Browse Primary Sources

Locate primary sources, including images, objects, media, and texts. Annotations by scholars contextualize sources.

Act of Justice

Here Robespierre’s death is depicted as divine retribution, as in a classical myth.

Abuses to Suppress

This print depicts the Third Estate—represented by the peasant at the rear of the chariot, the worker leading the horse, and the merchant driving—delivering to the National Assembly a petition listing "abuses" to be remedied.

Abstention Rate in Napoleonic Plebiscites

All regions of France did not support Napoleon equally. His rule aroused most enthusiasm in the east (a prerevolutionary border region crucial in the Napoleonic wars) and the center of the country, least in the west, which had long provided a home to royalist counterrevolution.

Izvestiia, “Old Way of Life,” March 8, 1930 thumbnail image

Women and Stalinism: Drawing, Old Way of Life

Articles and images published in Soviet newspapers on March 8, International Communist Woman’s Day, provide the most obvious examples of how women were used as symbols in a propaganda campaign. These texts and images were clearly intended to convey a certain message about the changing role of women in the Soviet system.

A Positive View?

This composition of the scene, in which a helpless Louis seems to be looking upward to heaven with his confessor, communicates humility. The executioners are relatively passive, leaving the King and confessor center stage. This reveals that in mortal death, the King had a chance to look better than his tormentors.

A Grateful France Proclaims Napoleon the First Emperor of the Frence

In this engraving, Roman and contemporary themes are combined to glorify the new emperor. The absence of any clear representation of revolutionary liberty shows Napoleon moving away from the events of the preceding decade.

A French Gentleman of The Court of Louis XVI

A sarcastic treatment from England of French manners that contrasts the weakness of the old regime with revolutionary arrogance. The engraver also seems to be pointing toward two entirely different views of masculinity.

A Foreign Tree

These painted engravings ridicule the unrest wrought by French revolutionaries by contrasting French subversion with British stability.

A Democrat, or Reason and Philosophy

This cartoon by the popular British caricaturist James Gillray depicts the British politician Charles James Fox as a sans–culotte. Wearing a cockade in his wig and a bandage on his forehead, the unshaven Fox raises his bloody left hand as he lifts his left leg to break wind. Notice his torn shirt, the bloody dagger in his belt, and the fact that he wears no pants.

20 June 1791, Anonymous Drawing

In this depiction of the King’s arrest, the Queen risks her body to save her son, the crown prince.

Day of 10 August 1792

This engraving gives a ground–eye view of the action; far from an orderly operation, the "day" appears chaotic and menacing, as the inspired people face what appear to be cannons being fired by royal soldiers. This romantic image would become the predominant view of this event.

"This is My Dear Son": Napoleon as Child of the Devil

Linking Napoleon with Hell represents a far cry from his own propaganda. German propaganda piece depicting Napoleon as the child of the Devil.

This source is a part of the The Napoleonic Experience teaching module.

"The Song of the End": The Whole World Now Chases Him

Where Napoleon was once the conqueror, the world now avenges itself. This sense of reversal, felt widely outside of France, characterized a number of the caricatures of Napoleon, and indeed of the entire Revolution.

This source is a part of the The Napoleonic Experience teaching module.

The Little Cartesian Devil

The reversal of circumstances that German cartoonists emphasized seemed generally to exercise considerable sway over this use of symbols. Here, Napoleon, who strode so large over Europe, is bottled and examined. Obsessed with his small stature, Napoleon might have been particularly displeased with this image.

The Great Man

German cartoonists tried to reduce Napoleon down to size, in this case, the size of mice! Here the mice serve as courtiers.

This source is a part of the The Napoleonic Experience teaching module.

The Great Heroism of the Nineteenth Century

As in other caricatures, foreigners tried to humiliate Napoleon, once again using mice to represent those who would now attend him.

This source is a part of the The Napoleonic Experience teaching module.

The Exorcism: Ridding France of the Devil Napoleon

The seal in the foreground, with its fleur–de–lys, indicates a return to royalism after France’s liberation from Napoleon. In addition, the secularism associated with the Revolution is countered with the image’s reference to the religious practice of exorcism.

His Monument: Napoleon's Past and Future Are FIlled With Dead Bodies

This Janus–like figuration of Napoleon haunts the viewer as it suggests a future filled with skulls. Indeed, the unprecedented deaths from war and conquest of the last two centuries make this image seem predictive.

This source is a part of the The Napoleonic Experience teaching module.

Celebrating Napoleon's Birthday on the Island of St. Helena

In this cartoon, Napoleon is portrayed as a buffoon, riding a goat in a charge against rodents, mocking his warlike instincts.

This source is a part of the The Napoleonic Experience teaching module.

Cremation Rites with the Youngest Son, Calcutta 1944

The photographs depict a Hindu cremation site, or burning ghat, in the city of Calcutta in 1944. The first photo shows the men of the family, including the deceased's sons, seated in front of the corpse, which lies shrouded and bedecked with flowers on a bier. The child sitting on one of the men's laps at the head is the youngest son, a child of no more than 4-6 years old.