BARRICADES, A GAME FOR KIDS

 

BLOCKS FOR KIDS TO PLAY EVOKE THE MORTAL BARRIERS 

Though I have seen almost no one, and no children at all, at the far end of the last room of a floor.  

The museum makes a game of a terrifying reality.

• Barricades might be improvised with whatever obstacles happened to be in the street...

       Combat on rue Sainte-Catherine, anonymous, 1830 / zoom

• But they were made from pavements when there was time to construct them:  

Dance of death in 1848 by Alfred Rethel, 1849 / zoom

 

   The Barricade, rue la Mortellerie by Ernest Meissonier, 1848 (cut) / zoom

Combat at the barricades in Paris, 1848, British press / zoom

Civil War by Edouard Manet, 1871 / zoom

Blocks with which to play

End of this section.

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Next section,

IV.2.

The first working-class revolt

and modern Europe's first great massacre