5.5.3. INSURRECTIONS AS SHOWN BEFORE THE RENOVATION

BARRICADES AND INSURRECTIONS ARE PART OF THE LEGEND OF PARIS, BUT EVEN BEFORE THE MUSEUM'S RENOVATION* THEY WERE ALMOST ABSENT  

*IN 2016-2022

Remembrances

• The name "barricade" comes from barrique, "wine barrel" in old French. The tie harks back to 1588, the "Day of Barricades" when a revolt made Henri III flee:

Zoom, please scroll down (includes account in French)

• French and foreign films with barricades appear here. A few stills, including an adaptation to current times: 

La Nouvelle Babylon, 1929

           Athena par Romaine Gavras, Netflix, 2022 / zoom

*      *

Victor Hugo found the barricades of June 1848 important enough to insert in Les Misérables, though the story takes place 15 years before: 

• At place du Château-d'Eau (now place de la République) was an apparition "that seemed built by a mathematician or specter, before which it was impossible not to be thoughtful," but the museum painting shows only army tents.

              Camp de troupes sur le Boulevard du Temple pendant les journées de juin 1848 by Alexandre Josquin, no date / zoom

                   Drawing by Gustave Brion in the original leaflet 

• At Bastille "the barricade was monstrous...

It reared up like a cyclops at the extremity of the formidable site where July 14 took place... Seeing it evoked immense suffering... when distress becomes catastrophe. ...

The barricade of the Faubourg du Temple, defended by eighty men, attacked by ten thousand, held for three days... not one of the eighty cowards tried to flee, all were killed. "

*    *

The museum's exhibit

• Fighting fades into the distance:

   La place de la Bastille et la barricade à l'entrée du fb. Saint-Antoine, 25 juin 1848 by Jean-Jacques Champin, no date / zoom

• Or the painting is placed so high that one hardly sees the fighting from the floor: 

Attaque d'une barricade sur le pont de l'Archevèche by Philippe Chaperon, 1849 / zoom

*      *

Exception: placed alone at eye-level above a chest of drawers, this work was impossible to miss.* Violence is obvious, underclass fighters are omnipresent and that on the left is shown full face (more coming). 

*So I did not think of photographing it.

Le Combat à la porte Saint-Denis 28 juillet 1830 by Hippolyte Lecomte, 1830 / zoom / not exhibited now.

The work is not shown now. It must be in the reserves, like almost all that concern insurrection.

I use them adding

"not exhibited." 

*     *     *

Next,

5.5.4.

1830:

 capitalism wins