Ah! tu veux te frotter à la presse!!

Trustman, Benjamin A., Trustman, Julia M. · 1833

n this print, King Louis-Philippe is being pressurized even by the conservative journalists. It seems that also the right-wing paper "Le National" had to fear intensified censorship. The risk of a similarly vehement reaction like under Charles X in 1830, which was leading towards revolution, increased constantly. He lost his citizen's umbrella in the process. The entire print is an allusion to the power of the press. The man handling the press is not necessarily a printer, but most likely one of the "news-boys" who were the real masters of the street at this time. They yelled out the titles of their papers, which were usually appeals of revolt. The police arrested them, but while loudly protesting against the oppression of which they were a victim, these "heralds of upheaval" allowed themselves to be taken without any resistance, knowing quite well that the courts would acquit them. The continuing campaign of abuse against the King, the scarcely veiled incitements to murder, the poverty of a large proportion of the people and the hard apprenticeship of democracy created a strange volatile state of mind.