"The National Assembly Petrified" was first published in 1791. The piece mockingly captures the panic felt by French revolutionaries upon learning about King Louis XVI's attempt to escape the country.
The print reflects British commentary on a major turning point of the French Revolution: the Flight to Varennes. In June 1791, King Louis XVI tried to secretly flee Paris to rally counter-revolutionary forces. When the French National Assembly and democratic factions first found out he was gone, it caused absolute terror and panic before he was ultimately captured.
The artwork was published by Samuel William Fores in London on June 28, 1791. It is traditionally designed as a two-compartment piece, presented alongside its sister engraving, The National Assembly Revivified.
The top panel depicts a ragged French barber franticly yelling, "O sacre dieu! de King is escape! de King is escape! He is surrounded by six terror-stricken, caricatured working-class French citizens (including a tailor and a postboy) wearing tricolour cockades in their hats.
Their exaggerated, horrified expressions mock the sudden vulnerability of the revolution.
The bottom panel depicts the sudden shift to extreme joy when news arrives that the King has been arrested. It features a French cook taking a pinch of snuff and shouting, "Aha! be gar, de King is retaken!"
A group of impoverished republicans, including a widely grinning shoe-black, celebrate the news with a mix of delight and malicious glee.
Gillray used these characters to portray French republicans as ridiculous, frantic, and unstable "ragamuffins". The print served as powerful British propaganda, weaponising humour to critique the volatile nature of the political landscape across the English Channel.
Gillray was one of five children, and the only one to survive to maturity. In 1770 he was apprenticed to Harry Ashby, a London writing in engraver, and five years later W. Humphrey published a few of Gillray's illustrations including satirical works. By the time Gillray commenced his career satire was old, but personal caricature was in its infancy. Other exponents in this form of art were soon overshadowed by Gillray's superior craftsmanship. His figures were full of vitality, titillating and reflective of some political crisis or private scandal. As his popularity increased so did demand by the public to see more of his work. In the rapidly changing politics of the late18th century he would produce a plate in twenty-four hours. Although sometimes overlooked his speech bubbles were elaborate and Gillray would spend considerable time composing and redrafting the text.
Between 1791 to 1807 his career continued successfully in association with William and Hannah Humphrey. There after Gillray's health began to suffer. He eventually slipped into madness and died shortly before the Battle of Waterloo on June 1st 1815. Hannah, who had a close relationship with him nursed Gillray through out his final years and following his death the copper plates then formed part of Hannah's estate when she died in 1818. The executor's of Hannah's estate sold Gillray's painstakingly worked plates for there second hand copper weight. Hearing of this, the then publisher, Bohn who had previously expressed an interest in buying the plates set about purchasing them from a variety of different sources. Eventually acquiring over 500. In 1851 Bohn republished the engravings in a large folio volume, "The Works of James Gillray".
