English:
Exit liberte a la Francois!?or?Buonaparte closing the farce of Egalite, at S
t
. Cloud near Paris Nov
r
. 10
th
. 1799 / J
s
. 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'Etat 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