SUNDRIES: An eighteenth century newsletter

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THE REVOLUTION: Guillotine trinkets and toys

Were earrings and other objects made showing the guillotine? In different discussions between 1866 and 1923, several writers in the Intermediaire des Chercheurs said they were, but not without contradiction.

The 1866 thread begins (May 25, 18666, (295)) with a reference from Mercier's New Paris ("Nouveau Paris") in which he talks of the luxury and parties that contrasted with the horrors of the Revolution. The writer of the item says that - per his grandfather, a member of the Directory - this was no longer true under the Terror: "All the silversmiths were closed; only copper jewelry was sold, not even gilded, in the form of guillotines, levels [? implying the leveling of society? JC], liberty caps, etc."

Some questions were then discussed: was the copper jewelry gilded or not? Did the women of Paris wear such items, or only the women of Nantes? A later writer even questioned the existence of such objects. The next entry (August 10, 1866 (454)) quotes Mercier again: "The women of Paris did not wear in their ears, like the women of Nantes, gilded guillotines." But the writer points out that Mercier was imprisoned during the period in question and so could only have heard, not seen, this - in other words, his account is questionable. However, an item from September 25 (561) gives the example of colonel Maurin, who was said to have had earrings in the shape of the guillotine, as well as the ladder used by Latude to escape the Bastille and one of Palloy's models of the Bastille (made from its own stone), and Camille Desmoulin's last letter to his wife.

Other examples - all from Nantes - are given in the 1867 (February 10 (87-88)) edition. One note cites an image in the Autographe (of December 1864) of "Guillotine earrings, worn at Carrier's balls at Nantes. An example of this curious piece of jewelry belongs to M.D.R. of Nantes; he has it from his mother, on whom it was imposed by Carrier himself. Another example is said to exist in the judicial archives... of ...Chartres." (Still? Chartres is a lovely town, if anyone's inclined to go look.)

Another writer cites another pair from Nantes, owned and described by Chéron de Villiers in his work Charlotte Corday. These, in red copper, included a dangling head, crowned and beheaded. Yet another reports seeing several pieces of copper jewelry (some quite long) representing squares (T-squares?), "radiant levels", little guillotines, scaffolds, etc, or mottos such as "Liberté, Equalité, ou la Mort" (Liberty, Equality or Death), "Liberté, Equalité, Fraternité" (the still current Liberty, Equality, Fraternity) and "République Française une et indivisible" (French Republic, one and undivisible).

In Nantes, at least, it appears that such jewelry really did exist.

The last writer here prefigures a subject which appeared years later: working miniature models of the guillotine. He says that "at the request of several distinguished amateurs" reduced versions of the guillotine were created as "household furniture and utensils".

Most such models seemed to be toys rather than useful items. In 1906 (667) the Goncourts were quoted, from their History of French Society during the Revolution, to the effect that exiled Royalists used to set up miniature mahogany guillotines and with these behead dolls representing Bailly, Lameth, Lafayette, etc. When each head rolled, a purple fluid spilled out in which the emigrés would dip their handkerchiefs (as some were said to have dipped theirs in the blood of Louis XVI) - the 'dolls' were actually bottles and the 'blood' was perfume. The writer of this item questions this tale (though the Goncourts' rigor overall is later defended). The writer also questions tales of guillotine jewelry and toys, but accepts as true references to a seal showing a guillotine.

A later writer (1923 (53)) says the seal in question was used by Gateau, a military administrator. The same writer says that the guillotine 'trinket' described by the Goncourts must have been made abroad, as were 'guillotine plates' which were sold to English customers who'd read (probably falsely) that the Revolutionaries had produced such ghoulish souvenirs. In France itself, less playful toys of a 'prudent civic spirit' were produced: "little guillotines for flies, streetlamps on which were fixed, hanged, little cardboard aristocrats."

The idea of toy guillotines, not surprisingly, survived the Revolution - though I doubt they were welcome in France under the Restoration. The Magasin Pittoresque (No 70 -1902 (19)) tells the story of Cruchet, originally a fisherman and then a sailor, who was captured at Trafalgar and learned to make toys while in prison. One so impressed the Regent that he offered him money and his freedom - but Cruchet demanded the release of five others with him, and was refused. Finally released in 1815, he stayed in England, where he made toy guillotines for children, before returning to France to become a maker of clever and often expensive toys.

BRISSOT: Marat and Franklin; Marat on Milton?

Those who know anything of Marat may think only of the grotesque figure, covered with sores, sitting in a bathtub, who was murdered by Charlotte Corday as he gloated over a list of new victims. In fact, before the Revolution, he was a man of aristocratic, scientific and other pretensions. In his book on "Mesmerism", Robert Darnton says he was not involved with the movement but sympathized with its distrust of the scientific establishment, a distrust he passed on to Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville:

Brissot learned this lesson at the feet of a man who epitomized the important but generally unappreciated connection between political radicalism and the frustrated ambitions of the many would-be Newtons and Voltaires of prerevolutionary Paris. (92)

In his memoirs, Brissot has a lot to say about his erstwhile friend, of which this is only a sample:

I have always been fair to Marat, and I will be still, though the persecutions which I suffer today are in part due to him. He was tireless in work, skilled in the art of performing experiments. One day I heard Franklin pay him this homage. His experiments with light had charmed him. I will not say the same of those with fire and electricity. Marat thought to have made discoveries which destroyed Franklin's system; but the latter was not duped by his charlatanism.
Mémoires de Brissot, Perroud edition, (I, (202)))

He goes on to say that Marat was determined to earn the praise of the Academy of Sciences and describes a "superbly printed" translation of Newton's "Optics" which Marat produced towards this end.

Brissot had reason to dislike Marat - he wrote his memoirs while in a Revolutionary jail awaiting his (inevitably fatal) sentence. And some of what he says about Marat is quite virulent. But some, given the circumstances, is almost comic:

At the time that I knew Marat, I was made a tempting proposition. There were then men who, having no talent, dealt in the talents of others, who built great enterprises, publishing brilliant prospectuses, taking subscribers' money and delivering nothing. One of these companies of speculators announced a new translation of Milton. I was thought knowledgeable in English, this translation was proposed to me, and I agreed to do it. I furnished two odes, and received nothing. Meanwhile, I saw well-equipped offices, account books, subscribers' receipts, etc. But all this apparatus was nothing but pure charlatanism; the project stopped there, I do not know what happened to the money.

I had also invited Marat to join with me in the translation of Milton; .... I thought to help him in sharing the product of the work I was assigned. Marat did nothing about it, at least he never showed me anything; but when I told him the sad outcome of my work while telling him to leave off his own, he acted outraged. He much regretted the loss of his time and his hopes. In sum, he did not hesitate to show his displeasure at an incident from which I alone suffered, instead of showing gratitude...
(209)

It would be interesting to know if Marat did indeed do "nothing", or if some translations of Milton lie tucked away among his papers.

JOURNAL DES SAVANTS: German Executioners

Magasin Pittoresque: No 26 - 1858