Image: Buonaparte closing the farce of Egalité

Description: Exit libertè a la Francois!—or—Buonaparte closing the farce of Egalitè, at St. Cloud near Paris Novr. 10th. 1799 / Js. Gillray inv' & f'. SUMMARY: British satire shows Napoleon with his grenadiers driving the members of the Council of Five Hundred from the Orangery at St. Cloud at bayonet point. A drum is labeled "Vive la Liberte," and papers under foot read "Resignation des Directoires" and "Un liste de Membres du Conseil des Cinque Cents." On November 10, 1799, in a move known as the Coup d'État of Eighteenth Brumaire, Napoleon seized control of the French government and installed himself as First Consul, thereafter governing as a dictator. James Gillray was the dominant caricaturist of his period, producing popular savage cartoons of the English court of George III and later of Napoleon and the French Revolution. MEDIUM: 1 print : etching, hand-colored ; 25.2 × 36 cm (sheet) CREATED/PUBLISHED: [London] : Publishd by H. Humphrey 27 St. James's Street, 1799 Novr. 21st. NOTES: Title from item. Catalogue of prints and drawings in the British Museum. Division I, political and personal satires, v. 7, no. 9426 Forms part of: Art Wood Collection of Caricature and Cartoon (Library of Congress). Forms part of: British Cartoon Prints Collection (Library of Congress). Unprocessed in WOOD/Gillray.118 Hoff, Syd. Editorial and political cartooning, p. 38; Parton, James, Caricature and other comic art, p. 153, 267–68 — ljr
Title: Buonaparte closing the farce of Egalité
Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-07510 (digital file from original print), archival TIFF version (37 MB), cropped, and converted to JPEG with the GIMP 2.4.5, image quality 88.
Author: James Gillray
Permission: No known restriction on publication.
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No