09 July 2018
Funding Victory: French posters from the end of the First World War
The British Library holds an important collection of French propaganda posters from the First World War. This striking material, often of high artistic quality, constitutes a fascinating means to reflect on the values and motivations as well as the challenges faced by French society at the time. Many posters dating from the end of the war call for the financial support of French civilians by subscribing to ‘Liberation Loans’, first to finance victory and, after the war, to fund ongoing reconstruction. These were government bonds issued through banks, given by individuals to the state at a fixed, low interest rate and redeemable after a given period. Subscribing to them was presented as an integral part of the war effort. The posters advertising them highlight a situation of economic strain (high government debt, inflation and currency devaluation), and its social and political repercussions, stressing the financial responsibility of civilians to support soldiers on the frontline.
‘Souscrivez à l’emprunt de la Libération’, Tab. 11748.a., Box 5, No. 319.
The poster ‘Souscrivez à l’emprunt de la Libération’, illustrated by the artist and caricaturist Édouard-Alexandre Bernard, was issued in 1918 by the Comité national de prévoyance et d’économie, led by members of the government, businessmen and industrialists, academics and Church representatives, whose names are listed on the left-hand side: their authority and expertise support the poster’s message. The promotion of Liberation Loans links the relative strengths of the French and German currencies to the two countries’ military situations. On one side, the one franc coin seems to climb effortlessly up a slope, leading the way for a group of allied soldiers to ascend. The caption indicates that since the whole world trusts France's credit, the franc strengthens; meanwhile, since nobody trusts Germany's credit, its currency weakens. On the other side, a one mark coin rolls down a cliff. Barely supported by the soldiers who attempt to prevent its downfall, the wayward coin appears about to crush them.
‘Souscrivez pour la Victoire’, Tab. 11748.a., Box 3, No. 250.
In these posters, subscription to war loans is presented as essential to support the army and hasten the victory of the French troops. The poster ‘Souscrivez pour la Victoire’, by Richard Gutz, advertises subscriptions through the Banque nationale de crédit. It displays in the sunset, a female allegory of Victory, winged, in armour and wrapped in the French flag, leading through the air cavalry and infantry who bear French, British, Japanese, American and Serbian flags. The perspective of their triumphant charge contrasts with the scene below, depicting a mass of wounded and dead soldiers on the battlefield. The poster thus also highlights the cooperation of the allied forces.
‘Souscrivez à l’emprunt à la Société centrale des banques de province’, Tab. 11748.a., Box 3, No 236.
A poster by the illustrator and painter Eugène Courboin, ‘Souscrivez à l’emprunt à la Société centrale des banques de province’, reminds the viewer of the historical links between France and America and the need for reciprocal help. It shows a colourful Uncle Sam shaking hands with a statue of the Marquis de Lafayette, the French general who fought for the Americans in the War of Independence of 1776.
‘La Marseillaise’, Tab. 11748.a., Box 2, No. 241.
Historical references and national symbols were a powerful way of exalting French patriotism, as in Jacques Carlu’s 1918 poster, dominated by the colours blue, white and red. La Marseillaise, the national revolutionary anthem written in Strasbourg in 1792 by Rouget de L’Isle (who features at the centre of the picture, one hand raised and the other on his chest), is described as returning triumphantly in 1918 with the allied armies (depicted behind Rouget). National and regional pride are stirred up by the allusion to Marseille and the reference to Alsace as a long-standing part of France. In the bottom left is a quote by the French Prime Minister Georges Clémenceau, ‘Allons donc enfants de la Patrie, allons achever de libérer les peuples’, which rewrites the national anthem by giving it an international scope: the liberation of the peoples.
‘Compagnie algérienne’, Tab. 11748.a., Box 6, No. 325.
A Liberation loan poster from the Paris headquarters of the Compagnie algérienne was made by the Belgian artist Maurice Romberg de Vaucorbeil who had travelled to Morocco and created an extensive body of work in North Africa. It depicts a heroic Algerian warrior in traditional costume riding a beautiful black stallion, with an elaborate script and the Arabic inscription ‘In the name of God’. It reminds us of the crucial role played by the French colonies and French colonial troops during the war.
‘Emprunt de la Libération’, Tab. 11748.a., Box 5 No. 289.
The posters also give insights into the hope for peace and reconstruction, with the return of demobilised troops after the war. The poster ‘Emprunt de la Libération’, 1918, signed by ‘Perbural’, advertised for subscriptions to the Société Marseillaise for industrial and commercial credit and deposits. A woman in regional dress reaches up to gather laurel leaves which fall as crowns on a crowd of French soldiers returning under the sunshine with the word ‘victory’ above them. Despite the importance of regional elements like the laurel and the traditional dress, if you look closely at this poster you can see that the Marseille address has been covered over by that of the Paris offices.
‘Emprunt de la Libération, Chambre des notaires de Beauvais’, Tab. 11748.a, Box 6, No. 286.
Another poster advertising Liberation loans was issued by the Chambre des notaires de Beauvais. It features a black and white drawing by Lucien Jonas, an established painter who worked for the French Army and Navy during the war. In this case, the image does not depict armies but a single soldier bringing home two small girls. The elder wears a traditional Alsatian outfit (including the distinctive black bow headdress) and holding a French flag, while the younger wears the Lorraine cross and white bonnet. The image illustrates verses by Jules Favre, a statesman at the beginning of the Third French Republic, about the recovery of Alsace and Lorraine lost during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71). Through liberation and victory, the happy scene, reminiscent of a joyful family reunion, embodies the territorial reunification of France at the end of the conflict.
Visual sources and ephemera are essential to our understanding of the First World War. Displaying nationalistic posters advertising the collecting of funds for the war effort to enable victory and support reconstruction at the time of the liberation of France emphasised the economic underpinning of the war and its monetary and social consequences. The posters illustrate the importance of financial history which is crucial to our understanding of the funding of the war and the social consequences of the economic situation. They carry powerful imagery and strong patriotic symbolism at regional, national and international levels. Although they display optimism and hope after the hardships of the war, the loan posters, which before and after the armistice appeal to civilian populations for the support of the army and the reconstruction of the country, demonstrate ongoing economic challenges and can also be seen to foreshadow indirectly the financial and political crises of the interwar period.
Irène Fabry-Tehranchi, Curator, Romance Collections
References/Further reading
Jim Aulich and John Hewitt, Seduction or instruction? First World War posters in Britain and Europe (Manchester, 2007)
James Aulich, War posters : weapons of mass communication (London, 2007). fm08/.1008
Pearl James, Picture this : World War I posters and visual culture (Lincoln, 2009). YD.2012.a.2087
Allons enfants : publicité et propagande, 1914-1918, dir. Christine Vial Kayser et Géraldine Chopin (Louveciennes, 2014) YD.2012.a.2087
Krieg auf Plakaten = La guerre par l'affiche, bearbeitet, übersetzt und erweitert von Franz Maier auf der Grundlage der französischen Fassung von Sylvain Chimello und Charles Hiegel (Koblenz, 2000) SF.279[Bd.85]
La guerre des affiches : 1914-1918, la Grande Guerre racontée par les images de propagande, dir. Laurent Giordano (Grenoble, 2013) LF.31.b.11339
Benjamin Gilles et Arndt Weinrich, Une guerre des images : 1914-1918 : France-Allemagne (Paris, 2014) YF.2016.b.2117
Rémy Paillard, Affiches 14-18 (Reims, 1986). Cup.921/88
British Library contribution to Europeana 1914-1918
British Library World War One Learning Website
21 June 2018
Put on your sky-blue hat for a day at the races with Adèle Hugo
As the eyes of the racing world turn towards Royal Ascot this week, we may reflect that the British fascination with horse-racing is far from new. ‘Every year, the people of Jersey and the English feel the need to organize races,’ remarked Adèle Hugo in 1855. The circumstances in which she witnessed this phenomenon were not, perhaps, those which she might have wished, but her observations remain sharp and witty.
Life is not always easy for the children of famous writers, especially girls. We may recall the daughters of John Milton, diligently copying out their father’s work as his sight faded, or the tribulations of Dora Wordsworth and Sara Coleridge, described by Katie Waldegrave in The Poets’ Daughters (London, 2013; DRT ELD.DS.199292). Subjected to their fathers’ eccentricities, overbearing authority or intermittent neglect, they also suffered from the restrictions imposed on women of talent and spirit by the conventions and expectations of 19th-century society. When these were compounded by the disruption to family life resulting from a father’s political views, the outlook could be grim indeed.
Portrait of Adèle Hugo, reproduced in Leslie Smith Dow, Adèle Hugo: La misérable . Journal d’Adèle Hugo (Fredericton, N.B., 1993) YA.1995.a.4832
Such was the situation of Adèle Hugo. She was born on 28 July 1830, at the time of the fateful events leading to the overthrow of Charles X, and political turbulence was to mark her passage through life. Her early life was comfortably affluent; the youngest of the family, she grew up with her sister Léopoldine and brothers Charles and François-Victor in a cultured home where her talent for music was fostered. However, she never ceased to be aware that Léopoldine was her father’s favourite, and the feeling of inferiority was deepened when in 1843 the newly-married Léopoldine and her young husband drowned in a boating accident. Victor Hugo never recovered from the loss, which he explored in some of his most impassioned poetry.
His emotional suffering, however, did not prevent him from engaging in political activity as a pair de France and Member of Parliament, and penning outspoken pamphlets in which he opposed the death penalty and attacked Louis Napoleon’s seizure of power. In protest at the anti-parliamentarian constitution of 1851 Hugo left France, first for Brussels, then for Jersey, and finally for Guernsey.
Marine Terrace, where Victor Hugo and his family lived on Jersey from 1852-1855. Reproduced in Le Journal d’Adèle Hugo vol. 1 (Paris, 1968). X.906/288
At the time of her father’s decision to leave France Adèle was 21, and the relocation occurred at a point when she might reasonably have been expecting to marry and establish a position in Parisian society. Instead, she found herself living on a remote island whose social life did not provide the diversions and company to rival that of the City of Light. Nevertheless, in her diary she proved an apt and observant chronicler and critic of the circles in which she was obliged to move.
Manuscript pages from Adèle Hugo’s, journal reproduced in Le Journal d’Adèle Hugo vol. 1
Among the amusements on offer were the races which she describes in her journal for June 1855 under the heading ‘Les Courses de Jersey’. Three months in advance posters could be seen advertising ‘Jersey Races: Cup de la Reine’, giving the local belles plenty of time to prepare their outfits: ‘delicious sky-blue hats’ worn with ‘superb green dresses (a ‘fashionable’ style only for the countryside)’ she remarks tartly, going on to describe ladies whose costumes of red, green, and yellow gave them the appearance of splendid parrots, topped off with ‘provincial marabou and diadems in artificial velvet, worthy of adorning the brow of a princess of the blood royal, and consequently in poor taste. It is not a steeple-chase for horses; it is a steeple-chase for women’. She gleefully notes the subterfuges of an Englishwoman who affects extra-long skirts to conceal her big feet, while another goes to the other extreme to display a skinny leg which she mistakenly believes slender.
An advertisement for the Jersey Races of 1862, a few years after Adèle’s visit, from the Jersey Independent and Daily Telegraph, 23 June 1862 (MFM.M86750-51)
As for the jockeys, she mocks them as ‘awful cretins, which provides the somewhat curious spectacle of donkeys on horseback’. Watching them from the grandstand are the young men belonging to the clubs: ‘beaux, English dandies, cretins, collectors of cretinous cravats, surmounted by side-whiskers (usually red). Here is the menagerie: geese, turkeys, ducks and donkeys assuming the names of lions, tigers and jackals’, braying and neighing in a cloud of malodorous breath as they place their bets:
“Look – a shilling (26 sous) if so-and so comes in with so-and-so,” says a lion, squeezed into an implacable suit.
“No,” replies a tiger, his neighbour, with an insurmountable stove-pipe of a hat on his head, and afraid of losing his 26 sous, “I’m not betting.”
Below the grandstand is an area where the visitors’ carriages are stabled; ‘from time to time starving horses try to gobble up a spectator, taking him for hay’; while above, Hugo’s fellow-exiles parade and an English officer, ‘the rossable Major Ross’, jockeys for position with the Hungarian General Perczel and comes off the worse. Alarmed at the prospect of a duel and possibly fighting for the first time in his life, the ‘false major’ apologizes profusely to the ‘genuine general’ and creeps away.
A 19th-century horse-race, from G. Finch Mason, The Tame Fox, and other stories (London, [1897]) 012627.m.19.
Those who know Adèle Hugo chiefly through Isabelle Adjani’s portrayal of her in François Truffaut’s film The Story of Adèle H. (1975), crossing the Atlantic in desperate pursuit of yet another officer, the perfidious Lieutenant Pinson, may be agreeably surprised by the Jane Austen-like acuity of her diaries. She outlived her father, dying in 1915 in the asylum where she had been under treatment for schizophrenia. Painfully frustrating as her life may have been, it could not extinguish her capacity to express herself with piquancy and perception.
Susan Halstead, Subject Librarian (Social Sciences), Research Services.
11 June 2018
The Reign of Terror ends
The bright dawn of the 1789 French Revolution did not last. By 1790 the Jacobin club (meeting in the Rue St Jacques) led by Maximilien Robespierre was the dominant political club in the country. It was more influential than the club of the Cordeliers (which met in the convent of the Cordeliers) led by Georges Jacques Danton, Jean-Paul Marat, Camille Desmoulins and Jacques Hébert.
Cover page of a selection of works by and about Robespierre (Paris, 1791-4) R.112
The Legislative Assembly of 1791-2 consisted of the Plain – moderate republicans or monarchists who were influenced by the Girondists (from Gironde) – and the Mountain – those seated in the highest part of the hall, who were the most radical and included members of the Jacobin and Cordelier clubs.
In April 1792 the French declared war on Austria. That August the Tuileries palace was stormed by the Paris mob. The Provisional Government, with Danton as Minister of Justice, did nothing to prevent the September massacre of prisoners. In the same month the monarchy was abolished and 22 September became the first day of Year 1. On 21 January, 1793, Louis XVI was executed. In prison he had frequently read accounts of the execution of King Charles I of England in January 1649.
Louis XVI’s last meeting with his family on the eve of his execution, from Jean-Baptiste Cléry, Journal de ce qui s'est passé à la tour du Temple, pendant la captivité de Louis XVI., roi de France (Paris, 1816) 10658.b.27.
In April 1793 the Committee of Public Safety was formed. It included Danton, Robespierre and Saint-Just. In the years 1793-4 Robespierre came to dominate the government and massacres occurred in the regions. The Reign of Terror had begun. Philippe Égalité, formerly the Duc d’Orléans, the former King’s cousin, was executed on 6 October 1793. Marie Antoinette was executed on 16 October. Olympe de Gouges, a lively dramatist and writer in favour of women’s emancipation, was enthusiastic for the Revolution but denounced the Terror. She was tried on 4 November and executed the same day. Madame Roland was executed on 9 November, pausing before a statue of Liberty to cry out “Oh Liberty, how many crimes are committed in your name.” She had said farewell to her best female friend at a pre-arranged spot on her route to the scaffold to spare her the sight of her execution. Louis XVI had similarly spared his valet and friend Cléry this last painful duty. Monsieur Roland, also condemned, had escaped to Rouen, but on hearing of his wife’s death, committed suicide. Olympe de Gouges had written that women were not allowed the vote yet were considered responsible enough for their actions to be executed. There were many more humble victims than aristocratic ones, as people paid off old scores by denouncing people they disliked.
Baron Honoré Riouffe, Mémoires d'un détenu, pour servir à l'histoire de la tyrannie de Robespierre. 2nd ed. (Paris, an III [1795]) F.857.(1.). The book recounts the author’s experience of unjust imprisonment during the Terror
In November the worship of God was abolished and replaced by the Cult of Reason. Churches were closed. Danton and Desmoulins were executed on 5 April. In July a conspiracy against Robespierre lead to his and those of his younger brother, and his supporters Georges Couthon and Antoine Saint-Just, who was only 26. They were arrested on 27 July (9 Thermidor). They were released by friends but surprised at the Hôtel de Ville and executed the next day (10 Thermidor). Other colleagues followed them to the scaffold. The plotters were forced by public opinion to moderate their policies and the Reign of Terror was ended.
Title-page and frontispiece of Vie secrette, politique et curieuse de M. I. Maximilien Robespierre ... (Paris, an. II [1793 or 1794]) R.112(127)
The anonymous tract Portraits exécrables du traître Robespierre et ses complices begins with a description of Robespierre. He is 5 pieds (feet) 3 or 4 pouces (literally thumbs or inches) tall, smart, with a lively step, a brisk manner, wringing his hands nervously, his hair and clothes elegant, his face ordinary but fresh in colour and a naturally harsh voice. His discourse was sharp, and he argued clearly. (He had trained as a lawyer.) He was proud and sought glory; often bold he was sometimes vindictive. He was chaste by temperament. He liked to attract women and sometimes had them imprisoned so he could free them. He also liked to instil fear into part of the Convention. He had a would-be assassin killed.
Portraits exécrables du traître Robespierre et ses complices ([Paris, 1794]) F.856 (2)
After his arrest, when he saw himself abandoned by his allies, and Couthon badly injured, he shot himself and was seriously but not fatally injured in the jaw. He was found on the floor. Couthon was dead but Robespierre was just about alive. He was mocked by those around him. Saint-Just, and two of his supporters (Claude) Payan and (René - François ) Dumas were brought in. Dumas was distracted, Saint-Just humiliated and Payan defiant and then fearful. Dumas asked for water which was given to him. A surgeon bandaged Robespierre’s injuries. The execution is not described except to say that after the execution the clothes of the victims were hardly disturbed although blood-stained.
Morna Daniels, Former Curator French Collections
References/Further reading
Audrey C. Brodhurst, ‘The French Revolution Collections in the British Library’, British Library Journal (1976), 138-158.
Des McTernan, ‘The printed French Revolution collections in the British Library’, FSLG Annual Review, 6 (2009-10), 31-44.
16 May 2018
Southern French printing during the Revolution: Le Journal de Marseille and La prise de Toulon
The Destruction of the French Fleet at Toulon, 18 December 1793, from Thomas Whitcombe, The naval achievements of Great Britain from the year 1793 to 1817 (London, 1817-18) 748.d.22.
In an earlier blog post, we discussed the recent acquisition of a copy of the revolutionary Journal de Marseille published in 1793-1794, RB.23.a.37976. Now we would like to comment on the collection of pamphlets bound at the end of the volume. They include a revolutionary song, the “Chanson des sans-culottes”, by the comedian, theatre director, song writer and dramatic author Aristide Valcour.
Aristide Valcour, Chanson des sans-culottes, ([Paris], 1793) RB.23.a.37976.(5)
It is followed by the left-leaning, Jacobin-inspired Constitution of 24 June 1793, which was never implemented, preceded as is often the case by the Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen. The collection also contains reports and political discourses held at the National Convention and the Committee of Public Safety , discussing topics such as religion, government or public instruction.
Constitution of 24 June 1793, with Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen ([Paris], 1793) RB.23.a.37976.(6)
The volume is very coherent in the way it gathers contemporary revolutionary material from South-Eastern France. Initially, the titles of the additional pamphlets suggested that some were duplicates of existing tracts in the British Library’s collection. However, most of the tracts contained in the Journal volume are from different, often Southern editions, or in some cases have a different type-set. For example, the discourse Aux grands Maux les grands Remèdes by Sébastien Lacroix (the initial editor of the Journal de Marseille), held at F.617.(21.) was first printed in Paris, while the other copy, a reprint published in Marseille by Auguste Mossy in the same year (an II / 1793), is abbreviated, and followed by an order of the General Assembly of the Republican Section des Quatre nations for the printing and distribution of 3000 copies and 500 posters of Lacroix’s petition.
Sébastien Lacroix, Aux grands Maux les grands Remèdes (Marseille, 1793) RB.23.a.37976.(10)
Lacroix is the author of another tract in the Journal de Marseille collection: La Religion naturelle, la seule qui convient à des Républicains, published in 1793-94 (an II) by Auguste Mossy (1764-1820): in the compilation, this is a duplicate of BL collection item, R.337.(15.). The Mossy family of printers seems to have played a key role in the diffusion of Jacobin literature such as that transmitted in the volume (we don’t know who were its early owners: the opening paste-down contains an ex-libris signature which has been crossed out). Auguste Mossy, who printed 3 tracts in the compilation, was a fervent revolutionary who started his own printing business in 1791 and became a municipal councillor for the city of Marseilles until 1793 (he later held other important political functions, under the Consulate and the Napoleonic Empire but was demoted under the Bourbon Restoration).
Sébastien Lacroix, La religion naturelle la seule qui convient à des Républicains (Marseille, 1793) RB.23.a.37976.(7)
The patriarch, Jean Mossy worked with his sons Jean II and Auguste from 1784 to at least 1791. He was a printer for the Navy, the King/the Nation and the City of Marseille, and published important works in the 1770-80s on the antiquities of Marseille and the history of Provence and Comté-Venaissin. Jean II (1758-1835), who published 4 tracts in the Journal de Marseille compilation, inherited his father’s presses and his own son, Jean-Joseph Mossy, succeeded him as a printer and bookseller.
Maximilien Robespierre, Discours prononcé à la Société populaire des Jacobins à Paris, 21 November 1793 RB.23.a.37976.(9)
Other material bound after the Journal de Marseille include several discourses by figures such as Robespierre, Billaud-Varenne, Moyse Bayle (a member of Marseille’s Jacobins club, deputy for the Bouches-du-Rhône department at the 1792 National Convention, involved in in 1793 with the Committee of Public Safety and the Committee of General Security) and Jean-Corisandre Mittié.
Title page of Jean-Corisandre Mittié, La prise de Toulon (Marseille, 1794) RB.23.a.37976.(14)
Mittié succeeded Lacroix as editor of the Journal de Marseille from issue 44 onwards. He was an author of dramatic works like La prise de Toulon, fait historique en un acte et en prose, the last item in the collection, and went on writing plays performed in Paris, such as the farcical La descente en Angleterre, prophétie en deux actes (performed on 24 December 1797 at the Cité-Variété theatre) or L’anniversaire, ou La fête de la souveraineté, scène lyrique et mélodramatique, mêlée de pantomime, combats et danses, et dédiée au peuple (performed in March 1798 at the Ambigu-Comique theatre). The newly-acquired Prise de Toulon is a copy of the first Marseille edition, published by Jean Mossy, while the library already owned the second edition (Paris, 1794; 11738.f.25.(7.).
Instructions for the actors; Scene 1 from La prise de Toulon
Mittié, who was sent by the Committee of Public Safety to Marseilles in 1794, asserts on the title page of La Prise de Toulon that he travelled to Toulon to be able to provide the most “exact”, “detailed information, the most authentic account and knowledge of the character and genius of the men who contributed to this memorable event”. The Siege of Toulon led to a wealth of dramatic and lyrical revolutionary creations written by professional authors and enthusiastic revolutionaries and performed mainly in Paris at the beginning of 1794. The victory of the Republicans (including the young officer Napoléon Bonaparte) over the Royalists and a coalition of British, Spanish and Italian troops in the city of Toulon, with its strategic port and arsenal, was celebrated throughout the country.
A. Forand, ‘Evacüation des puissances coälisées du port de Toulon. Le 18 decembre 1793’ (1793). (Image from Prints, Drawings and Watercolors from the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library)
The list of characters and instructions to the actors give an idea of the ideological bias of Mittié’s play. The drama is represented as “useful” with its “patriotic influence”, because it “consecrates the most memorable period of the Revolution, the most decisive for the fate of Liberty”. On Republican side the Generals and Representatives of the people (including Fréron, Barras and Robespierre), who after the flight of the English and the fall of the city, stop the pillage and execute the traitors, must have a “strong voice and physique”, and the female heroine, “citoyenne Lapoype”, who was captured but eventually liberated, “the most touching voice and accent”.
Character list and Preface from La prise de Toulon
On the side of the Royalists, depicted as reactionary and dissolute, the Marquis de Sombreuil, the type of the coxcomb, must have a “tone leading to ridicule” and the Knight of Cazalés corresponds to the type of an old man. The play highlights the eventual execution and “guillotine” of “conspirators” and “traitors”. It ends with the ominous announcement by Fréron of the intended destruction of the city of Toulon (which in the end was not implemented by the authorities): “only ashes and rubble” will remain as “the hand of vengeance will erase up to the last remnant of Toulon”. It closes with the enthusiastic salutation: “the genius of Liberty hovers over us. Woe to the Royalists, war to tyrants, peace to the cottages and LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC”.
Irène Fabry-Tehranchi, Curator, Romance collections
References:
Jacques Billioud, Le Livre en Provence du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle (Marseille, 1962). 2704.e.4.
Hervé Guénot, ‘ Le théâtre et l'événement : la représentation dramatique du siège de Toulon (août 1793’, Annales littéraires de l'Université de Besançon. Littérature et révolution française, 354, 1987, Ac.282/6
Hubert C. Johnson, The Midi in revolution: a study of regional political diversity, 1789-1793 (Princeton, 1986). YH.1987.b.380
Michael L. Kennedy, The Jacobin Club of Marseilles, 1790-1794 (Ithaca, 1973). 73/13539
09 April 2018
French 18th-Century Books with Colour-Printed Illustrations in the British Library
In the long 18th century, colour-printing techniques changed the ways in which information could be communicated. British Library collections of French books illustrate these seismic shifts, and highlights from its collections will be showcased in the study day 18th-Century Colour-Print Cultures, involving nine London collections, which is part of the conference ‘Printing Colour 1700-1830’ (10-12 April 2018, Senate House, University of London).
Following technical innovations in printmaking processes in various European countries in the first half of the 18th century, colour printing flourished in France from the 1740s. It waned shortly after the beginning of the French Revolution, but French single-leaf colour prints were, and still are, very collectable because of their outstanding technical qualities and highly fashionable subjects.
Until the introduction of chromolithography in the middle of the 19th century, French intaglio colour printing was dominated by illustrations about natural science. Colour printing was rarer in other disciplines, such as medicine, and it was briefly used to illustrate novels around 1800. Scientific illustrations in intaglio (etching and engraving are far more detailed than relief techniques, like woodcut) were first colour-printed in Holland, England and Germany in the early 1700s. By the 1780s, French engravers, printers and hand-colourers were producing the most refined scientific images in Europe, particularly in botany and zoology. They still faced strong competition internationally, especially from England and Germany, but the quality of their designs and colour-printing techniques was renowned.
Les Egyptiens submergés dans la mer rouge. Plate 75 from Recueil d’estampes d’aprés les plus beaux tableaux et d’aprés les plus beaux desseins qui sont en France, dans le Cabinet du Roy, dans celuy de Monseigneur le Duc d’Orleans, & dans d’autres Cabinets… (Paris, 1729) 1899.p.14
One item on display will be the first volume of the so-called Recueil Crozat of 1729, of which the second volume was published in 1742. The title translates to ‘collection of prints after the most beautiful paintings and drawings in France, from the collection of the King, from that of the duc d’Orléans, and from other collections’, with descriptive texts and biographies of the artists by Joseph-Antoine Crozat (1696-1751). He was the nephew of the great collector Pierre Crozat (1665-1740), owner of the (anonymous) collection mentioned in the title; Pierre died shortly before the publication of the second volume, and Joseph-Antoine inherited part of his vast collection. Some might say that this enormous project ‘democratised’ art collecting, because these reproductions of original artworks in French collections allowed many people unprecedented access to unique artworks through the then best-possible, full-colour reproductions. However, relatively few copies were printed, they were expensive items for elite collectors, and they celebrated royal and aristocratic collections. Nevertheless, it demonstrates how a range of new colour-printing processes created a new, relatively mass market for artwork.
‘Le Pongo’ from Jean Baptiste Audebert, Histoire naturelle des singes et des makis (Paris; Frankfurt, 1799) 39.i.11–12.
The display will also include a volume of Jean-Baptiste Audebert’s Natural history of apes and monkeys from ‘an VIII’ of the French Revolutionary calendar (1799/1800). It demonstrates how new colour-printing techniques transformed zoology through the exact depiction of animals, sometimes life size (hence this volume’s large folio sheets), to achieve the then-unsurpassed natural rendering of their skins and furs. Hand-colouring could not provide for that level of accuracy and standardisation across an edition. The colour printing in Audebert’s work transformed the understanding of apes and monkeys—and also the field of zoology itself.
‘Stuartia’, from vol. I of Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau/Pierre-Joseph Redouté/Pancrasse Bessa [et al.], Traité des arbres et arbustes que l’on cultive en France en pleine terre…, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1800-1819) 37.i.1-7.
Another highlight will be one of the botanical volumes designed by Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759-1840), which demonstrates the implications of these new techniques to the understanding of plants. The title boasts of the new information, much like textbooks in the 1990s might have boasted of a CD-ROM: ‘Treaty of trees and shrubs that are cultivated outside in France: with illustrations in colour’. This first volume of a series of seven exemplifies the high quality of French botanical publications, which were world-leading at the time. They visualised the scholar Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau’s (1700-1782) extensive expertise through the draughtsmanship of Redouté (the most prolific botanical artist of his generation) and Pancrase Bessa (1772-1846), the engraving skills of a team of 54 engravers who translated their drawings into prints, the artisanal skills of the printers who inked each plate à la poupée in natural hues, and also the artistic skills of what must have been a large team (possibly of women) who delicately finished impressions with paint.
Decorated paper, Le Tourmi, No 190, Orléans. Hirsch J1390-J1415 f. 16
The display will be accompanied by a projection of 18th-century French decorated papers which are part of the Olga Hirsch collection and have been digitised by the British Library (see Box 13, Hirsch J1390-J1415 and Folder 14, Hirsch J1416-J1436 ). The decorative colour printed sheets were meant for daily use. They contrast with the elegance and technical skill of the scientific illustrations. They were printed manually (that is, by block-printing or stamping), so they use matte pastes or water-based inks, rather than glossy oil-based printing inks. This means that a different palette was available to the producer, and the inks have a different and often less even appearance. This kind of colour printing is often omitted from the history of colour printing, because it was not produced with a printing press, but it would have been familiar to people of all social classes and far more common than the elite and educational uses that exemplify the furthest technological advances.
Elizabeth Savage (Institute of English Studies) and Ad Stijnman (University of Leiden)
Further reading:
Margaret Morgan Grasselli, Colorful Impressions. The Printmaking Revolution in Eighteenth-century France (Washington, 2003). LC.31.a.1009
Otto M. Lilien, Jacob Christoph Le Blon, 1667–1741, Inventor of Three- and Four Colour Printing (Stuttgart, 1985). 2020.148000 Bd. 9
Ad Stijnman, Engraving and Etching 1400–2000: A History of the Development of Manual Intaglio Printmaking Processes (London; Houten, 2012). YC.2014.b.820
Ad Stijnman and Elizabeth Savage, Printing Colour 1400–1700: History, Techniques, Functions and Receptions (Leyden, 2015). YD.2015.b.527
27 March 2018
Le Journal de Marseille: a new periodical in the British Library’s French Revolutionary collections
Le journal de Marseille, 1793-94, RB.23.a.37976.
This year, a grant from the Friends of the British Library enabled the purchase of the complete set of a rare periodical published in 1793-94 during the French Revolution: 62 issues of the Journal de Marseille, along with 14 issues of its Supplement. It is an important addition to our holdings from the period of French Revolution, in particular the French Revolution tracts collection, comprising some 2,200 volumes.
French Revolution tracts in the British Library basement
The world of print changed dramatically during and after the French Revolution and the development of the Press reflected the vivacity of the political debates, contributing to the emergence of a public opinion. In the Library’s collections, the Journal de Marseille complements accounts of the revolutionary events which happened in Marseilles and the South of France, printed either in Paris or locally. It can be read alongside other periodicals, such as the Bulletin des Marseillois (R.522.(3)), the Journal du Département du Var (R.523.(7)), the Journal de Lyon (F.1074) or the Journal de Bordeaux (R.521.(25)), as well as the Jacobin Journal des débats de la Société des Amis de la Constitution (F.89*-96*).
Journal de Marseille, 1st issue, 1 October 1793
Marseilles was a key city during the French Revolution (it gave its name to the revolutionary national anthem). The Journal de Marseille et des départemens méridionaux shows how debates within the revolutionary movement added to tensions between royalists and republicans. It was published three times a week (Sunday, Wednesday, Friday) between October 1793 and February 1794 by the Club des Jacobins de Marseille, a local branch of this left-wing society which included members of rival political factions, the Girondins and the Mountain. The Mountain, led by Maximilien Robespierre, and supported by the most militant members of the Club des Jacobins de Marseilles, held radical views which led to extremism and the Reign of Terror in the years 1793-1794. They brutally expelled the Girondins from the National Convention in the summer of 1793, an event which fostered rebellions, especially in the South, where the Girondins, who promoted federalism, were very influential.
Journal républicain de la Commune sans nom, issue 58, 12 Pluviôse an II (31 January 1794)
The Convention sent troops against the Marseilles insurgents: they took control of the city on 25 August 1793 and set up a Republican tribunal. The city was then deprived of its name and temporarily re-baptised “la Ville sans nom”: from issue 52 onwards, the name of the periodical thus changes to Journal républicain de la Commune sans nom et des départemens méridionaux.
Journal de Marseille, 2nd issue, 4 October 1793
The Journal was thus at the centre of burning political interests. Its initial editors were Alexandre Ricord (1770-1829) and Sébastien Brumeaux de Lacroix (b. 1768). Ricord was general prosecutor of the Bouches-du-Rhône department and between March 1792 and May 1793 had co-edited the Journal des départemens méridionaux et des débats des amis de la Constitution de Marseille (whose publication was interrupted by the federalist movement in Marseilles) and issues 2 to 8 of the Journal de Marseille. Lacroix, “jacobin de Paris”, was sent to Marseilles as a delegate appointed by the Convention, and took the sole editorship of the periodical from issue 9 onwards.
Journal de Marseille, Prospectus, pp. 6-7
The Journal results from an initiative of the Convention delegates for southern French departments: it was designed to “remedy the vagaries of public opinion, its lack of instruction and enlightenment” and “purge the public spirit from the venom distilled by enemies of the Motherland, coward federalists”, given the difficulties in disseminating Paris journals. It is conceived as the voice of “the Nation, responsible for providing moral food for the people and enlightening it on its interests, rights and duties”. It gives accounts of the Convention’s meetings and discussions.
Journal de Marseille, Prospectus, p. 1
The political dimension of the Journal de Marseille is clear from the start, its Prospectus starting with the motto “Le salut du peuple est la suprême loi”, and a declaration praising the “journaux patriotiques” which since 1789 have enlightened the people and promoted Freedom, supporting the durable Rule of All rather than One. The periodical places itself against publications “paid for by aristocrats, royalists and federalists”, accused of “delaying the progress of human reason”. In ominous terms, the editor vows to “track traitors in their cellars and attics, to unmask the looters of the Nation, to denounce to the jury of the public opinion unfaithful administrators, conspiring generals, and delegates of the people”, including “members of the Mountain, the Marsh or the Plain, federalists and their vile supporters.” Under the Reign of Terror, the Journal is openly conceived as the nexus of an “active and general surveillance, a beacon to illuminate federalist conspiracies.” It wants to inspire the people with “the strength so necessary in the fight between crime and virtue, freedom and slavery.”
Journal de Marseille, issue 44, 14 Nivôse an II (3 January 1794)
From issue 44 onwards, “Mittié fils” succeeded Lacroix as editor of the Journal de Marseille. Both names still appear on the first page until issue 55, when Mittié’s name remains. Jean-Corisandre Mittié, who was sent by the Comité de Salut public to Marseilles in 1794, authored dramatic works like La prise de Toulon, which features at the end of our volume.
Journal de Marseille, Supplément, issue 1, 3 frimaire an II (23 November 1793)
While the Prospectus and first eight issues of the Journal were published by Marc Aurel, “printer of the people’s representatives sent to the southern departments”, later issues were printed by Auguste Mossy, a printer who played an important role in Marseilles politics under the Revolution and the First Empire. Auguste came from a family of Marseilles printers: he worked, alongside his brother Jean (1758-1835), in their father’s printing shop before opening his own press.
The copy of the Journal de Marseille acquired by the British Library is kept in a modest but original brown leather binding with parchment corners and paste paper sides. It is stained, but traces of important use attest to the interest the collection has raised. Indeed, additional revolutionary tracts with a strong southern anchorage, including several pamphlets printed by the Mossy presses, are collected at the end of the volume – they will be the subject of another blog post!
Irène Fabry-Tehranchi, Curator Romance collections
References / Further reading
Audrey C. Brodhurst, ‘The French Revolution Collections in the British Library’, British Library Journal (1976), 138-158.
Christophe Cave, Denis Reynaud, Danièle Willemart, 1793: l’esprit des journaux (Saint-Étienne, 1993). YA.1994.b.4058
René Gérard, Un Journal de province sous la Révolution. Le “Journal de Marseille” (originally the “Journal de Provence”) de Ferréol Beaugeard, 1781-1797 (Paris, 1964). W.P.686/29.
Hubert C. Johnson, The Midi in revolution: a study of regional political diversity, 1789-1793 (Princeton, 1986). YH.1987.b.380
Michael L. Kennedy, The Jacobin Club of Marseilles, 1790-1794 (Ithaca, 1973). 73/13539
Des McTernan, ‘The printed French Revolution collections in the British Library’, FSLG Annual Review, 6 (2009-10), 31-44.
23 February 2018
Deluxe printing: Antoine Vérard’s 1498 illuminated Merlin
The current British Library exhibition Harry Potter, a History of Magic features a pack of divination cards produced in the mid-18th century, which include a variety of characters ranging from Proserpina to Copernicus and Dr Faustus to Merlin, the magician and prophet of the British.
Divination playing cards, London, 1750s (British Museum, Dept of Prints and Drawings 1896,0501.942.1-54.+)
Merlin first appeared alongside King Arthur in Latin sources, in particular the Vita Merlini and the Historia Regum Britanniae by the 12th-century writer and chronicler Geoffrey of Monmouth. The French Roman de Merlin, written around 1200, which draws on the Historia, considerably develops the story of Merlin. Born as an anti-Christ, the son of a devil, Merlin is gifted with supernatural powers, including shape-shifting. However, his gift of prophecy is of divine inspiration, and despite his troubling origins, Merlin chooses to serve the kings of Britain for the accomplishment of the divine plan.
Merlin (right) and his master Blaise, from L'estoire de Merlin (Saint-Omer, Tournai or Ghent, 1316) Add. MS 10292-94
The British Library collections hold many important manuscripts of the French prose Merlin tradition, including the extensively illuminated 14th-century BL Add. 10292-94, a complete set of the Lancelot-Grail cycle or BL Add. 38117, another illustrated manuscript produced in Northern France which holds the Post-Vulgate version of Merlin’s Sequel.
Merlin as a child prodigy with Kings Uther and Pendragon, from Le Livre de Merlin (Laon or Saint-Quentin, c. 1310 ) Add. MS 38117
Much less known are the illuminations in Antoine Vérard’s 1498 printed edition on vellum of the Livre de Merlin. The first and second volume, illustrated with woodcuts, hold the prose Merlin and its Sequel, and the third holds Merlin’s Prophecies. The later is a French prose text attributed to ‘Master Richard of Ireland’ and written by a Franciscan friar in Venice in the last third of the 13th century. It mixes romance material and political or polemical prophecies in an Italian context.
Binding of Vérard’s Les prophecies de merlin, the third part of this edition on vellum (Paris, 1498) C.22.c.8
Antoine Vérard was a prolific Parisian publisher in the late 15th and early 16th century who edited many French texts, including mediaeval romances of chivalry like Lancelot or Tristan. Vérard is well known for the production of deluxe copies printed on vellum and illuminated for royal and aristocratic patrons such as King Charles VIII of France. After the death of Caxton, he became the main provider of French printed books for the developing library of Henry VII of England. This is the origin of the British Library’s exceptional collection of Vérard’s editions on vellum, including the 1498 illuminated Livre de Merlin, in three parts, bound in red velvet (C.22.c.6-8).
Frontispiece from Vérard’s 1498 edition of Merlin on paper. Reproduced in Merlin: 1498, ed. Cedric Pickford (London 1975), vol. 1. X.981/20014
In the paper copies, the illustration of the first and second part of the 1498 Merlin consists of woodcuts re-used from editions of other texts such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses for the frontispiece, Jacques Millet’s Destruction de Troye la Grant or the epic Les Quatre fils Aymon: the images are not specifically adapted to Merlin.
The same frontispiece, showing Ovid, Fallen angels, Deucalion and Pyrrha, from Vérard’s La Bible des poetes, Methamorphoze (Paris, 1493) IC.41148.
However, in the copies of Merlin on vellum, the miniatures created in the workshop of the Master of Jacques de Besançon, though often rather generic, are designed for a closer relationship to the narrative. This customisation appears in the opening illustration which displays the conception of Merlin. Inside a room, a horned devil with animal traits appears in bed with a naked woman and places his hand on her body in a possessing gesture. The background features another aspect of the demonic persecution: winged devils massacre the herds of Merlin’s family.
The conception of Merlin, frontispiece from Vérard’s 1498 vellum edition of Merlin (C.22.c.6).
Merlin features in another illumination in the second volume, when in a side-story he goes to Rome in the shape of a stag. There, he interprets the dream of the emperor Julius Caesar (!) who is both betrayed by his lustful wife and faithfully served by a maiden in disguise (who he eventually marries). The miniature shows Merlin bounding happily through the forests towards the walls of the city.
Merlin as a stag (C.22.c.7; f. 23v)
Interestingly for a work which bears his name, this is the only miniature (out of 22 in the two illuminated volumes) representing the character of Merlin. The illuminations do not depict recurrent scenes from the manuscript tradition like Merlin dictating his story to the hermit Blaise or leading Arthur’s troops on the battlefield. The other images display King Arthur or his nephews led by Gawain, and the different battles they fight against the Saxons or rebelled British barons.
Battle of Clarence (C.22.c.7; f.36v)
This is in line with the text of Merlin’s Sequel, which presents Merlin on the side of Arthur, but also focuses heavily on the heroic deeds of the young king who stands in a duel against the giant Saxon king Rion. Although Arthur is victorious and chases his opponent, the miniature emphasises the size and aggressiveness of Rion.
Arthur fighting the giant king Rion. (C.22.c.6; f.190v)
In the story, Arthur appears in a completely positive light, engaged in a courteous and reciprocal love relationship with Guinevere. A miniature shows the celebration of their betrothal. Two squires bring dishes and drinks to the couple at the ceremonial banquet table. In the romance of Merlin, nothing foreshadows, in the early days of Arthur's reign, the adulterous love of Guinevere and (the as yet unborn) Lancelot.
Feast for the betrothal of Arthur and Guinevere. (C.22.c.6; f.183r)
Irène Fabry-Tehranchi, Curator, Romance collections
Vérard’s 1493 La Bible des poetes, Methamorphoze, along with other BL incunabula and manuscripts, will be on display in Bruges from 1 March - 3 June 2018 at the exhibition Haute Lecture by Colard Mansion
References/Further reading:
Paul Durrieu, Jacques de Besançon et son œuvre, un grand enlumineur parisien au xve siècle (Paris, 1892). Ac.6883/12.
Irène Fabry-Tehranchi, ‘Les imprimés sur vélin d’Antoine Vérard: d’Ogier le Danois au Merlin de la bibliothèque d’Henry VII enluminé par le maître de Jacques de Besançon (1498)’, Mémoires du livre / Studies in Book Culture, 7 (2015)
Irène Fabry-Tehranchi, ‘Du manuscrit à l'imprimé: les remplois de bois gravés dans l'illustration du Merlin et de sa suite dans l'édition d'Antoine Vérard (1498)’, Viator, 48 (1), 2017 9232.230000
Le livre du Graal. I, Joseph d’Arimathie, Merlin, Les premiers faits du roi Arthur, D. Poirion and P. Walter (dir.). Pléiade, 476. (Paris, 2001) YF.2006.a.5747
John MacFarlane, Antoine Vérard (London, 1900) 2719.x.12601
Merlin: 1498, Cedric Pickford (ed.) (London, 1975) [facsimile of Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, CG 110-112]. X.981/20014
Le Moyen Français, 69 (2011) [Issue devoted to Antoine Vérard]
Les prophecies de Merlin. Edited from Ms. 593 in the Bibliothèque Municipale of Rennes by Lucy A. Paton (New York, 1926). Ac.2683/3.
Jane H. M. Taylor, Rewriting Arthurian Romance in Renaissance France, from Manuscript to Printed Book (Cambridge, 2014). YC.2014.a.12660
Mary Beth Winn, Anthoine Vérard, Parisian Publisher, 1485-1512. Travaux d’humanisme et Renaissance; no. 313. (Geneva, 1997). WP.A.31/313
29 January 2018
PhD placement opportunity at the British Library: First World War French Posters
PhD students are invited to apply for a placement which focuses on the British Library’s collection of French First World War posters. Working with the European and Americas collections curatorial team, this three-month placement offers an exciting opportunity to research, catalogue and promote the collection to the widest possible audience in the context of the anniversary of the First World War.
H. Delaspre, L’infanterie française dans la bataille. Tab. 11748.a. Box 3, poster 238.
The collection, which spans the period 1914-1918, consists mostly of propaganda posters and includes advertisements for war loans, calls for donations to charitable causes, and official proclamations. One third of the posters are illustrated and the rest are text based.
Lucien Jonas, Debout: nos morts pour la patrie... Voici la France! 1914. Tab. 11748.a. Box 6 poster 314.
The project will enhance the discoverability and public awareness of this collection (there are some 350 posters, but only one generic catalogue record which hides the wealth and appeal of the collection). The posters constitute invaluable primary material for research. They promote national identity, aim to sustain the morale of the home front, and demonstrate solidarity between the French army and the Allies.
Andrée Médard, Fumeurs de l’arrière économisez le tabac pour que nos soldats n’en manquent pas. Tab. 11748.a. Box 6 poster 247.
During their placement at the British Library, the PhD student will produce descriptive records for the posters, researching and recording their key features (issuing organisation, artist, date, location, and context). These records will be made visible in the Library’s online catalogue.
The student will also promote the posters and their research findings by contributing posts about the collection to the European Studies blog and twitter account. They will also have the opportunity to write an article on the collection for publication and to contribute to Library events.
Daniel Ridgway Knight. 3e Emprunt de la Défense Nationale. Le bas de laine français. 1917. Tab. 11748.a. Box 3 poster 269.
The placement is open to PhD students from all disciplines and academic backgrounds; however, good knowledge of written French is essential, and knowledge of early 20th century European history and/or visual arts would be an advantage.
The closing date for applications is 4pm on 19 February 2018. You can view the full project description here. and details of how to apply here.
Victor Prouvé. Hygiène de Guerre. 1918. Tab. 11748.a. Box 2 poster 302.
The research placements offered through this scheme are opportunities for current PhD students to apply and enhance research skills and expertise outside of Higher Education as part of their wider research training and professional development. They are training and development opportunities to be undertaken within this specific context and are therefore different to the paid internships or other fixed-term posts that the Library may occasionally make available.
Please note that – unlike for an internship or a fixed-term post – the British Library is unable to provide stipends or payment to PhD placement students. It is therefore essential that applicants to the placement scheme obtain the support of their PhD supervisor and Graduate Tutor (or someone in an equivalent senior academic management role) in advance and that, as part of their process, they consult their HEI to ascertain what funding is available to support them.
After the interview stage, students who have been offered a placement and are not able to cover the costs through funding from their university or other sources may apply to the Library’s PhD Placement Travel Fund to request help to cover day-to-day commuting expenses or one-off relocation travel costs only. Please note that this Fund is limited and the success of an application to it cannot be guaranteed.
To support self-funded and part-time students, the placements can be done on a part-time basis, and some remote working is possible.
Lucien Jonas. Emprunt de la libération. Souscrivez. 1918. Tab. 11748.a. Box 6 poster 279.
Teresa Vernon, Lead Curator Romance Collections / Irène Fabry-Tehranchi, Curator Romance Collections
03 November 2017
Domesticating the Goddess ‘Liberty’ during the First World War
Ahead of her talk for the British Library’s Feed the Mind lunchtime lecture series on Monday 20 November 2017 (12.30-13.30), Collaborative PhD student Cherie Prosser delves into the British Library’s French poster collection to discuss the changing female representation of ‘Liberty’. Tickets for Cherie’s talk can be purchased online, or in person at the box office.
Liberty and her Republican compatriot Marianne are perhaps among the most enigmatic of the French national symbols. Liberty was known in France since Roman times as the goddess who freed slaves while her compatriot Marianne became popularised during the French Revolution as the mocking nickname of the French Republic. Significantly, the French Revolution opened to the door to the reinvention and popularisation of imagery representing new Republican France. Yet rarely is there any discussion of change or challenge to the assumption that female figures of nationalism are important trans-historically and remain a force today.
In my forthcoming Feed the Mind talk, I will demonstrate the transfiguration of Liberty and Marianne in the pictorial poster imagery during the First World War. Shadowing the progression toward modernism, how were these allegorical figures of strategic importance in the redefinition of French political, social and moral values? While continuing to occupy a key role in the popular imagination throughout the war, Liberty and Marianne were able to transcend this catastrophic time.
Léon Reni-Mel, La France libre, journal socialiste (Paris, 1918). Tab. 11748.a
Their use in poster propaganda during the First World War, as shown in the British Library’s French poster collection, invites an analysis of the ways in which allegories were used to negotiate complex political and social change. Throughout the war, Liberty and Marianne provided a perspective on historical social values as well as current events of the war as they unfolded. Posters were a primary source of propaganda during the war in all the belligerent countries and provide an insight into communication of social and political narratives during war time and beyond.
Marcel Falter, 4e Emprunt de la Défense nationale (Paris, 1918) Tab. 11748.a
When we compare Liberty and Marianne with International female counterparts, Columbia, Italia and Britannia, we see the way that France became connected to an allied response to the war. Taking this comparative approach, I want to suggest new insights into the use of posters as a source for understanding socio-cultural and historical change, with a particular focus on the First World War as well as the progression to Modernism.
So join me on 20 November and take a journey back in time as we uncover a series of events that background the significance of these posters from the British Library collection in Paris during the First World War
References/further reading
Maurice Agulhon, Marianne into battle, republican imagery and symbolism in France, 1789-1880 (Cambridge, 1981) X.800/30696
Marina Warner, Monuments and maidens, the allegory of the female form (London, 1985). YC.1986.b.12
Cherie Prosser is undertaking a collaborative PhD with the British Library and University of Sheffield on visual propaganda in France and Britain during the First World War.
03 October 2017
Le rose et le noir: Jean Anouilh
Visitors attending the British Library’s event Greeks: Classic to Contemporary this evening will have the privilege of hearing Kamila Shamsie, among others, discussing her new novel Home Fire, a reworking of the legend of Antigone. It is appropriate that this timeless parable of civil disobedience should be re-examined on the 30th anniversary of the death of a man who brought it to the stage at a crucial point in European history: Jean Anouilh.
Portrait of Jean Anouilh from Anca Visdei, Jean Anouilh: une biographie (Paris, 2012) YF.2014.a.17873.
It may seem odd that such a classic figure of the modern French theatre died as recently as 1987, but Anouilh began his creative life and established his reputation at a comparatively early age. He was born on 23 June 1910 in the little village of Cérisole near Bordeaux, and registered as the son of François Anouilh, a tailor of Basque descent, and his wife Marie-Magdeleine, a violinist. During the summer she would augment the family finances by playing in music-hall, casino and theatre orchestras in the seaside resort of Arcachon, and years later her son discovered that he was actually the result of an affair which she had had there. A more tangible influence was the exposure to the world of the theatre where young Jean attended rehearsals, read scripts, and even experimented with playwriting on his own account.
When Jean was eight the family moved to Paris, where he was educated at the famous Lycée Chaptal and gained admission to the Sorbonne to read law. The family’s finances, however, were still too precarious to allow him to continue his studies, and in his second year he left to seek employment with the advertising firm Publicité Damour. This apparent blow actually stood him in good stead and provided him with a training in pithy and concise use of language, equally applicable to writing for the stage.
After a period of military service and an early and troubled marriage to the actress Monelle Velentin, in 1935 Anouilh became secretary to the actor and director Louis Jouvet at the Comédie des Champs-Elysées. This brought him into contact with Jean Giraudoux, who encouraged him to return to writing, and in 1932 Anouilh completed L’Hermine (the British Library holds the 1934 edition: 12208.ee.151, and also a first edition of Y'avait un prisonnier (Paris, 1935; P.P.4283.m.(2.)). Anouilh also collaborated with the Russian director Georges Pitoëff, with whom he achieved his first commercial success, Le Voyageur sans bagages (Paris, 1937; P.P.4283.m.(2.)). He also worked closely with the set designer André Barsacq, director of the Théâtre de l’Atelier, who created an exquisite series of illustrations for a limited edition of Anouilh’s play L’Invitation au château.
Illustration by André Barsacq for L’Invitation au château (Paris, 1948) 11740.n.8.
This play, memorably adapted by Christopher Fry under the title Ring Round the Moon (London, 1950; 11740.n.11) was one of many which gained wide popularity on the English-speaking stage.
It belongs to the group classified by Anouilh as his pièces roses, comedies with an almost whimsical fairy-tale quality, in strong contrast to his pièces noires, where a darker, more cynical tone prevails. The bitter years of the German occupation and the Vichy regime had led Anouilh to reflect on the recurrent motifs and archetypes of human folly and cruelty in history and myth, crystallized in a series of dramas including Antigone (Paris, 1946; W22/1129) and L’Alouette (1952; BL copy Paris, 1953; 11740.m.34) dealing with the conflicts surrounding idealistic young protagonists facing a choice between integrity and death in a corrupt society. Despite belonging to a third group described by the author as pièces costumées, this play, like Becket, does not merely seek refuge in the safe past but emphasizes the eternal and vividly topical nature of the moral choices which the characters confront.
Anouilh was equally unsparing of himself in his final cycle of pièces secrètes in which he analyses the predicament of the dramatist or director and the dilemmas which it poses. As well as the conflict between life and art, these were also of a political nature; Antigone, for example (a theme which had also been interpreted by Brecht) escaped censorship under the Vichy government and thus attracted criticism on the grounds of moral ambivalence, as did Anouilh’s public disagreements with Charles de Gaulle and his support of the author Robert Brasillach, executed in 1945 for collaboration with the Nazis. Despite the numerous honours which Anouilh received, these considerations may have had a bearing on the fact that despite being shortlisted for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, he never won it. Moreover, in the 1960s, as the Theatre of the Absurd gained ground, his plays began to lose their appeal despite his own highly individual approach to existential crises as profound as anything to be found in the works of Beckett or Ionesco (both of whom he defended); the Belgian critic Hubert Gignoux, for example, sums up Antigone as ‘drame psychologique en marge d’une tragédie’.
Cover of Hubert Gignoux, Jean Anouilh (Paris, 1946; 11867.e.29).
However, he retained his vitality as a man of the theatre and the cinema well into his seventies, turning to directing (he was also a translator of Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde). Although he remarked in 1946 to Gignoux that he had no biography and was content with the fact, he could surely have had no quarrel with his biographer Anca Visdei’s comment in her biography of Anouilh: ‘Anouilh est devenu omniprésent dans la vie théâtrale française … Incontournable.’
Susan Halstead (Subject Librarian, Social Sciences) Research Services.
European studies blog recent posts
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- Annie Ernaux’s time in London
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