Browse Items (121 total)

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 a woodcut that appeared in Révolutions de Paris, the guillotine is used before a crowd of soldiers and patriotic onlookers, to execute nine "émigrés" who had tried to fell France and thus demonstrated themselves to be traitors.

Social discrimination against old regime elites continued in this parody of a famous painting prior to the Revolution, The Oath of the Horatii, by Jacques–Louis David which focused on the courage of three brothers who thrust their arms bravely…

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…

This song illustrates the fluid boundary between "high" and "popular" musical forms. Althought these lyrics were set to a new composition by Joseph Gossec, they could also be sung to a tune already familiar to many French men and women. The song…

The Russian author Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) wrote prolifically about the French Revolution and about the ideology known as anarchism. He joined in the Russian revolutionary movement in 1872, was imprisoned by the tsarist state, and fled, escaping…

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…

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…

Despite the radical measures taken by the National Assembly, such as the abolition of nobility and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, social conflicts continued to manifest themselves after the National Assembly completed its work in 1791. In the…