing dogs and clowns, all celebrating "the law and the King." This image might have been visual propaganda on behalf of clubs, suggesting that they could bring different…
Camille Desmoulins, an influential populist writer, here attacks the distinction between "active" and "passive" citizenry based on personal wealth, by pointing out that Christ himself would have been relegated to "passive" citizenry. Desmoulins holds…
This description of the proceedings of the revolutionary tribunal, and of the physical setting of the Place de la Révolution where the guillotine stood, by an unsympathetic English observer gives the flavor of the workings of revolutionary justice.…
The "Champ de Mars Massacre" inaugurated a brief period of political repression directed at the popular movement and dramatized the growing tension between the claims of political activism and the desire of moderates to bring the Revolution to an…
In the view of the most radical commentators, such as those writing for the newspaper Révolutions de Paris, the Revolution had to be the work of more than just the deputies of the National Assembly; it had to be an effort of the common people. To…
By creating a fictional man named Jacques who must go to his workshop every day so he can support his family, yet who also wants to do his patriotic duty by following political events, the Révolutions de Paris, in this article that appeared in late…
This cartoon mocks the distinction between active and passive citizens. Many revolutionaries hated this difference, essentially dividing those with property from those without. The propertied (active) were the only ones who could participate in the…
The guillotine was first introduced as a humane, efficient, and above all modern form of execution in April 1792; during the radical phase of the Republic, it would become the symbol of the Terror. This engraving suggests the guillotine is providing…
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) played a vital role in mobilizing American support for their own independence, and he leapt to support the French revolutionaries when Edmund Burke attacked. Elected deputy to the French National Convention in 1793, Paine…
