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Artist or maker

Unknown

Author Citizen D (French, active 1793)

Date

1796-1797 {nd}

Dated to subject.

Place of production

Paris?, France

Medium

etching and letterpress on paper

Type of object

illustrations
etchings

Accession number

4232.2.55.97

One of a set, see others ▸

Book illustration of a family tortured with fire inside their home by the bandit gand known as the stokers or 'Chauffeurs'. In the centre of the image, there is a wide fireplace with a mantelpiece bearing domestic objects. The parents are tied up on either side of the fire, with their feet raised above the fire.There is a large saw above their feet. A kneeling woman keeps the fire going with bellows. On the left, a man wearing a tricorn hat sets fire to a baby's cot. Behind him, a man and a woman steal from the cupboards. On the right, a man leaves with two loaded bags. The text appears below the image and on the verso. The image is executed in etching and the text in letterpress.

Physical description

Dimensions (mm) / weight (mg)

151 x 105

Physical Details

single sheet, image and text size recto: 130 x 98, image size recto: 78 x 98, text size verso: 142 x 84, (sheet trimmed to or within plate mark)

Transcription

[Recto :] ROMANCE / Composée au sujet d’une femme qui eut la douleur de / voir brûler son enfant au berceau, par les chauffeurs, / tandis qu’ils lui brûlaient les pieds à elle-même . / AIR : De Zélie. / Oh ! Mon enfant, que ta voix déchirante / Vient augmenter l’horreur de mes tourments ! / Les maux affreux de ta mère expirante / Sont moins cruels que tes tristes accents.
[Verso :] Puisse sur moi leur fureur assouvie / Doubler mes maux et t’épargner les tiens ! / Tes cris perçants m’ôtent cent fois la vie, / Et la douleur intercepte les miens. / Envain [sic] tes bras implorent ma tendresse , / Envain tes yeux semblent sonder mon cœur, / Cher innocent … Le désespoir m’oppresse … / Mon impuissance augmente ma douleur. / Grand Dieu, ta voix se fait à peine entendre… / Mon cœur se glace a l’aspect de ton sort… / Ton œil s’éteint et je vois se répandre / sur tous tes traits la pâleur de la mort… / Ah ! Vil bourreau respectes l’innocence, / Si tu n’agis que par cupidité ! … / De quel demon soutiens-tu la vengeance / Pour exercer tant de férocité ? / Ainsi parlait à des chauffeurs infâmes / Une victime expirant de douleur, / Au triste aspect de son fils dans les flammes, / Dont un brigand attisait la fureur. / Puisse à jamais dans ces âmes féroces, / Se déchaîner les plus cuisants remords ! / Puissent les lois pour ces crimes atroces / Autoriser des supplices plus forts ! / Par le Cit. D*** / COMPLAINTE / sur les crimes commis par les chauffeurs. / AIR : Du Maréchal de Saxe. / Vous dont l’ame est juste et pure, / Amis de l’humanité, / Est-il une atrocité, / Plus contraire à la nature,

Translation

[Recto:] ROMANCE

Composed about a woman who had the misfortune of seeing the Chauffeurs burn her child in its cot they were burning her own feet.

Tune: from Zélie.

Oh! My child, how your heart-breaking cries
are increasing the horror of my suffering!
The agonies of your dying mother
Are less cruel than your sad inflections.

[Verso:]
May their fury be spent on me,
Double my pain and spare you yours!
Your piercing cries take my life a hundred fold,
And pain intercepts mine.

In vain your arms beg for my tenderness,
In vain your eyes seem to reach into my heart
Dear innocent… desperation oppresses me…
My powerlessness increases my suffering.

Great God, your voice is barely heard…
My heart freezes at your fate…
The light in your eye is fading and I see spreading
On all your features the pallor of death….

Ah! Vile torturer, respect innocence
If only you were acting out of greed!
Which demon's vengeance do you help
By such ferocious deeds?

So spoke a victim dying of pain
To the infamous Chauffeurs
Of the sad fate of her son in the flames
Whose fury was stoked by a rascal

May the most heated remorse forever roam
In these ferocious souls!
May the laws authorise for such heinous
Crimes harsher punishments!

By the Citizen D***

COMPLAINT
On the crimes committed by Chauffeurs
Tune: The Marshal of Saxe

You, whose soul is pure and just,
Friends of humanity,
Is there an atrocity,
More against nature,

Language

French

History

Part of

Tableaux de la révolution: A collection of eighteenth and nineteenth century French, German, English, Italian and Austrian prints related to the French Revolution, bound in four volumes. 4232.1-3

Provenance

Acquired by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild (b.1839, d.1898) before 1897; inherited by his sister Alice de Rothschild (b.1847, d.1922); inherited by her great-nephew James de Rothschild (b.1878, d.1957); bequeathed to Waddesdon The Rothschild Collection (The National Trust) in 1957.

Collection

Waddesdon (National Trust)
Bequest of James de Rothschild, 1957

Bibliography

Related literature

Colin Jones; The Longman Companion to the French Revolution; London, New York; Longman & Co; 1988. 406 on chauffeurs

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