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Artifact 10—French

Revolution

Artifact 11—French Revolution

Artifact 12—French Revolution

Artifact 13—French Revolution

Artifact 14—French Revolution

Artifact 15—French Revolution

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Artifact 9—French Cartoon In pre-Revolutionary France, a social system called ‘the Ancien Regime’ (‘the Old Order’) prevailed. Within this order were three estates, or social classes. The First Estate, the clergy, and the Second Estate, the nobles, were exempt from taxation, which created a financial crisis in 1789. The cartoon, which is symbolic of the economic situation in France at the beginning of the Revolution, shows the Third Estate (made up of peasants, urban poor, and middle class) as a slave, carrying representatives of the First Estate and Second Estate on his back.

Artifact 10—Pictures of Marie Antoinette’s Hairstyle and Shoes In addition to the problems with the taxation system, royal spending further worsened the financial crisis that sparked the French Revolution. The French queen, Marie Antoinette, spent a fortune on clothes, accessories and elaborate hairstyles. In one year alone, she ordered 172 new gowns and earned the nickname ‘Madame Deficit’ for her extravagant purchases at a time when many French people were starving. (‘Deficit spending’ refers to spending more money than one has.)

Artifact 11—Silver Grooming Set This picture shows pieces of incredibly rare 18th-century French silver. Unlike English silver, which survived in abundance, French silver has been endangered since the 17th century. Many silver pieces were melted down by kings and aristocrats to make up for the extravagant spending of the government; much of the silver was also recycled during the French Revolution. Thus, the rarity of French silver is yet another symbol of the financial crisis which led to the French Revolution.

Artifact 12—Engraving of Women’s March on Versailles

The Women's March on Versailles began among women in the marketplaces of Paris who, on the morning of 5 October 1789, were near rioting over the high price and scarcity of bread. Their demonstrations quickly attracted revolutionaries who were seeking liberal political reforms and a constitutional monarchy for France. The market women and their various allies grew into a mob of thousands, and they ransacked the city armory for weapons and marched to the Palace of Versailles. The crowd attacked the palace, and in a dramatic and violent confrontation they successfully pressed their demands upon King Louis XVI. The next day, the crowd forced the king, his family, and most of the legislature to return with them to Paris. These events effectively ended the independent authority of the king. The march symbolized a new balance of power that displaced the ancient privileged orders of the French nobility and favored the nation's common people, collectively termed the Third Estate.

Artifact 13—Basket for Severed Heads

The guillotine was used during the radical phase of the French Revolution, called ‘the Reign of Terror,’ to execute those who went against the government. It was supposed to be a ‘humane’ way of executing people quickly by decapitation. It consisted of a tall upright frame with an angled blade, which would be raised to the top and suspended. The condemned person would be situated with his or her neck directly below the blade. The blade would then be released, to fall swiftly and sever the head from the body. The heads were then caught in a basket, such as the one in the picture, and mounted on spikes around the city to serve as a warning to other citizens.

Artifact 14— Death of Marat Painting

Jean-Paul Marat was one of the leaders of the a radical faction which came to power during the Reign of Terror. Charlotte Corday was a political enemy of Marat who blamed him for the September Massacres, a period of mob violence during which 1200 Parisians were executed. She gained entrance to Marat's rooms with a forged note promising. Marat suffered from a skin condition, so he liked to work while soaking in the bathtub. Corday stabbed Marat, who died. The assassination of Marat is symbolic of the wave of violence that overtook France during the radical phase of the Revolution.

Artifact 15—Les Merveilleuses Nothing could be more French than to allow current affairs to influence fashion, and the outrageously dressed Merveilleuses are the finest example of this. Les Merveilleuses (‘The Marvelous Ones’) made their first appearance in 1794, during the Reign of Terror, when about 30,000 French people were executed by the government. The leaders of theMerveilleuses were Theresa Tallien and Rose de Beauharnais, both of whom had been imprisoned during the Terror and had barely escaped with their lives. Theycultivated a particular personal style which was influenced by the guillotine. In the wake of the Terror’s end, the most fashionable hair style was long at the front and cut very short at the nape of the neck in a bizarre attempt to copy the way that the guillotine’s victims had their hair cut by the executioner’s assistants before being executed (like the lady shown on the left). Another guilltoine-inspired fashion was a thin red ribbon necklace, or if you were really dashing (like the lady in the picture on the right) one made of rubies that mimicked the appearance of droplets of blood around the neck.

Artifact 16—Napoleon Cartoon

This German cartoon is entitled ‘Das ist mein lieber Sohn’ (‘This is my dear son’), and depicts Napoleon Bonaparte as the child of the devil. Napoleon was a brilliant general who, from 1799 to 1815, set about building a huge European empire that included modern-day France, Spain, Germany, and much of Eastern Europe. In every place conquered by Napoleon, there was resistance, which explains why a German cartoonist would portray Napoleon as the devil’s son.