The death of Olympe de Gouges

Olympe de Gouges lost her head to the guillotine on 3^rd November 1793. Her mistake had been to question whether the French Revolution was going in the right direction.

She was a remarkable woman who was definitely ahead of her time. Born in 1748, she was a playwright who ran her own theatre company and campaigned against slavery. She was also an early feminist, who wrote a pamphlet entitled: “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen”. Her earnest belief was that women were born equal to men and deserved to have the same rights. 

Her humanitarianism was what led to her downfall. She became horrified by what had happened to the Revolution that had begun in 1789 with promises of freedom for all and the end of tyrannical rule. One form of tyranny, namely that of France’s absolute monarchy, had been replaced by another, in which Robespierre and the Jacobins had created a new dictatorship that could not countenance any opposition.

She published a poster that called for a national referendum to allow the people of France to decide which way they wanted to go – towards a republic, a federal regime or a restored monarchy. This sealed her fate.

Her feminism was perhaps the final straw. One Jacobin commented that her death would be a lesson “for every woman who abandoned the cares of her home to meddle in the affairs of the Republic”.

© John Welford

Jean-Henri Riesener, cabinet-maker to King Louis XVI

Jean-Henri Riesener was one of the finest cabinet-makers of his age, which, unfortunately for him, coincided with the French Revolution. The opulence that he played a major role in creating was fine for the court of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, but when his aristocratic customers lost their heads, or at least their fortunes, his own fortune went downhill with theirs and he eventually died in poverty.

Jean-Henri Riesener was a German (with the names Johann Heinrich), born near Essen on 4^th July 1734. He moved to Paris as a young man and joined the workshop of Jean-Francois Oeben, who was cabinet-maker to King Louis XV. When Oeben died, Riesener, at the age of 29, took over not only the workshops but Oeben’s widow, whom he married.

Riesener’s first tasks were to oversee the completion of several projects that Oeben had left unfinished, including a magnificent desk, the “bureau du roi”, that Louis had ordered for his palace at Versailles. Riesener paid particular attention to the marquetry panels (designs using inlaid veneers of different coloured woods, etc) on the desk, which he signed.

On Louis XV’s death in 1774, Riesener was appointed cabinet-maker to the new King, Louis’ grandson who now ruled as Louis XVI. An early order was for a commode (a broad low chest, usually for bedroom use) to be decorated with marquetry and ormolu (gilding), and a second commode was ordered the following year, this one being even grander and more highly decorated.

Riesener made a number of writing-desks and tables for the royal apartments, some of them being cleverly designed to adapt to other functions at the push of a button. During the decade to 1784, Riesener’s workshop turned out a whole series of magnificent pieces, on which no expense was spared. Riesener himself became both prosperous and famous as a result, not only in France but throughout Europe.

However, things started to go wrong in 1784, when the royal household was forced to cut back on its expenses, a consequence of the financial crisis caused by France’s support of the Americans during their War of Independence. Royal orders for furniture were placed with cheaper cabinet-makers and Riesener was forced to make drastic price cuts for pieces already under construction.

He therefore decided to give up his official position and concentrate on taking private orders for members of the aristocracy, although he also did important work for the Queen, Marie Antoinette. The latter included a commode and writing-desk that incorporated lacquer panels rather than the more expensive marquetry that he would have produced previously.

However, the Revolution that started in 1789 marked the beginning of the end for Riesener. The new rulers had no interest in destroying the luxurious items that had been commissioned by royalty and aristocracy, but they had no use for them either. In 1795 Riesener was called upon to remove all royal emblems from his furniture, as these were deemed the “trade marks of the feudal system”.

Many pieces were sold off, and Riesener even tried to buy some of them himself, with a view to selling them on at a profit, but this scheme came to nothing.

Tastes were changing, with neo-classical becoming the style of choice in preference to the lavish opulence of the Louis XVI style that had marked the work of Riesener and his colleagues. Eventually he had no choice but to close his workshop. He died on 8 January 1806 at the age of 71.

Riesener’s pieces were typified by their exquisite marquetry, their generous use of ormolu, and their graceful lines. Riesener’s work was very varied and often experimental. Many of the pieces made for the royal apartments feature ormolu mouldings and figures in high relief on the corners, the decoration almost overpowering the woodwork. However, his furniture always displayed a sense of harmony, balance and proportion, even at its most ostentatious.  He employed only the very best craftsmen and clearly allowed nothing to leave his workshop unless it was perfect in every detail.

A number of pieces by Riesener survive and can be seen at former French palaces such as Chantilly and Versailles, the Louvre, and several overseas museums including the Wallace Collection in London and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

© John Welford

The death of Marie Antoinette

On 16^th October 1793 the former Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, met her end at the age of 37 in what is now Paris’s Place de la Concorde but was then known as the Place de la Revolution. Her husband, King Louis XVI, had been executed nine months before, and now it was her turn to be beheaded in public by the guillotine that had already accounted for many victims and would be kept busy for a lot longer yet.

As Queen, Marie Antoinette had not done much to ingratiate herself with the people of France. She always had the disadvantage of being Austrian by birth and parentage (her mother was Empress Maria Theresa), and she was accused of being in league with the enemies of France.

She was also seen as being completely out of touch with the people of France, many of whom lived in desperate poverty while she enjoyed a highly privileged aristocratic lifestyle. The story is told that, on being informed that many peasants were starving for lack of bread, replied “If they have no bread, let them eat cake”.  However, even though this might have been expected of her, there is no evidence that she ever uttered those words.

Nevertheless, it would be safe to say that she spent money like water on clothes and luxuries at a time when the French economy was in bad shape and the common people were suffering the consequences. One of her extravagances was to build a replica village in the grounds of the Chateau de Versailles, consisting of twelve cottages and a watermill, plus a “Temple of Love” and other “follies”. Marie Antoinette would relax here and entertain her friends, often dressing as a shepherdess in what many would have seen as direct mockery of the reality of rural life in the real France.

Her final days were far from luxurious. She was kept in a small damp cell in which a male guard was always present, even when Marie Antoinette and her female attendant performed their bodily functions.

On her last morning she was dressed in a plain white gown and bonnet, given a cup of chocolate, then taken with hands bound in a tumbrel cart to where the guillotine stood.  The crowds jeered her as she passed.

As she mounted the steps of the scaffold she slipped and accidentally stood on the executioner’s foot. Her last words were therefore an apology to him: “Excuse me, I didn’t do it on purpose”.

There were no speeches from the scaffold, just the very quick process of the victim being strapped to a board which was then pushed under the blade which came crashing down almost immediately.

History can just record the facts, or can comment on the rights and wrongs of what happened in the past. Did Marie Antoinette deserve her fate? And did the whole country of France deserve to suffer in the way it did both before and after the French Revolution broke out?

© John Welford