The National Assembly revivified

Gillray, James, 1756-1815 · June 28, 1791

Designed in two compartments [with The National Assembly Petrified], one above the other, the figures in both being three quarter length. Here, a group of ruffians listen with delight to a cook (left) who takes a pinch of snuff and capers. In his cap is a tricolour cockade inscribed 'Liberty.' He wears over-sleeves, a spoon and fork are stuck through his apron-string, a string of frogs hangs from his belt. His most prominent listener is a shoe-black with a grotesquely wide grin, who stands, shoe in one hand, brush in the other. These much-caricatured ragamuffins are typical of the French republicans depicted by Gillray: at once ludicrous and horrible (BM). / This is a clever and a rather celebrated caricature, on the dismay with which the violent democrats in Paris were struck when they were informed of the King's flight, and on their joy at the arrival of the intelligence of his arrest at Varennes (Wright/Evans).