The Estates. (Paris, 1789.)
In the French caricatures that have come to us from the period of the Revolution (many hundreds in number) every phase of the struggle is exhibited with French finesse. There is even an elegance in some of their Revolutionary caricatures. How exquisite, for example, the picture which presents the first protest of the Third Estate, its first attempt to be Something in the nation which it maintained! We see a lofty and beautiful chariot or car of triumph, in which king, nobleman, and clergy gracefully ride, drawn by a pair of doves. The Third Estate is merely the beaten road on which the whole structure moves. Nothing could more elegantly satirize the sentimental stage of the Revolution, when the accumulated abuses of centuries were all to disappear amidst a universal effusion of brotherly love, while king, lords, and clergy rode airily along as before, borne up by a mute, submissive nation! When at last the Third Estate had become "Something" in the nation, a large number of sentimental pictures signalized the event. In one we see priest, noble, and peasant clasped in a fervent embrace, the noble trampling under foot a sheet of paper upon which is printed "Grandeurs," the priest treading upon "Benefices," the peasant upon "Hate." All wear the tricolor cockade, and underneath is written, "The wish accomplished. This is as I ever desired it should be." In another picture priest, noble, and peasant are playing together upon instruments—the priest upon a serpent-shaped trumpet, the noble upon a pipe, and the peasant upon the violin—the peasant in the middle, leading the performance, and exchanging looks of complacent affection with the others.
The New Calvary. (Paris, 1792.)
Louis XVI. crucified by the rebels; Monsieur and the Comte d'Artois bound by the decrees of the factions; Robespierre, mounted upon the Constitution, presents the sponge soaked in regicides' gall; the Queen, overwhelmed with grief, demands speedy vengeance; the Duchess de Polignac, etc.
But even in the moment of triumph the effusion was not universal. There are always disagreeable people who doubt the duration of a millennium as soon as it has begun. Caricatures represented the three orders dancing together. "Will it last? won't it last?" sings a by-stander, using the refrain of an old song. "It is I who must pay the fiddler," cries the noble to the priest. From being fraternal, the Third Estate became patronizing. The three orders sit together in a café, and the peasant says, familiarly, "All right; every man pays his own shot." A picture entitled "Old Times and the New Time" bore the inscription, "Formerly the most useful class carried the load, and was trodden under foot. To-day all share the burden alike." From patronizing and condescending, the Third Estate, as all the world knows, speedily became aggressive and arbitrary. "Down with taxes!" appeared on some of the caricatures of 1789, when the public treasury was running dry. An extremely popular picture, often repeated, exhibits a peasant wearing the costume of all the orders, with the well-known inscription, so false and so fatal, "A single One makes the Three." An ignorant family is depicted listening with gaping eagerness to one who reveals to them that they too are the order of which they have been hearing such fine things. "We belong to the Third Estate!" they exclaim, with the triumphant glee of M. Jourdain when he heard that he had been speaking "prose" all his life without knowing it.
But peace and plenty did not come to the poor man's cottage, and the caricaturists began to mock his dream of a better day. We see in one of the pictures of 1790 a father of a family in chains, with his eyes fixed in ecstasy upon a beam of light, labeled "Hope." In another, poor Louis XVI. is styled "The Restorer of Liberty," but underneath we read the sad question, "Eh bien, but when will that put the chicken in the pot?" A devil entering a hovel is set upon by a peasant, who pummels him with a stick, while an old man cries out, "Hit him hard, hard, my son; he is an aristocrat;" and under the whole is written, "Is the devil, then, to be always at our door?" Again, we have the three orders forging the constitution with great ardor, the blacksmith holding the book on the anvil, while the priest and noble swing the sledge-hammer. Under the picture is the French smith's refrain, "Tot-tot-tot, Battez chaud, Tot-tot-tot." From an abyss a working-man draws a bundle of papers bearing the words, "The New Constitution, the Desire of the Nation," saying, as he does so, "Ah, I shall be well content when I have all those papers!"
The popular pictures grew ill-tempered as the hopes of the people declined, and the word aristocrat became synonymous with all that is most hostile to the happiness of man. A devil attired as a priest, teaching a school of little aristocrats, extols the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Citizens and soldiers are in full cry after a many-headed monster labeled "Aristocracy." An ass presides over a court of justice, and the picture is inscribed, "The Ass on the Bench; or, the End of Old Times." The clergy came in for their ample share of ridicule and vituperation. "What do we want with monks?" exclaimed an orator from the tribune of the Assembly in 1790. "If you tell me," he continued, "that it is just to allow pious men the liberty to lead a sedentary, solitary, or contemplative life, my answer is, that every man can be sedentary, solitary, or contemplative in his own room." Another speaker said, "If England to-day is flourishing, she owes it in part to the abolition of the religious orders." The caricaturists did not delay to aim their shafts at this new game. We see nuns trying on fashionable head-dresses, and friars blundering through a military exercise. The spectacle was exhibited to Europe of a people raging with contemptuous hate of every thing which had from time immemorial been held in honor.