Popular Culture
Curious Proposal of the Women of the Maubert Marketplace (1785)
As a result of the "libels" against the court and especially the Queen, a sense was spreading that the monarchy was not fulfilling its obligations in ruling over France.
Citoyenne Lacombe’s "Report to the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women Concerning What Took Place 16 September at the Jacobin Club"
Claire Lacombe, an actress and one of the leaders of the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, published a pamphlet to counter charges made against her and the club. By September 1793 the revolutionary government had begun to harass the leaders of the club.
Champ de Mars: Petitions of the Cordelier and Jacobin Clubs
In the aftermath of the King’s failed flight in June 1791, the more radical clubs circulated petitions calling on the National Assembly to depose the King rather than grant him executive power as a constitutional monarch, under the new constitution.
Anecdotes on the Countess du Barry (1775)
Since the royal family’s ability to procreate was crucial to the perpetuation of the reign and thus to the continuity of the monarchy, the obsession shown in pamphlets about the bodies and sexual activities of King and Queen must be seen as having not just prurient interest for readers but also p
"The Royal Orgy" (1789)
In 1789, with the collapse of old regime censorship as well as a sense of liberation from traditional moral constraints, printed libels against the Queen became both more common and more intense. An example of this greater intensity is this light opera, with raunchy lyrics set to popular tunes.
"Letter from a Gentleman in Paris to His Friend in London" (1757)
The news of Robert–François Damiens’s attack on the King and his subsequent trial spread rapidly and generated great interest across France and all of Europe.
Baby Sitter and the Man Upstairs
Many children, young people, and adults (especially Americans) are likely to be familiar with this story about the babysitter menaced by the maniac that has gripped the popular imagination for the last half century.
Kissing Rudy Valentino: A High-School Student Describes Movie Going in the 1920s
Fears about the impact of movies on youth led to the Payne Fund research project, which brought together 19 social scientists and resulted in 11 published reports.
East Harlem Motion Picture Study
This is an excerpt from an interview with a male teenager from East Harlem, New York City, taken in a famous Payne Fund Study, the "Motion Picture Study" (MPS).
The Marseillaise (War Song for the Army of the Rhine)
Composed by Joseph Rouget de Lisle when he learned that France had declared war on Austria, the Marseillaise quickly became the anthem of the republican Revolution. it remains the French national anthem today.