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Critics of popular action first mastered the art of searing attacks and here sharpen their propaganda skills against this activist worker, who appears to be walking off with his "loot" after the locks have been broken.

The shoemaker shown here is president of his neighborhood revolutionary committee. Although this engraving does not portray a specific political activity, the character evokes hostility toward laborers and artisans who involved themselves in…

This image presents an idealized version of Napoleon during the Directory, especially his intellectual contributions. In the upper right corner he appears before the Directory. Along the right bottom, Napoleon clearly confronts the Middle East, both…

Of particular interest in this caricature of refractory clergy here are the long noses, traditionally used to caricature Jews, that suggest the refractory clergy were not of the people. This image shows resistant clergy marching in their last…

Even when they resisted Napoleon’s efforts to control their destinies, contemporaries of all European nations were fascinated by the Napoleonic legend unfolding before their eyes.

This highly sophisticated political cartoon by the noted engraver James Gillray from October 1796 responds to Edmund Burke’s pamphlet, "Reflections on a Regicide Peace." This image argues against further war with France to avoid bankrupting the…

Surrounded by her children, this woman represents conventionality and respectability.

Like the preceding image, this engraving reveals the aftermath of the seizure of the Bastille. Here the crowd parades the severed head of the offial, Foulon.

Here the events of 10 August were expressed by reducing the royal family to animals. Driven from their palace to prison, the family became no more than a group of barnyard animals. Contrast these common four–footed animals with the erect…

To contemporaries who subscribed to the Enlightenment, the term "reason" was to be contrasted to superstition. Even though Christians, too, believed in reason, they also wanted to make room for the possibility of God’s intervention, particularly in…