In this anti-Jacobin, pro-Girondist print, seven prisoners, in various postures of distress and exclamation are seated on stools in a prison cell. Each one wears a feathered Liberty cap and each is tied to the cell wall by a rope around his neck. The cell is bare save a circular grated window in its top left corner. Speech bubbles hover above each prisoner reading: “Oh Damn it! Is this proper treatment for the Commissioners of a great nation?”, “Oh curse him this false Dumourier.”, “He has finaly trapt us”, “no hole to creep out at”, “Now I feel for the poor prisoners in the Temple”, “It’s all up. With us”, “Oh I could beat my brains out for making the motion that as brought us like asses to it”. The print alludes to the arrest of Charles Dumouriez who despite having played a key role in the victory of the Battle of Valmy in 1972 suffered a significant defeat in the Battle of Neerwinden (March 1793) at the hands of the Austrians which fuelled suspicion amongst the Jacobins of his loyalties. Believing that Dumouriez harboured royalist sympathies several commissioners representing the National Convention were sent to investigate him. Instead of cooperating with the investigation, Dumouriez turned against the deputies and the Minister of War (Pierre Riel de Beurnonville), arresting the commissioners and handing them over to the Austrian forces
Alternative Title:
Commissioners become hostages and French vermin in the German trap
Description:
Title etched below image., Date of publication inferred from the reference to events occurring in 1793., Reversed English copy, with English text, of a French print entitled "A qui Mal veut, Mal arrive." For the original French print, see Princeton University Library Graphic Arts Collection, call no.: GA 2012.01066., Text beneath title: Being a representation of the present situation of the commissioners, Bournonville, Memoire, Villeneuve, Camus, Lamarque, Luinette and Bancal who were sent to arrest Dumouriez, but the tables being turned upon them they were delivered up to the Austrians and by them imprisoned where they may reflect on the long and cruel confinement they subjected their unfortunate monarch to previous to his martyrdom., and Not in the Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum.
Publisher:
Pubd. by J. Aitken, No. 14 Castle Street, Leicester Fields, London
Subject (Geographic):
France and Austria
Subject (Name):
Dumouriez, Charles François Du Périer, 1739-1823.
Subject (Topic):
Girondists, Prisons, Cells (Rooms & spaces), Prisoners, Liberty cap, History, Campaigns, Foreign public opinion, British, and Foreign relations
At the center of the sheet stands John Bull, hands clasped in prayer, as Sheridan and Fox force the bread of liberty into his wide open mouth as they pick his pocket. On either side of the three stands a gallows and the Temple Bar. In each of the four corners in similar scenes, labelled clockwise from upper left, Holland, Savoy, German & Prussia, red-capped French sansculottes try to force the bread of liberty down recognizable national stereotypes from these four nations as they loot the terrfied citizens
Alternative Title:
Sansculottes feeding Europe with the bread of liberty
Description:
Title from text in image., Printmaker from British Museum catalogue., Sheet trimmed to plate mark on bottom edge., 1 print : etching on wove paper, hand-colored ; plate mark 30.1 x 36.4 cm, on sheet 35.8 x 42.0 cm., and Mounted on leaf 25 of volume 3 of 12.
Publisher:
Pubd. Jany. 12st [sic], 1793, by H. Humphrey, N. 18 Old Bond Street
Subject (Geographic):
France
Subject (Name):
Fox, Charles James, 1749-1806 and Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 1751-1816
Subject (Topic):
John Bull (Symbolic character), Girondists, Sansculottes, Liberty, Liberty cap, Popes, History, and Foreign relations
"The head and shoulders of Fox (like Christian in 'The Pilgrim's Progress') emerge from a pool of liquid mire; he looks despairingly up and to the right, his (half-submerged) hands raised in supplication. On his back is a bundle inscribed 'Contents French Gold, French Loyalty, French Daggers [cf. BMSat 8285, &c.], And Crimes, more num'rous than the sands, upon the Ocean's shore.' His hat has fallen off, the tricolour cockade and motto 'Ca ira' are half submerged. His large club rises from the slough: 'Patriots Staff - i.e. Whig Club' [cf. BMSat 8987, &c.]. Before him floats an open book: 'Gospel of Liberty by the four Evangelists St Paine St Price St Priestly St Petion [see BMSat 8122] \ Fly to the Wrath to come." Fox says: "Help! Help! - will no kind Power lend a hand to deliver me ? - Oh! what will become of me ? - all my former Friends have forsaken me! - if I try to go on, I sink deeper in the Filth; & my feet are stuck so fast in the Mire, that I can not get back, 'tho I try; - Ah me! - this Burden upon my Back overwhelm's me, & presses me down! - I shall Rise no more! - I am lost for ever, & shall never see the Promis'd Land!!" From the slough a hill ascends up which a straight path leads to a fortified gateway in a castellated wall inscribed: 'Knock, & it shall be opened. The Straight Gate: or the way to the Patriots Paradise.' From it flies a flag of 'Libertas', surmounted with the cap of Liberty. Within the wall is a ladder slanting towards a waning moon. ..."--British Museum online catalogue
Description:
Title etched below image., Three lines of text from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress quoted to the right of title: "This miry slough is such a place as can not be mended ...", Sheet partially trimmed within plate mark., 1 print : etching on wove paper, hand-colored ; plate mark 24.9 x 35.1 cm, on sheet 29.1 x 41.3 cm., and Mounted on leaf 24 of volume 3 of 12.
Publisher:
Pubd. Jany. 2d, 1793, by H. Humphrey, N. 18 Old Bond Street
Subject (Geographic):
France
Subject (Name):
Fox, Charles James, 1749-1806, Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809., Priestley, Joseph, 1733-1804., Pétion, J. 1756-1794. (Jérôme),, and Price, RIchard, 1723-1791.
A ragged sansculotte sits astride a lamp brackets high above a square where a crowd, all wearing bonnets-rouges and all watching the beheading of Louis XVI. He fiddles as he smiles down at the scene. Hanging below him from the same lamp post are two monks and a bishop, their hands bound. Further in the distance are more hung bodies and a cathedral in flames
Alternative Title:
Pinnacle of liberty
Description:
Title etched below image, left., One line of text below title: Religion, justice, loyalty, & all the bugbears of unenlighten'd minds, farewell!, 1 print : etching on wove paper, hand-colored ; plate mark 35.5 x 25.1 cm, on sheet 40.4 x 30.1 cm., and Mounted on leaf 26 of volume 3 of 12.
Publisher:
Pubd. Feby. 12th, 1793, by H. Humphrey, No. 18 Old Bond Street
Subject (Geographic):
France and France.
Subject (Name):
Louis XVI, King of France, 1754-1793
Subject (Topic):
Death and burial, Sansculottes, History, Clergy, Crowds, Fires, Guillotines (Punishment), Hangings (Executions), Liberty cap, Revolutions, and Scales
