A little liberté, égalité, and fraternité in honor of Bastille Day on July 14. A few oddities to remind you that the French Revolution was ridiculously awesome.

During the 1790s, the French Revolutionary calendar (formally known as the Republican calendar) replaced the one we now use. See the history.

Engraving shows French revolutionary Georges Jacques Danton as he definantly looks over the crowd as he climbs the steps to his execution by guillotine for conspiracy to overthrow the government...

During the 1790s, the French Revolutionary calendar (formally known as the Republican calendar) replaced the one we now use. See the history.

This beautiful terracotta statue of Robespierre, on display in the Musée de la Révolution française at Vizille, is identified today as the work of the sculptor Claude-André Deseine. It is recorded that on the evening of 18th December 1791 Deseine presented this bust, together with one of Pétion, to the Jacobin Club which had recently elected to adorn its meeting room with sculptures of "champions of liberty"( Rousseau, FrankIin, Mably, Price and Mirabeau). Members were at first enthusiastic, then one of their number recalled that a month previously it had been decided that no living citizen could have their effigy displayed. Robespierre himself remained silent all this time, but seemed impatient to resume discussion of the war and to deliver the speech he had prepared. In April 1792, however, he recalled with approval to the provincial Jacobins the ruling of the Paris society. The statue has been in the possession of the Musée de la Révolution française only since 1986 and there is little information available about its provenance; apparently the identification was made by Maria Antonietta De Angelis in a manuscript work of 1992 (see Bordes, "Le robespierrisme", p.132) How good a likeness is it? Presumably there were no formal sittings; Deseine based his work on observations of Robespierre at the Assembly. Philippe Bordes comments: [The bust of Robespierre by Deseine] adopts a middle position between the relaxed stance of the portrait by Labille-Guiard and the emphatic pose that David had given him. This effigy is seductive, animated, almost anxious, but it expresses neither oratorical power (see Mirabeau by the same sculptor) nor antique heroism (see Barnave by Houdon). This lively bust belongs to the political universe of the Jacobin club rather than of the National Assembly (p.133) A second copy of the sculpture on display in the Conciergerie is a modern reproduction. (The adjacent bust with the open-necked shirt, on the other hand, is an original by Deseine of Augustin Robespierre: http://www.regards.monuments-nationaux.fr/fr/asset/fullTextSearch/search/ augustin%20de%20robespierre/page/1 ) References At the Musée de la Révolution française de Vizille: http://www.ac-grenoble.fr/histoire/academie/vizille/vizille.htm Philippe Bordes, "Le robespierrisme de Jacques-Louis David" in Annie Jourdain, Robespierre: figure-réputation (1996) [Google eBook] p.131-2.

Stew Ross joins us with a guest post. He is a retired commercial banker, turned author, entrepreneur, and world traveler. Having grown up in Europe, he loves to travel for history and now shares it…

Charlotte Corday, in full Marie-Anne-Charlotte Corday d’Armont, (born July 27, 1768, Saint-Saturnin, near Séez, Normandy, France—died July 17, 1793, Paris), the assassin of the French revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat. Descended from a noble family, educated in a convent at Caen, and royalist by sentiment, yet susceptible also to the ideals of the Enlightenment, Corday was living with an aunt in Caen when it became a centre of the “federalist” movement against the National Convention after the expulsion of the Girondins in May–June 1793. Inspired especially by Charles Barbaroux among the Girondin refugees, she left for Paris to work for the Girondin

On June 20th 1789, Third Estate deputies found themselves locked out of a meeting hall at Versailles. Outraged, they decided to meet in a tennis court.

Watteau, Toilet articles chez Gersaint......(1720) An 18th-century lady might a spent several hours a day in dressing, surrounded by servants and lackeys, or maybe even an audience of carefully chosen visitors. Such a pivotal activity required its splendid accoutrements in fine materials - lace, porcelain lacquer silver and tortoiseshell - the pinnacle of feminine conspicuous consumption. Tables and table cloths Lace toile, plus silver and crystal toilet set with ewer. Detail from a painting by Francois de Troy In the earlier part of the century, the toilet table itself was of little interest since it was the cloth which covered it, the petite toile, which was all important. As the century progressed plain linen gave way to white taffeta and embroidered muslin, whilst the most extravagant cloths of all were trimmed entirely with lace. Almost always, a short flounce would border the top of the table, with a longer flounce or flounces falling to the ground beneath. In an age when lace was handmade, such a profusion was an unequivocal statement of wealth and luxury. Paintings and inventories also record all sorts of additional swathing in richly coloured velvet, taffeta or satin - the rich vibrant coloured textiles hung at the back of mirrors being known simply as la toilette. The table cloth itself, however, was almost invariably white. In the second half of the century the vogue for extravagant textile coverings was overtaken by the appearance of purpose-built tables de toilette, which concealed both the mirror and toilet articles behind a decorative façade of gliding and marquetry. The paraphernalia of cosmetics and equipment, and often pens and writing materials, could now be handily accommodated in a plethora of hinged compartments and drawers. These coiffeuses, with their elaborate decoration and curvy legs, still turn up quite regularly at auction houses: Vanity sets By the 1760s, cosmetics were growing in popularity so much that vanity table sets began to be heavily advertised, and dressing rooms were built facing north for the best light. A service de toilette could comprise more than two-dozen pieces, though the mirror was always the main item; at the time of her death in 1748 Madame de Pompadour owned a vanity set consisting of “two quarrés; two powder boxes; two others for patches; another en peloton, another for roots, of rosewood; a mirror twenty inches high and eighteen wide, matching wood in its frame; two paste pots; two others for pomade; a little cup a saucer of Sèvres porcelain; a goblet and two little bottles of Bohemian glass; a bell of silvered brass" (!). Although painted or varnished wood was the most common material, an elite owned heavy metal sets of gold, silver and vermeil. French silver sets are rare - only five examples are known to survive intact; many, like that belonging to Madame de Pompadour, were patriotically melted down to help finance the Seven Years' War. Lacquer and porcelain came into vogue in the 1750s - the Wallace collection has a fine green Sèvres service which may have belonged to la Pompadour herself. Lacquered wood in a Japanese style was popularised by Guillaume and Etienne-Simon Martin ("vernis Martin"). Sèvres toilet set, Wallace Collection. This splendid surviving nineteen-piece silver service from the Detroit Institute of Arts dates from the 1730s and includes a mirror weighing over twenty-four pounds. Fine Chinese laquer toilet set - detail from an early 18th century portrait by Drouais Items which might be included in a service de toilette 1. Boxes for hair powder. Hair powder was bought scented and possibly coloured by the perfumer; small quantities could then be mixed with inexpensive, unscented starch. Toilette sets usually included a pair of powder containers, suggesting the possibility of varying or mixing scents and shades. White went out of fashion by the 1770s but coloured powders continued to be worn. Boxes had airtight seals to keep the powder dry and free from mites. They had to be big enough to contain large quantities of powder required. 2. Hair powder puffs. Hair powder was applied using a large powder puff (houppe); Puffs of swansdown began to appear in perfumers' inventories from the beginning of the century; by the second half of the century cheaper versions were also available, made of wool, yarn and cats hair. Pewter hair powder box with puff Detail from Boucher, Lady applying a beauty patch 3. Small rectangular whisk (vergette) to dust excessive powder from clothing. 4. Powder bellows (soufflet en poudre) replaced the puff in the second half of the century. These were more economical but less precise, necessitating the use of masks and cones to protect the face. 5. Ewers for water or toilet waters 6. Boxes for "mouches" Gold patch box with brush, c.1730. Images @ Etsy Gold and enamel example from the 1780s which sold for £10,575 in 2002 7. Assorted boxes for soap, sponges, combs, pins, jewellery. These were often called quarrés or carrés de toilette, since they were characteristically square or rectangular. Casket about 1680-90. Wood, veneered with rosewood, brass, pewter, mother-of-pearl and painted horn. J.Paul Getty Museum. Detail of a similar box from Nattier's portrait of Madame Marsollier and her daughter, 1749 8. Root boxes (boîtes à racines) for aromatic roots and herbs used to freshen breath and clean the teeth. 6. Pin boxes and pin cushions References This is mostly taken from: Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, "Dressing to impress: the morning toilette and the fabrication of femininity" in Paris: life & luxury in the 18th century by Charissa Bremer-David et al. Getty Museum 2011 (Extracts on Google books) See also: "At the Vanity" - Madame Isis' Toilette blog http://madameisistoilette.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/at%20the%20vanity Exhibitions and collections "Paris, life & luxury" - Exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, April 26-August 7 2011 http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/paris_lifeluxury/ 18th-century toilet articles from the collection of Lyons perfumer Léon Givaudan. Shown to coincide with an exhibition on "Lyon au 18e" at the Musée Gadagne in 2013. http://www.leprogres.fr/art-et-culture/2013/02/07/l-art-de-se-maquiller-au-18e-siecle Here is a cool set of photos of travelling toilet sets and other assorted accessories: http://www.pinterest.com/litttlebits/cosmetic-box-18th-century/

Portrait by Marie-Victoire Lemoine, dated 1779 Sold at Christie's in April 2012 http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/marie-victoire-lemoine-portrait-de-marie-therese-louise-de-savoie-carignan-5549565-details.aspx On this day, 3rd September, in 1792 the Princesse de Lamballe, companion of Marie-Antoinette, was bludgeoned to death outside the La Force prison, her body stripped, her heart torn out, her head hacked off and impaled on a pike, and her pathetic remains paraded in bloody triumph through Paris over several hours. Exact details are disputed and her murder was not, of course, the only act of Revolutionary violence that September, Nonetheless the brutality of her death continues to exercise a fascination due to the contrast with her privileged aristocratic upbringing and reputation for refined sensibilities. The archetypal victim, the Princess in many ways represented a substitute for Marie-Antoinette herself. The "myth" of the Princesse de Lamballe has recently been explored in depth by Antoine De Baecque in his Glory and Terror: seven deaths under the French Revolution (English version 2002). What follows is a modest attempt to piece together what actually happened in those final hours. Who was the Princesse de Lamballe? As the daughter of Prince Louis-Victor de Savoie-Carignan of the House of Savoy, Marie-Thérèse Louise de Savoie-Carignan (1749-1792) was a blue-blood of impeccable credentials. In 1767 she was splendidly married by proxy to the young Prince de Lamballe, huntsman of France and only son of the duc de Penthièvre, cousin of Louis XVI. Unfortunately the fairy-tale union was cut short by the premature death of her thoroughly debauched young husband, leaving the Princess to be presented at Court already a widow at the tender age of nineteen. Various projects for her remarriage came to naught. Financially liberated by marriage settlement - 60,000 livres, plus a life interest on further 30,000 livres - she seemed genuinely devoted to her father-in-law, who had a great reputation for piety and good works. Neither maid nor wife, she therefore continued - like Marie-Antoinette, with her unconsummated marriage - to inhabit a strange and ambivalent sexual no-man's-land. For a while she was joined in intimate friendship with the Queen - a relationship massively charged with Rousseauist emotion; Marie-Antoinette even had her friend's image painted on a mirror to make life bearable when they were briefly parted.The impression they gave was one of thoughtless insouciance. In the terrible winter of 1776, whilst people starved, the two famously fair-haired young women, twins in their bejewelled white furs, zooming through Paris on a horse-drawn sledge, the Princesse de Lamballe looking, as Madame Campan has it, like "spring clothed with ermine" or "a rose in the snow". Alexander Roslin, Portrait of an unknown woman, speculatively identified as the princesse de Lamballe. In 1775 the Princess was brought to public attention for the first time, when Marie-Antoinette revived at fabulous expense for her favourite the position of superintendant of the the Queen's household, a move widely thought to be responsible for the fall of Turgot who had protested against the extravagance. Unfortunately for her future reputation, the Princess revealed herself as both a stickler for protocol and grasping for property and sinecures on behalf of her relatives (both her brothers were given senior army posts). Despite her considerable private income, she insisted on the entire salary for the post attracted and ill-advisedly offended courtiers when she as she demurred from issuing invitations to events as demeaning to her status. It was as part of a campaign orchestrated by members of the Court, that suggestions of an improper relationship between the two young women began to circulate: she became an iconic hate-figure second only to the queen herself, a milky-skinned blond ice-maiden of unshakeable hauteur and hidden perversity. Jean-Baptiste Charpentier, The duc de Penthièvre and his daughter, Chateau de Versailles Ironically enough it was at this very time that the Princess was largely replaced in Marie-Antoinette's affections by the duchesse de Polignac. From the mid-1770s, she was to keep at a discreet distance, either with her father-in-law's at Sceaux or Rambouillet or in circle of the duc de Chartres, later duc d'Orléans, who was married to the duc de Penthièvre's daughter, Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon. It was this last association which prompted Louis XVI to discourage the friendship with his wife. Prompted by her brother-in-law, the Princess became involved in the fashionable new craze of freemasonry at this time and was Grand Mistress of Loge du Contrat-Social in 1780. Though later associated with radical politics, this brand of freemasonry was really little more than a pretext for balls, suppers and social events. A number of society portraits of the Princess survive from this period - small featured and fair, she is clearly recognisable by her pearls and the three feathers which characteristically adorned her luxuriant blond hair. By Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, painted in 1782, Château de Versailles The accounts give a picture of a woman who was sweet-natured but protective of her privileged status, obliging to her friends and family and a little slow-witted. Straightforwardly and unimaginatively pious, she gave generously to the poor ("vos pauvres" as Marie-Antoinette remarked). In appearance she was small and fragile - even Madame de Genlis, who disliked her, admitted that she was "delicately pretty". Her best feature was the beautiful blond hair which, when it fell from beneath her cap after a bath, completely covered her face and shoulders. She was also weak in health and prone to fainting fits - though whether from a definite medical problem or an oversensitive imagination is unclear. The unkind Madame de Genlis thought the faints were a deliberate affectation - for a whole year the Princess made a point of fainting twice a week at fixed hours, her doctor conveniently at hand. We learn that she fainted in a visit to Crécy when one of the servants yawned incautiously while the party were enjoying a ghost story. It was a favourite anecdote that she even fainted at sight of a painting of a lobster. The Princess during the Revolution After the Diamond Necklace affair, the Princess regained some of her lost favour. As Olivier Blanc notes, her portraits from the late 1780s suggest a desire to appear more serious and reflective; thus Anton Hickel in 1788 depicts her at her desk, pen in hand: Portrait by Anton Hickel, 1788 Liechtenstein Princely Collections http://www.liechtensteincollections.at/en/pages/artbase_main.asp?module=browse&action=m_work&lang=en&sid=502741&oid=W-147200412195342028 . After October 1789, following flight of Madame de Polignac and the transfer of the Court to Paris, she once again took up her duties as superintendant in charge of ceremonies, this time at the Tuileries. There are some hints that she was more actively involved than is at first sight apparent in the machinations of the captive court. Her name appears, for instance, in a list of recipients of secret payments from the Ministry for Foreign affairs. At time of the flight to Varennes she embarked from Dieppe with a passport signed by Montmorin in April 1791 and successfully reached England. If the 19th-century Secret memoirs of the Princess Lamballe are to be believed, she was involved in a whole series of manoeuvres to discover the disposition of the Pitt government. However, the careful researches of Georges Bertin suggest a more modest itinerary; the Princess was at Passy on 20th June when she heard news of the projected royal flight, went thence to Boulogne, crossed to Dover on the 23rd, took ship the next day for Ostend, and arrived at Brussels on the 27th. After the arrest of the royal family, she progressed to Aix-la-Chapelle, where she dictated her will on 15 October and then, whether by her own initiative or on Marie-Antoinette's instruction, returned courageously to Paris and her duties as superintendant. Handwriting and signature of the Princesse de Lamballe Reproduced from Lescure, La princesse de Lamballe (1864) Shortly afterwards the Princess was denounced by Committee of Surveillance of the Legislative Assembly and also pinpointed in the Revolutionary press for her involvement in the the secret machinations of the Court. No doubt at the very least she had some role as intermediary in the manoeuvres of the so-called "Austrian committee" and knew the identities of compromised Revolutionaries such as Sombreuil, Brissac, Valdec de Lassart, Thierry de Ville-d'Avray, through whom the Court had attempted to influence the decisions of the Revolutionary government. By the fateful events of the 10th August, she was already singled out for vengeance....... I Arms of the Princesse de Lamballe, Reproduced in Paul Fassy, Episodes de l'histoire de Paris sous la Terreur (1886) References Antoine De Baecque, Glory and Terror: seven deaths under the French Revolution (2002) Antonia Fraser, Marie-Antoinette: the journey (2006) Olivier Blanc, Portraits des femmes : artistes et modèles à l'époque de Marie-Antoinette (2006),p.199-206. Appendix Some 19TH-CENTURY SOURCES on the internet Élisabeth Guénard, Mémoires historiques de Mme la princesse de Lamballe (1801, 4 vol.) vol.4: https://archive.org/details/mmoireshistori04gu Élisabeth Guénard was a prolific writer and her work, which contains much spurious dialogue, is generally regarded as "imaginative". Nonetheless the circumstantial detail is tempting. Catherine Hyde, Secret memoirs of the Princess Lamballe (Originally published 1826) https://archive.org/details/secretmemoirsofp00lambuoft Catherine Hyde aka Kitty Hyams, was not quite who she claimed to be, and certainly not the amanuensis and confidante of the princesse de Lamballe! The "memoirs" are undoubtedly spurious. However, as with Élisabeth Guénard's work, there are lots of odd details not found elsewhere. See http://teaattrianon.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/mysterious-catherine-hyde.html Adolphe Mathurin de Lescure, La princesse de Lamballe Marie-Thérèse-Louise de Savoie-Carignan sa vie - sa mort (1749-1792) Originally published 1864. https://archive.org/details/laprincessedela01lescgoog Marquise de Lage de Volude, Souvenirs d'émigration (Originally published 1869). Memoirs of the Princess's maid-of-honour. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=65IEAAAAYAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s Georges Bertan, Madame de Lamballe (English version, New York 1901, originally published 1888). Scholarly work, reproducing many documentary sources. https://archive.org/details/cu31924024292504 Blanche Christabel Hardy, The Princess de Lamballe: a biography (1908) https://archive.org/details/cu31924024292447

Modern-day France has an ambivalent relationship with its Revolutionary past. There are almost no public monuments, with one strange exception - the Place de Révolution française in a modern development in distant Montpellier. Created in 2007 the project was the brainchild of the controversial mayor of Montpellier and président of the Languedoc-Roussillon region, Georges Frêche, and the design of a well-respected architect, Adrien Fainsilber. It is tucked away from the main town, on the opposite side of the River Lez, and is small-scale and slickly metropolitan in concept. Reproductions of iconic 18th-century sculptures sit on slender pillars set in smooth paving, surrounded by administrative offices. In the pictures there is no-one much around; one imagines the occasional office worker out for some air in their lunch break. Mortal enemies rest immobilised on their respective plinths and the blood of the Terror feels comfortingly remote. No-one in Montpellier seems to have been much bothered as to the political correctness of the display (though M. Frêche's subsequent plan to erect statues of Lenin and Mao in a "Place du XXe siècle" caused rather more ill-feeling....). Google Streetview There are several websites which have nice illustrations of the various statues, which are bronze on steel bases. Here is a summary list of the original works: Robespierre Pierre-Jean David d'Angers Louis-Marie de la Révellière-Lépeaux [Angers deputy] (1824) Joseph Lakanal (1839) Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès (1830) Louis-Antoine de Saint-Just (1848) Georges Couthon (1844) Marie-Joseph de La Fayette (1829) André Chénier (1839) Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu (1837) Jean-Antoine Houdon Antoine Barnave (between 1789 and 1793) Louis-Pierre Deseine Jean Sylvain Bailly (1789) Emile Carlier Madame Roland (1893) Claude-André Deseine Maximilien de Robespierre (1791) François Martin Camille Desmoulins (fin XVIIIe siècle) Paul Eugène Victor Bacquet Georges Danton (vers1883) Anon Jean-Paul Marat References Feature from Harmonie (Montpellier Agglomération) October 2007: http://www.montpellier-agglo.com/servlet/com.univ.collabqoratif.utils.LectureFichiergw?ID_FICHIER=1191234603602&ID_FICHE=5604 Nella Buscot "Sculptures à Montpellier - place de Révolution française" [website] http://www.nella-buscot.com/jardins_montpellier_prf_1.php

Now for something altogether more unpleasant..... Madame Tussaud's famous tableau of guillotined heads is something of a puzzle. The Tuss...

I’ve promised for some time now to post a new and improved knitting pattern for Phrygian caps, which I’ve been knitting all Autumn, and Winter, and Spring for the Occupy DC folks. Phryg…

Although my body is subject to the law, my soul remains independent and cannot be crushed. Defence of Gilbert Romme, deputy to the Convention and designer of the Republican Calendar We will find each other once more; we will all see each other again; eternal justice still has something to accomplish when it leaves me under the weight of ignominy. Letter of the deputy Goujon to his wife, written three days before his suicide. The Republican tradition has long honoured the memory of Romme and his companions: they are the "martyrs of Prairial". They rank among those men whom concern for the common good, faithfulness to principles, and a devotion, perhaps arrogant but total, to the Revolution led to the supreme sacrifice.... Albert Soboul, writing in 1966. Charles Ronot, Les derniers Montagnards, 1882. (Oil, 315cm x 202cm) Musée de la Révolution française, Vizille Les derniers montagnardsPortail des collections Département de l'Isère (isere.fr) On 29 Prairial, Year III, 17th June 1795, the mathematician Gilbert Romme, and five of his fellow Montagnard deputies, were sentenced to death by the Military Commission set up after the uprising of Prairial. Rather than submit to the Thermidorean state, the deputies chose to take their own lives in an act of collective suicide. It was a crude and desperate affair. Shortly after the sentence was handed down, they stabbed themselves with makeshift weapons - two concealed knives and the blade from some scissors, which they passed from one to another. Three managed to kill themselves outright; a third was dead by the time he reached the guillotine. In the years which followed, the "martyrs of Prairial" rapidly earned a hallowed place in the radical Republican tradition, particularly through the work of Pierre-François Tissot, the brother-in-law of Goujon, who in 1799 published a volume of moving letters and documents relating to the case. More grandiose commemorations, like Ronot's picture above, are mostly the product of the Third Republic in the 1880s. (Ronot's canvas, at over 3 metres high, is truly colossal) Who were the Martyrs of Prairial? Gilbert Romme, aged forty-nine, deputy for Puy de Dôme. Jean-Michel Duroy, aged forty one, deputy for Eure Jean-Marie Claude Alexandre Goujon, aged twenty-nine, deputy for Seine-et-Oise Pierre Bourbotte, aged thirty-two, deputy for Yonne Ernest Dominique Duquesnoy, aged forty-seven, deputy for Pas-de-Calais Pierre Aimable Soubrany, aged forty-two, deputy for Puy de Dôme. ARREST The prelude to Prairial Why were these six men singled out for death? Anxious as they were to avoid charges of conspiracy, the six denied that they knew known each other. However, this was not entirely true. Certainly Romme and Soubrany, both natives of Riom, were firm friends. Their close intellectual ties are attested by Soubrany's correspondence which was published in 1867. Goujon, on mission with the Army of the Rhine, co-signed letters with Bourbotte. All six had been out of Paris "on mission" at the time of the fall of Robespierre and returned to the Convention to find the political situation vastly changed. Soubrany exemplified a general determination to hold fast to Jacobin principles: "Several of my colleagues, returning from mission, aware of the new system, had the weakness, from fear of being attacked, not to go back to the Mountain; I would have been ashamed to stoop to such a measure". [Soubrany, Dix-neuf lettres, p.45]. Françoise Brunel, historian of the "Last Montagnards", observes that the glorification of the "martyrs of Prairial" - a tradition which goes back to Tissot and Buonarroti - has tended to isolate the men from their political context. Her researches on the composition of the Convention in the post-Thermidor period, suggest there were perhaps a hundred or so deputies associated with the extreme Left ("les crêtois", ie. the crest of the Mountain). In the months before Prairial the six were not necessarily more active than other radical deputies, although they did make notable interventions: on 11-12 Fructidor (28th-29th August 1794) Goujon denounced Tallien's speech on the Terror and opposed Le Cointre's accusations against members of the Committees of Year II: "terror" had not been the system of Robespierre but the policy of the Convention. In later retellings, he cuts a conspicuous figure - only twenty-nine and six-feet tall, with long flowing hair, he combined Romantic good looks with "the presence of a Spartan". In Brumaire Romme, was chosen by lot as one of the Commission of Twenty-One charged with examining the case against Carrier. He cast doubt on the documentary evidence against Carrier and questioned the good faith of his denunciators. Bourbotte, who had just returned from twenty months on mission, stated that, if Carrier had committed crimes, it was only through error and "delirious patriotism" During the insurrection of 12 Germinal Romme, Soubrany and Bourbotte were among the 51 signatories to the demand for an appel nominal against the proscription of Barère, Billot, Collot and Vadier. From then on, radical deputies were obliged to lay low - this was true even of Romme who was a member of the Commission of Sixteen charged with implementing the 1793 Constitution. According to Tissot, "The patriots, menaced from all sides, incarcerated or slaughtered, could not meet together for any enterprise. Wealth, journals, power, public opinion, were all in the control of their enemies(...) From 12 Germinal to the 1 Prairial, Goujon was unable to utter a word in the Assembly" [Tissot, Vie de Goujon, quoted by Françoise Brunel] The events of 1er Prairal, however, were to seal the deputies' fate. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1er_prairial_an_III.jpg The events of Prairial On 1er Prairial Year III (20 May 1795) an angry and volatile crowd of demonstrators invaded the Convention, demanding "Bread and the Constitution of '93". In the course of the ensuring confrontation, the head of the deputy Feraud was paraded threateningly in front of the president, Boissy d'Anglas. The deputies had been in their seats at ten in the morning; by the evening they were at breaking point. At seven o'clock, at the insistence of the crowds, it was finally agreed that the representatives of the Mountain should descend to the lower benches to deliberate. Now, irrevocably, the radicals of the Left gave voice to their convictions. It is impossible to say, in the ensuring chaos, whether the deputies were consumed with enthusiasm or merely carried along by events. The six maintained afterwards, that they had sought only to preserve the Assembly from popular anarchy. Proposals flew to and fro. After several hours of commotion, Romme demanded the release of the patriots arrested on 12 Germinal. He also proposed that there should be only one sort of bread (le pain d'égalité) and that domiciliary visits should be carried out to find stores of grain and flour. Bourbotte demanded the arrest of reactionaries. More coupably still, Soubrany proposed the nomination of an extraordinary commission of four to replace the government committees. Duquesnoy, Prieur de la Marne, Bourbotte and Duroy were duly nominated as the members. The sections were to remain in permanent session. This time, of course, the popular agenda was destined not to prevail. By midnight the troops of Legendre, Auguis and Kervélégan, had put down the insurrection with sabres and bayonets. Order was restored to the Convention and the members of the Mountain stood accused of orchestrating the revolt. DETENTION: In the Château du Taureau - a suicide pact There was some initial hesitation about which deputies would be singled out for proscription. At the close of the session on 1er Prairial, the arrest of fourteen deputies was decreed. However, only eight - the six later condemned to death and two others - were subsequently taken into detention; Philippe Rühl and Prieur de la Marne were held in house arrest, others were released; Antoine Albitte later managed to evade capture. The six were apprehended on the spot - only Soubrany had left the building, but he elected to return and share the fate of his friend Romme. They had time only to scribble a few lines to their families - Romme's note of farewell to his pregnant wife is dated "from the Committee of General Security, 2 Prairial, between 3 and 4 in the morning" (reproduced Vissac, p.199) With Paris in a state of insurrection, it was considered imperative to remove the prisoners to a safe distance as quickly as possible. The Adjutant General Margaron escorted them out of Paris, bound for the Château du Taureau, a forbidding fortress in the waters of the Baie de Morlaix off the coast of Finistère, 500 kilometres away. The journey was to take eight days. They were first taken on foot through the capital then, at the Porte-du-Point-du-Jour, loaded on to hospital carts, without springs and without benches, or even straw, to sit on. A captain and ten gendarmes formed the guard. At Dreux the postmaster's cabriolet was requisitioned. After Caen the convoy slowed down. It was threatened at several points by armed bands. More hurried letters mark the stages of the prisoners' progress west; as a surviving note of Goujon's testifies, they were obliged to leave their letters at the roadside with a plea to the finder to deliver them. Finally, on the evening of 9 Prairial, the men reached Château du Taureau. As political prisoners, the they were treated relatively well during their brief stay. They were allowed to remain together and take their meals at the same table. They were also furnished with spare linen, allowed newspapers and given the wherewithal to write. Meanwhile, on 8 Prairial it was formally decreed that the accused deputies, together with Rühl, Prieur de la Marne and Antoine Albitte, should stand trial before the Military Commission. Tissot, in a pamphlet written in the name of the "Widow Goujon" protested in vain against this violation of the immunity of the people's representatives. Rühl anticipated the six by stabbing himself to death in his lodgings; Prieur and Albitte fled into hiding. On 10 Prairial, eighteen other deputies, including David, were also arrested. Six days after their arrival the commander of the fort brought news of their impending trial to the prisoners. They were under no illusion as to the likely outcome. Tissot recounts that they gathered in Romme's chamber and agreed to commit suicide rather than submit to execution: "They swore to stab themselves in the tribunal and to lend their hand to assist any among them surprised at the last moment by weakness" ("Vie de Goujon", quoted by Françoise Brunel). Later historians add, probably fancifully, that they cemented their vow by singing a patriotic hymn which Goujon had composed in prison (subsequently published by Tissot). Hymne des prisonniers du Château du Taureau Goujon's "Hymn" had in fact originally been written for a civic festival at Bourg-en-Brest in 1789. It was reproduced by Tissot in his Souvenirs de prairial in 1799. If you are feeling brave you can listen to it on YouTube (sung by Rosalie Dubois): https://youtu.be/sid8zTDiCGs This is an early edition from collections of the musée de Bretagne in Rennes. http://www.collections.musee-bretagne.fr/ark:/83011/FLMjo239756 Their written defences reveal the rationale behind the decision to take their own lives. The language of these writings is throroughly Stoic. Romme asserted "although my body is subject to the law, my soul remains independent and cannot be crushed". His colleagues, Soubrany, Goujon and Bourbotte similarly used the rhetoric of Epictetus and Seneca, and invoked the example of Cato the Younger. The deputy Marc-Antoine Baudot was later to refer to the six as "the last of the Romans" (M.-A. Baudot, Notes historiques sur la Convention nationale (1893) p.153) The journey back from Brittany was rapid. On 20 prairial at eight in the evening, seven of the representatives detained in the Taureau (Forestier was substituted for one of the eight), arrived in Paris where they were held in the Prison des Quatre-Nations in the rue Mazarine. Here they were kept under strict surveillance, though relatives were allowed limited access. When Romme's wife visited him, she found him dining with Soubrany on chicken and veal: they are fattening us up to kill us, Soubrany quipped, to which Romme remarked plaintively that he would prefer to be at home with only bread and water. TRIAL The trial began on 24 Prairial (12th June 1795). The transfer of the prisoners to the Maison d'arrêt of the Commission, which sat in the former mairie at 174 rue Neuves-des-Capuchines, took place at three in the morning under strictest security. A force of a hundred cavalrymen provided the escort and the National Guard patrolled neighbouring streets. By daylight a crowd had gathered, but despite rumours of insurrection, the onlookers were silent and subdued. The Commission refused to allow the accused to speak in their own defence; they were permitted only to submit written depositions. Each man was subject to a prolonged individual interrogation, then made to "confront" the witnesses for the prosecution. The fullest account was published in the Moniteur for 4 Messidor (22nd June). The writer, Aimé Jourdan, was himself a key witness for the prosecution since he had been responsible for the Moniteur's record of events in the Convention on 1er Prairial. He reports that he attended the trial assiduously for two days, and was personally confronted by the defendants for nine hours. He leaves a memorable pen-portrait of individuals under extreme stress. According to Jourdain, each man behaved differently: Romme and Duquesnoy denied all the charges, whereas Duroy approached the confrontation with an air of submission and concentrated on defending his conduct during his missions in Calvados and the Bas-Rhin. Whilst Goujon preserved a morose sang-froid, Romme was visibly terrified. Soubrany abandoned the haughty air he had always maintained in the Convention, to answer with frankness. However, it was Bourbotte, a young man of thirty-two, who clearly impressed Jourdan most. He responded with calm and grace, bowed to the judge, and addressed himself frequently to the women in the audience; his tension was betrayed only by because he fidgeted ceaselessly with his snuffbox. The defendants were allowed to nominate witnesses for the defence but the majority, who were members of the Convention, declined to appear. Lajuinais, to whom Goujon had appealed, left only a short written deposition. By three o'clock on the afternoon of 28 Prairial the proceedings were finally completed and the Commission retired to consider its verdict. At two in the morning of 29 Prarial Sansom received the instruction to have the guillotine erected on the place de la Révolution and a cart made ready to transport six persons. The accused had been advised that they could receive their relatives for one last time on the morning of the 27 Prarial. Goujon's mother arrived, accompanied by her younger sons, Alexandre and Antoine. According to family tradition, Antoine, a little boy of eleven, had the fatal knife concealed in his clothing. Goujon entrusted his mother with a final letter; despite repeated appeals the family were not to be allowed to appear before the Commission or to see Goujon again. On the morning before the verdict was delivered, the accused wrote their farewell notes. Bourbotte drew up a will: "Bourbotte, convinced in advance he is to be assassinated, wrote these lines a few hours before his death.....:" (see Guyon, p. 258). SUICIDE At midday on 29 Prairial, the men were brought in to have the verdict read. They stood in front of the judge separated by a table, with six grenadiers at each end. Goujon, in his deputy's coat, with his long hair, was a head taller than the soldiers. The six were condemned to death and the seventh man Peyssard to deportation; the case against Forestier was dismissed due to lack of proof, though he was to remain held in prison. Philippe-Auguste Hennequin, The suicide of the Crêtois, c.1831, Musée Carnavalet Suicide des Crêtois après leur condamnation à mort le 1er Prairial de l'an III (20 mai 1795). | Paris Musées The most reliable account of what followed comes again from Aimé Jordan in the Moniteur. He notes that he had gone to unusual trouble not only to record what he saw but to seek clarification from other witnesses. Although by no means sympathetic to their political views, Jourdan was clearly impressed by the bravery of the six deputies and disgusted at their fate: After the judgment was read, Forestier laughed. Goujon placed a portrait of himself on the table requesting it to be given to his wife. Duquesnoy handed over a letter containing his farewells to his wife and friends. "I want my blood to be the last innocent blood to be spilled; let us hope it will serve to consolidate the Republic. Long live the Republic!" The enemies of liberty were the only ones who wanted my life; said Bourbotte; my last vow, my dying breath will be for my country." The condemned men placed on the desk their identity cards as deputies, their pocketbooks etc. to be handed over to their families. They were taken out. Going down the stairs, they stabbed themselves with knives and scissors. It was reported that Bourbotte exclaimed, as he stabbed himself, "This is how a man of courage finishes his life!". The men had only two knives and an old pair of scissors between them, which they took turns to use, one after the other. They were taken into a room on the ground floor which had formerly served as their prison. An officer of the gendarmes brought the president of the Commission the knife which Bourbotte had used to stab himself. Soon afterwards it was announced that the five others had also stabbed themselves. The second knife and the scissors were brought in. The president read out the Commission's order that the men were to be searched, on the evening before and again on the morning of the judgment, in order to remove their knives, scissors, and any other sharp objects; even their beds were to be checked. It was believed that the weapons had been concealed in the lining of their coats. The commander of the guard was immediately arrested. A medical officer was summoned to assess the state of the condemned men and to ascertain whether they could be transported from the prison to the place of execution. He reported that Romme, Goujon and Duquesnoy were dead. It seemed that Romme had stabbed himself not only in the body, but in the throat, and even the face; the amount of blood with which he was covered, rendered him unrecognisable. Goujon seemed to have suffered some sort of spasm in death, since his face, and particularly his lips were strikingly contracted. Tissot's Souvenirs of 1799 provides a few more details, though whether these are absolutely accurate is hard to say. He reports that it was Goujon, the youngest of the men, who stabbed himself first, shouting out, "I die for the people and for equality!" Romme and Duquesnoy followed, snatching the knife from the chest of their colleague. Soubrany and Duroy, both severely wounded, implored the guards to finish them off. Tissot specifies that Bourbotte, who had remained behind his colleagues, stabbed himself on the steps of the vestibule, in full view of the gendarmes and the crowd of onlookers who had gathered in the courtyard. He plunged into his chest a dagger which he had concealed under his coat. As he collapsed into the arms of the surrounding gendarmes, he cried out out: "Here is how a free man escapes from the scafford of tyranny!". He was then carried into the room on the ground floor where his colleagues lay dead or dying; he was still able to give them words of encouragement: "My poor Duroy, I see that you suffer badly, but it is for the Republic" (Tissot, Souvenirs, p.xiv and note). Jules Claretie, author of Les dernier Montagnards (1874), had seen for himself the two knives which the men had used, preserved with the dossier in the Archives. The first, which had been employed by Bourbotte, was 22 centimetres long with a white and black bone handle, the blade two-and-a-half centimetres wide. The second, which had served the other five, was two centimetres longer, and still blood-stained; this was a more vicious weapon - "une vraie lame de bistouri" (p.227 nt). Michel Biard, in his study of the deaths of deputies of the Convention, notes that guns or blades were the preferred method of suicide. The weapons were easily to hand, lent themselves to dramatic effect, and were considered masculine and honourable. Of sixteen successful suicides among the deputies, eight involved guns and five daggers or knives. To kill oneself with a blade, particularly a makeshift weapon, was no easy matter. In the 18th century it was not common practice to slit one's wrists or throat; a dramatic plunge through the heart was required, a feat which required not only a strong nerve but a certain amount of expertise. Those who managed successfully usually had a military background - as, for example, the Girondin Valazé, or Duquesnoy, who was a former dragoon. Of the six martyrs of Prairial, only three managed to kill themselves outright - Romme it seems succeeded only though sheer determined frenzy. Claretie reproduces the report of the medical officer who confirmed that the three dead men were wounded "through the nipple" on the left-hand side of the chest. Soubrany, who was almost dead, and Bourbotte, who was dying, also had wounds to the chest. Duroy had evidently missed his target and aimed too low. The officer reported that he had staunched the bleeding of those still alive. Duroy could have been tended and his life saved, but there was no point as he was about to be executed.(p.255) Charles-Edmond Chabrillac, Mort de Goujon, c.1830 (Oil sketch, 19.8 cm x 18.8 cm c.1830) "They killed themselves with the same knife that they passed from one to the other, crying out "Vive la République La mort de Goujon Portail des collections Département de l'Isère EXECUTION Aimé Jourdan continues: Of the three taken out to be executed, Soubrany seemed the most severely injured. His wound was in his side, and he was bleeding profusely. He was very weak from loss of blood and lay flat in the cart. Duroy appeared normal. Bourbotte was the one who showed the greatest courage. He sat up and looked around him. In the courtyard before they left, Duroy exclaimed, "Let the assassins enjoy their work...I am sorry to miss it. How is it that these hand are bound by the bourreau! Rejoice, messieurs les aristocrates! He then hurled insults at several people in the courtyard. Soubrany said, "Let me die". When they arrived at the place de la Révolution, they had to carry Soubrany to the scaffold. Bourbotte, who died last, was required to give further proof of the courage which had never deserted him throughout the trial. As they strapped him down, he was still talking to the people next to the scaffold. But at the moment when he was lowered to receive the fatal blow, it was noticed that the blade had not been hoisted back up. He had to be removed to reset the instrument. He used the time to carry on speaking to those around him. He is reported to have said that he died an innocent man and that he wanted the Republic to prosper. The number of people who attended the execution was small; the condemned men were escorted by a regiment of cavalry. A battalion of infantry was on watch in the Champs-Elysées and another stationed on the pont de la Révolution. Such was the end of these men. Love of truth alone, and the desire leave a record for posterity, has persuaded me to linger so long over this painful subject and to seek information to supplement what I myself witnessed. Happily I have no more to say. All men of sensibility who read these details will surely think, like me that, whatever the crimes of the guilty, such spectacles fatigue the imagination, sadden the spirit and offend one's sense of humanity. The men were brought to hear the verdict at midday. By two o'clock in the afternoon they were all dead. From the final letter of Goujon, entrusted to his mother, three days before his death. I have lived for liberty. I have always done what I believed to be good, just and useful to my country. My conduct has always been dictated by probity. I repent nothing; I will repent nothing even if it costs me my life. In the same circumstances, I would say and do the same things; for I have always believed that one should act, not according to personal advantage, but only as duty dictates. My life is in the hands of other men; it is the plaything of their passions; but the memory I leave behind does not belong to them, but to posterity; it is the heritage of all just men in all times, of sensitive and generous hearts, of true friends of the Fatherland, of Liberty, of Equality. (Tissot, Souvenirs, p.149) The autograph manuscript of Goujon's last letter was sold by Piasa in May 2005. The details don't quite tally: according to the lot essay, it is addressed to his wife, and dated 29 Prairial, ie. the actual day of his death. Jean-Marie-Claude-Alexandre GOUJON (1766-1795) L.A.S., [29 prairial III (17 juin 1795)] | lot 691 | "Révolution Française", Faïences, Estampes, Souvenirs Historiques, Autographes chez Piasa | Auction.fr From the last letter of Bourbotte, written a few hours before his death I declare that I die innocent, pure, virtuous, always faithful to my country, assassinated by tyrants who wish to oppress and enslave it. I forgive those who, by error, have helped them snatch away my life; I give it up without regret because I am convinced that my sacrifice will be useful to liberty. I am honoured to be one of its martyrs. I love liberty with passion, I uphold it with the courage of a man who defends the object of his greatest affections..... Oh my country! All my actions, all my vows, are devoted to your happiness. Oh liberty! I live only for you and by you. Oh Republic! You have no more faithful friend than me. I die because I wanted to defend you.... Virtuous Cato, no longer will it be your example alone that teaches free men how to escape the scaffold of tyranny. Live forever, Liberty, Equality, and the one and indivisible French Republic! Signed: Pierre Bourbotte, representative of the people. (Tissot, Souvenirs, p.195) The aftermath The execution had been carried out amidst high-security but in the end passed without incident; the crowd had been small and subdued, the prevailing mood one of nausée de guillotine. The Commission asked for instruction from the Committee of General Security about how to dispose of the bodies of the dead men (The corpses of previous suicides, Valazé and Lebas had been ritually guillotined). They were told to give them an ordinary burial. The following day two gravediggers from the section place Vendôme, were charged with the burial of Romme, Goujon and Duquesnoy in the Cimetière des Errancis ; subsequently they formally deposited the blade from a pair of scissors which had been concealed in the shoe of one of the men. Claretie reproduces the catalogue of clothing and personal items removed from bodies (p.255). The clothes were all carefully washed. All three men were dressed in similar, modest outfits - the blue coats of representatives with their uniform buttons, waistcoats, white cotton stockings, laced shoes and round hats; Gomme wore yellow woolen breeches whilst Goujon, the younger man, had blue trousers. In addition, the gravediggers collected a moving set of personal effects: papers, wallets and loose change, combs, pinboxes, Romme's wedding ring, and on Goujon a little copy of the works of the abbé Saint-Réal. On 14 Thermidor, the Military Committee, which was shortly to be wound up, handed over the belongings to the families. Among the claimants listed were Marie-Madeleine Chaulin, widow of Romme, Marie-Louise Cormery, widow of Goujon and Marguerite Du Boys, mother and sole heir of Soubrany. In Arras Duquesnoy's widow Marie-Anne Logez was obliged to make provision to have her husband's clothes sold off in order to pay his debts.(Claretie p. 235). References Lettres écrites par Goujon à sa familles, depuis la jour de son arrestation jusqu'à la veille de sa mort edited by Tissot (1795) https://archive.org/details/lettresecritespa00gouj Pierre-François Tissot, Souvenirs de la journée du 1er prairial, an III. Year 8 (1799) Souvenirs de la journée du 1er Prairial, an III - Google Books Les Martyrs de prairial : textes et documents inédits by Françoise Brunel and Sylvain Goujon (1992). Contains Tissot's Vie de Goujon. Review by Raymonde Monnier: https://www.persee.fr/doc/ahrf_0003-4436_1994_num_297_1_1862_t1_0621_0000_2 Histoire Parlementaire de la Révolution française, vol.36 (1838). Contains the account from the Moniteur and various other texts. Histoire Parlementaire de la Révolution française, ou Journal des Assemblée... - Google Books Dix-neuf lettres de Soubrany, ed Henri Doniol (1867) Dix-neuf lettres de Soubrany ... - Google Books Jules Claretie, Les derniers Montagnards. Histoire de l’insurrection de prairial an III (1874) Les derniers Montagnards - Google Books E. Champion, Pierre Bourbotte, membre de la Convention (1877) https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6469394q.texteImage Marc de Baron Vissac, Un conventionnel du Puy-de-Domme: Romme le Montagnard (1883) Un conventionnel du Puy-de-Dome - Google Books R. Guyon, F. Thénard, "Le Conventionnel Goujon" (suite), Revue Historique, Revue Historique T. 93, Fasc. 2 (1907), pp. 240-261; T. 94, Fasc. 2 (1907), pp. 249-271 LE CONVENTIONNEL GOUJON (Suite) on JSTOR; LE CONVENTIONNEL GOUJON (Suite) on JSTOR Modern works Pascal Dupuy, "Les martyrs de prairial", Histoire par l'image. http://histoire-image.org/de/etudes/martyrs-prairial Gilbert Romme (1750-1795) et son temps. Colloque tenu à Riom et à Clermont, les 10-11 juin 1965.ed. Jean Ehrard, 1966 Gilbert Romme (1750-1795) et son temps. - Google Books Gilbert Romme. Actes du colloque de Riom (19-20 mai 1995) Annales historiques de la Révolution française, n°304, 1996. Gilbert Romme. Actes du colloque de Riom (19-20 mai 1995) - Persée (persee.fr) Françoise Brunel, "Les derniers Montagnards et l'unité révolutionnaire", Annales historiques de la Révolution française Année 1977 229 pp. 385-404 https://www.persee.fr/doc/ahrf_0003-4436_1977_num_229_1_1009 ........,"Pourquoi ces « six » parmi les « derniers montagnards » ? Annales historiques de la Révolution française 1996 304 pp. 401-413 https://www.persee.fr/doc/ahrf_0003-4436_1996_num_304_1_1981 Michel Biard, La liberté ou la mort, mourir en député, 1792-1795 (2015) La liberté ou la mort, mourir en député, 1792-1795 - Google Books

The Battle of Quatre Bras was a vital action for both sides. However it was of greater strategic significance to Blucher and Napoleon than Wellington and Ney. In some ways it is very similar to the…

Napoleón Bonaparte: El Emperador que Cambió el Mundo Descubre la vida y legado de Napoleón Bonaparte, el emperador francés que dejó una huella indeleble en la historia mundial. Introducción ¿Quién fue Napoleón Bonaparte? ¿Cómo llegó a ser uno de los líderes más influyentes de la historia? En este artículo, exploraremos la vida y el legado

The most typical representative of the elegant and gallant women of the period was Mme de Pompadour, whose name is inalienably associated with the epithet Rococo.

Napoleon's mother, Letizia Bonaparte, was pragmatic, stoical and domineering. She once told Napoleon, “It’s not poverty I’m afraid of, it’s the shame.”

 Anonymous depiction of a silk weaver' s atelier, 1820s. Musée Gadagne, Lyon The weavers of Lyon represented the impoverished underbelly of the glittering trade in luxury silk. Although the 19th-century "canuts" were notorious for their unrest and radical labour politics, their 18th-century predecessors can seem remote, largely because so few contemporary illustrations survive of their everyday lives. The L'Histoire par l'image website features two19th-century depictions of "canut interiors" from the Musée Gadagne which give some insight into the earlier period. Pre-Revolutionary pirn winder similar to the one in the picture The picture above probably dates from the industrial conflicts of the 1820s and harps back nostalgically to the small-scale production of the past. The costumes recall those of the 18th century and the scene, with its cat and playing children, suggests a certain level of prosperity. The loom is a métier d’unis for making plain silk fabric. Five workers are represented: the weaver himself, his wife la tisseuse who, sitting on the bench of the loom, pulls a chord to set the shuttle in motion. Three other women wind bobbins using different devices. The workforce Lyon was the only major urban centre in 18th-century France where the textile industry remained confined within the city limits, and regulation by the guild, La Grande Fabrique, ensured a strong corporate identity among weavers. Of a population of 140,000 plus, up to a third were directly or indirectly dependent on silk manufacture, which at this period had yet to spread out onto the plateau of the Croix-Rousse, the celebrated quartier of the canuts. Instead the industry was concentrated on the right bank of the Saône (Saint-Georges, Port-Saint-Paul, Pierre-Scize) and the slopes of the Grande-Côte to the north, where workshops clung to the hillside to benefit from the light. A small impoverished enclave also existed in the old city itself near the Hôtel-Dieu. Between 1667 and 1752 the number of looms more than quadrupled - from 2000 to 9400. In 1786 almost 15,000 were in operation. The second "canut interior" - in this later 19th century depiction the atelier is sparse and impoverished. The five to seven thousand master weavers (maîtres-fabricants or maîtres-ouvriers) of Lyon were not of course true proletarians but small artisans whose economic horizons were bounded by the traditional economy of fair price and regulation. Each owned a workshop with up to four looms and themselves employed journeymen (compagnons), apprentices and servants. But production was on a strictly domestic scale with the number of looms per weaver restricted by the merchant members of the Grande Fabrique to four (or two for weavers working on their own account.) All aspects of the silk industry were minutely regulated by the Grande Fabrique; entry into the trade was restricted by letters of mastership and the obligation to complete a chef d'oeuvre. In this sense the weavers were a privileged workforce. The position of journeymen (compagnons) and apprentices was likewise laid down, become progressively more complicated in 1667, 1737 and 1744. Only one apprentice could be employed at any one time, tied by contract, and his parents were obliged to pay a sum to his master. At the end of five years he would be eligible, on payment of 24 livres, to become a compagnon, and after five more years he could apply for mastership at 120 livres. Journeymen could not be paid less than half the price of the product they made and, although they were bound to their masters by credit, advances were restricted. In reality masters and journeymen worked side by side and their interests were closely bound together. In addition the trade employed large numbers of auxillary workers: readers (liseuses) who transposed the patterns from point paper into simples, loopmakers, drawgirls, bobbin-winders (dévideuses) and remetteuses who mended damaged threads and cords. Four looms employed as many as seven auxiliaries, in addition to the weaver himself, his wife, journeyman and apprentice. Most of these workers were women, young girls from the surrounding countryside on minute wages, who represented a transient (and potentially unreliable) source of labour.  Economic conditions Real life: traditional workshop photographed in Spitalfields in 1895. Many London silk weavers were of Huguenot ancestry. Hamlets Local History Collection The daily life of all was narrowly dependent on the prosperity of "la manufacture". The classic researches of Justin Godart [L'ouvrier en soie, 1899] showed that the silk industry was susceptible to the slightest slowing in the market. The narrow regulatory framework meant that it was difficult to adapt, for instance by making different kinds of cloth. Even temporary changes, like a period of mourning in the Court could be problematic and, from the 17th century onwards heavy dependence on exports meant that the trade was at the mercy of the international politics. Godard identified no less than seventeen short-term "crises" between 1689 and 1791. Even in the relatively prosperous years before the mid-century, prosperity could be threatened - for instance in 1729 when the Saone froze over and brought transportation to a halt. For master weavers, whose enterprises were tightly restricted in size, unemployment or prolonged depression in silk prices could force sale of looms and threatened destitution; for journeymen, apprentices and servants indigence was an ever present threat. Accounts preserved in the Lyon archives, with their minute itemisation of expenditure - salt, tobacco, a coat for the weaver - reveal long hours and tight margins of survival. The rectors of the Charité in Lyon estimated that an unemployed worker in silk could be reduced to penury in a fortnight to a month and in 1725 high prices meant that the town was full of workers who "lived from day to day". References: Canut interiors : Histoire par images http://www.histoire-image.org/pleincadre/index.php?i=402 See also: Philippe Demoule, L'atelier du canut Lyonnais au XIXe siècle http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/webdocs/df1_work.pdf Maison des canuts (museum), La Croix-Rousse, Lyon http://www.maisondescanuts.com

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b530282798 Head of Carrier Yes, yet more! This head of Marie-Antoinette is reproduc...

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b530282798 Head of Carrier Yes, yet more! This head of Marie-Antoinette is reproduced from a photograph in the Collection de Vinck in the Bibliothèque nationale (département Estampes). It is identified as from Madame Tussaud's and dated 1906. This gives us a date for the equally fine and very similarly mounted Carrier reproduced in the Romance of Madame Tussaud (1920). (Compare also the Robespierre with the ribbon round his chin which I have since also seen identified as from Madame Tussaud's) Wax heads of Marie-Antoinette are attested at Tussaud's only from 1865, but royal tableaux were a feature of Curtius's waxworks at an early date. Here is another old picture of the royal heads, posted on Le Boudoir de Marie-Antoinette; apparently it was on sale on e-bay for 330 Euro; I wonder if anyone paid?. See: http://maria-antonia.justgoo.com/t139p75-marie-antoinette-par-madame-tussaud

On Bastille Day, we take a closer look at Jacques Lous David's tribute to slain revolutionary Jean-Paul Marat.

Portrait by Marie-Victoire Lemoine, dated 1779 Sold at Christie's in April 2012 http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/marie-victoire-lemoine-portrait-de-marie-therese-louise-de-savoie-carignan-5549565-details.aspx On this day, 3rd September, in 1792 the Princesse de Lamballe, companion of Marie-Antoinette, was bludgeoned to death outside the La Force prison, her body stripped, her heart torn out, her head hacked off and impaled on a pike, and her pathetic remains paraded in bloody triumph through Paris over several hours. Exact details are disputed and her murder was not, of course, the only act of Revolutionary violence that September, Nonetheless the brutality of her death continues to exercise a fascination due to the contrast with her privileged aristocratic upbringing and reputation for refined sensibilities. The archetypal victim, the Princess in many ways represented a substitute for Marie-Antoinette herself. The "myth" of the Princesse de Lamballe has recently been explored in depth by Antoine De Baecque in his Glory and Terror: seven deaths under the French Revolution (English version 2002). What follows is a modest attempt to piece together what actually happened in those final hours. Who was the Princesse de Lamballe? As the daughter of Prince Louis-Victor de Savoie-Carignan of the House of Savoy, Marie-Thérèse Louise de Savoie-Carignan (1749-1792) was a blue-blood of impeccable credentials. In 1767 she was splendidly married by proxy to the young Prince de Lamballe, huntsman of France and only son of the duc de Penthièvre, cousin of Louis XVI. Unfortunately the fairy-tale union was cut short by the premature death of her thoroughly debauched young husband, leaving the Princess to be presented at Court already a widow at the tender age of nineteen. Various projects for her remarriage came to naught. Financially liberated by marriage settlement - 60,000 livres, plus a life interest on further 30,000 livres - she seemed genuinely devoted to her father-in-law, who had a great reputation for piety and good works. Neither maid nor wife, she therefore continued - like Marie-Antoinette, with her unconsummated marriage - to inhabit a strange and ambivalent sexual no-man's-land. For a while she was joined in intimate friendship with the Queen - a relationship massively charged with Rousseauist emotion; Marie-Antoinette even had her friend's image painted on a mirror to make life bearable when they were briefly parted.The impression they gave was one of thoughtless insouciance. In the terrible winter of 1776, whilst people starved, the two famously fair-haired young women, twins in their bejewelled white furs, zooming through Paris on a horse-drawn sledge, the Princesse de Lamballe looking, as Madame Campan has it, like "spring clothed with ermine" or "a rose in the snow". Alexander Roslin, Portrait of an unknown woman, speculatively identified as the princesse de Lamballe. In 1775 the Princess was brought to public attention for the first time, when Marie-Antoinette revived at fabulous expense for her favourite the position of superintendant of the the Queen's household, a move widely thought to be responsible for the fall of Turgot who had protested against the extravagance. Unfortunately for her future reputation, the Princess revealed herself as both a stickler for protocol and grasping for property and sinecures on behalf of her relatives (both her brothers were given senior army posts). Despite her considerable private income, she insisted on the entire salary for the post attracted and ill-advisedly offended courtiers when she as she demurred from issuing invitations to events as demeaning to her status. It was as part of a campaign orchestrated by members of the Court, that suggestions of an improper relationship between the two young women began to circulate: she became an iconic hate-figure second only to the queen herself, a milky-skinned blond ice-maiden of unshakeable hauteur and hidden perversity. Jean-Baptiste Charpentier, The duc de Penthièvre and his daughter, Chateau de Versailles Ironically enough it was at this very time that the Princess was largely replaced in Marie-Antoinette's affections by the duchesse de Polignac. From the mid-1770s, she was to keep at a discreet distance, either with her father-in-law's at Sceaux or Rambouillet or in circle of the duc de Chartres, later duc d'Orléans, who was married to the duc de Penthièvre's daughter, Louise Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon. It was this last association which prompted Louis XVI to discourage the friendship with his wife. Prompted by her brother-in-law, the Princess became involved in the fashionable new craze of freemasonry at this time and was Grand Mistress of Loge du Contrat-Social in 1780. Though later associated with radical politics, this brand of freemasonry was really little more than a pretext for balls, suppers and social events. A number of society portraits of the Princess survive from this period - small featured and fair, she is clearly recognisable by her pearls and the three feathers which characteristically adorned her luxuriant blond hair. By Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, painted in 1782, Château de Versailles The accounts give a picture of a woman who was sweet-natured but protective of her privileged status, obliging to her friends and family and a little slow-witted. Straightforwardly and unimaginatively pious, she gave generously to the poor ("vos pauvres" as Marie-Antoinette remarked). In appearance she was small and fragile - even Madame de Genlis, who disliked her, admitted that she was "delicately pretty". Her best feature was the beautiful blond hair which, when it fell from beneath her cap after a bath, completely covered her face and shoulders. She was also weak in health and prone to fainting fits - though whether from a definite medical problem or an oversensitive imagination is unclear. The unkind Madame de Genlis thought the faints were a deliberate affectation - for a whole year the Princess made a point of fainting twice a week at fixed hours, her doctor conveniently at hand. We learn that she fainted in a visit to Crécy when one of the servants yawned incautiously while the party were enjoying a ghost story. It was a favourite anecdote that she even fainted at sight of a painting of a lobster. The Princess during the Revolution After the Diamond Necklace affair, the Princess regained some of her lost favour. As Olivier Blanc notes, her portraits from the late 1780s suggest a desire to appear more serious and reflective; thus Anton Hickel in 1788 depicts her at her desk, pen in hand: Portrait by Anton Hickel, 1788 Liechtenstein Princely Collections http://www.liechtensteincollections.at/en/pages/artbase_main.asp?module=browse&action=m_work&lang=en&sid=502741&oid=W-147200412195342028 . After October 1789, following flight of Madame de Polignac and the transfer of the Court to Paris, she once again took up her duties as superintendant in charge of ceremonies, this time at the Tuileries. There are some hints that she was more actively involved than is at first sight apparent in the machinations of the captive court. Her name appears, for instance, in a list of recipients of secret payments from the Ministry for Foreign affairs. At time of the flight to Varennes she embarked from Dieppe with a passport signed by Montmorin in April 1791 and successfully reached England. If the 19th-century Secret memoirs of the Princess Lamballe are to be believed, she was involved in a whole series of manoeuvres to discover the disposition of the Pitt government. However, the careful researches of Georges Bertin suggest a more modest itinerary; the Princess was at Passy on 20th June when she heard news of the projected royal flight, went thence to Boulogne, crossed to Dover on the 23rd, took ship the next day for Ostend, and arrived at Brussels on the 27th. After the arrest of the royal family, she progressed to Aix-la-Chapelle, where she dictated her will on 15 October and then, whether by her own initiative or on Marie-Antoinette's instruction, returned courageously to Paris and her duties as superintendant. Handwriting and signature of the Princesse de Lamballe Reproduced from Lescure, La princesse de Lamballe (1864) Shortly afterwards the Princess was denounced by Committee of Surveillance of the Legislative Assembly and also pinpointed in the Revolutionary press for her involvement in the the secret machinations of the Court. No doubt at the very least she had some role as intermediary in the manoeuvres of the so-called "Austrian committee" and knew the identities of compromised Revolutionaries such as Sombreuil, Brissac, Valdec de Lassart, Thierry de Ville-d'Avray, through whom the Court had attempted to influence the decisions of the Revolutionary government. By the fateful events of the 10th August, she was already singled out for vengeance....... I Arms of the Princesse de Lamballe, Reproduced in Paul Fassy, Episodes de l'histoire de Paris sous la Terreur (1886) References Antoine De Baecque, Glory and Terror: seven deaths under the French Revolution (2002) Antonia Fraser, Marie-Antoinette: the journey (2006) Olivier Blanc, Portraits des femmes : artistes et modèles à l'époque de Marie-Antoinette (2006),p.199-206. Appendix Some 19TH-CENTURY SOURCES on the internet Élisabeth Guénard, Mémoires historiques de Mme la princesse de Lamballe (1801, 4 vol.) vol.4: https://archive.org/details/mmoireshistori04gu Élisabeth Guénard was a prolific writer and her work, which contains much spurious dialogue, is generally regarded as "imaginative". Nonetheless the circumstantial detail is tempting. Catherine Hyde, Secret memoirs of the Princess Lamballe (Originally published 1826) https://archive.org/details/secretmemoirsofp00lambuoft Catherine Hyde aka Kitty Hyams, was not quite who she claimed to be, and certainly not the amanuensis and confidante of the princesse de Lamballe! The "memoirs" are undoubtedly spurious. However, as with Élisabeth Guénard's work, there are lots of odd details not found elsewhere. See http://teaattrianon.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/mysterious-catherine-hyde.html Adolphe Mathurin de Lescure, La princesse de Lamballe Marie-Thérèse-Louise de Savoie-Carignan sa vie - sa mort (1749-1792) Originally published 1864. https://archive.org/details/laprincessedela01lescgoog Marquise de Lage de Volude, Souvenirs d'émigration (Originally published 1869). Memoirs of the Princess's maid-of-honour. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=65IEAAAAYAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s Georges Bertan, Madame de Lamballe (English version, New York 1901, originally published 1888). Scholarly work, reproducing many documentary sources. https://archive.org/details/cu31924024292504 Blanche Christabel Hardy, The Princess de Lamballe: a biography (1908) https://archive.org/details/cu31924024292447

 Anonymous depiction of a silk weaver' s atelier, 1820s. Musée Gadagne, Lyon The weavers of Lyon represented the impoverished underbelly of the glittering trade in luxury silk. Although the 19th-century "canuts" were notorious for their unrest and radical labour politics, their 18th-century predecessors can seem remote, largely because so few contemporary illustrations survive of their everyday lives. The L'Histoire par l'image website features two19th-century depictions of "canut interiors" from the Musée Gadagne which give some insight into the earlier period. Pre-Revolutionary pirn winder similar to the one in the picture The picture above probably dates from the industrial conflicts of the 1820s and harps back nostalgically to the small-scale production of the past. The costumes recall those of the 18th century and the scene, with its cat and playing children, suggests a certain level of prosperity. The loom is a métier d’unis for making plain silk fabric. Five workers are represented: the weaver himself, his wife la tisseuse who, sitting on the bench of the loom, pulls a chord to set the shuttle in motion. Three other women wind bobbins using different devices. The workforce Lyon was the only major urban centre in 18th-century France where the textile industry remained confined within the city limits, and regulation by the guild, La Grande Fabrique, ensured a strong corporate identity among weavers. Of a population of 140,000 plus, up to a third were directly or indirectly dependent on silk manufacture, which at this period had yet to spread out onto the plateau of the Croix-Rousse, the celebrated quartier of the canuts. Instead the industry was concentrated on the right bank of the Saône (Saint-Georges, Port-Saint-Paul, Pierre-Scize) and the slopes of the Grande-Côte to the north, where workshops clung to the hillside to benefit from the light. A small impoverished enclave also existed in the old city itself near the Hôtel-Dieu. Between 1667 and 1752 the number of looms more than quadrupled - from 2000 to 9400. In 1786 almost 15,000 were in operation. The second "canut interior" - in this later 19th century depiction the atelier is sparse and impoverished. The five to seven thousand master weavers (maîtres-fabricants or maîtres-ouvriers) of Lyon were not of course true proletarians but small artisans whose economic horizons were bounded by the traditional economy of fair price and regulation. Each owned a workshop with up to four looms and themselves employed journeymen (compagnons), apprentices and servants. But production was on a strictly domestic scale with the number of looms per weaver restricted by the merchant members of the Grande Fabrique to four (or two for weavers working on their own account.) All aspects of the silk industry were minutely regulated by the Grande Fabrique; entry into the trade was restricted by letters of mastership and the obligation to complete a chef d'oeuvre. In this sense the weavers were a privileged workforce. The position of journeymen (compagnons) and apprentices was likewise laid down, become progressively more complicated in 1667, 1737 and 1744. Only one apprentice could be employed at any one time, tied by contract, and his parents were obliged to pay a sum to his master. At the end of five years he would be eligible, on payment of 24 livres, to become a compagnon, and after five more years he could apply for mastership at 120 livres. Journeymen could not be paid less than half the price of the product they made and, although they were bound to their masters by credit, advances were restricted. In reality masters and journeymen worked side by side and their interests were closely bound together. In addition the trade employed large numbers of auxillary workers: readers (liseuses) who transposed the patterns from point paper into simples, loopmakers, drawgirls, bobbin-winders (dévideuses) and remetteuses who mended damaged threads and cords. Four looms employed as many as seven auxiliaries, in addition to the weaver himself, his wife, journeyman and apprentice. Most of these workers were women, young girls from the surrounding countryside on minute wages, who represented a transient (and potentially unreliable) source of labour.  Economic conditions Real life: traditional workshop photographed in Spitalfields in 1895. Many London silk weavers were of Huguenot ancestry. Hamlets Local History Collection The daily life of all was narrowly dependent on the prosperity of "la manufacture". The classic researches of Justin Godart [L'ouvrier en soie, 1899] showed that the silk industry was susceptible to the slightest slowing in the market. The narrow regulatory framework meant that it was difficult to adapt, for instance by making different kinds of cloth. Even temporary changes, like a period of mourning in the Court could be problematic and, from the 17th century onwards heavy dependence on exports meant that the trade was at the mercy of the international politics. Godard identified no less than seventeen short-term "crises" between 1689 and 1791. Even in the relatively prosperous years before the mid-century, prosperity could be threatened - for instance in 1729 when the Saone froze over and brought transportation to a halt. For master weavers, whose enterprises were tightly restricted in size, unemployment or prolonged depression in silk prices could force sale of looms and threatened destitution; for journeymen, apprentices and servants indigence was an ever present threat. Accounts preserved in the Lyon archives, with their minute itemisation of expenditure - salt, tobacco, a coat for the weaver - reveal long hours and tight margins of survival. The rectors of the Charité in Lyon estimated that an unemployed worker in silk could be reduced to penury in a fortnight to a month and in 1725 high prices meant that the town was full of workers who "lived from day to day". References: Canut interiors : Histoire par images http://www.histoire-image.org/pleincadre/index.php?i=402 See also: Philippe Demoule, L'atelier du canut Lyonnais au XIXe siècle http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/webdocs/df1_work.pdf Maison des canuts (museum), La Croix-Rousse, Lyon http://www.maisondescanuts.com