The Kingdom of France is represented under the form of a Ship . . .
- Title:
- The Kingdom of France is represented under the form of a Ship . . .
- Alternate Title:
- The Kingdom of France is represented under the form of a Ship . . .
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Unknown
- Date:
- 1796
- Posted Date:
- 2024-04-25
- ID Number:
- 2476.01
- File Name:
- PJM_2476_01Adj.jpg
- Style/Period:
- Before 1800
- Subject:
- Allegorical
Other War & Peace
Pictorial
Politics & Government - Measurement:
- 54 x 44 (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- This rare allegorical map, apparently intended for a royalist British audience, attacks the ongoing French Revolution as a Ship of State run aground on the rocks. The hull and sails of the galleon cover those portions of France supporting the new Republic, while those areas resisting the Revolution in 1796 (Normandy, Brittany and the Pyrenees regions) show as natural landscape. The ship flies the tricolor flag of the Republic, but its original spar has broken off and the traditional royal fleur-de-lis banner is afloat in the Bay of Biscay as a small group of loyalists try to retrieve it. "A suggestion that the revolution is not going well is the ship's anchor is shown with a broken chain, suggesting aimless drift - three years later Napoleon Bonaparte was able to declare himself First Consul and, later still, Emperor." Baynton-Williams 2006, 188.
A scroll at the lower left of the map provides an explanation: "The Kingdom of France is represented under the form of a Ship, that, being the arms of Paris, and that City being known on the 13th and 14th of July 1789, by its insurrection, to have given so great a shock to the monarchy, that its influence extended to all its provinces, except, those, distinguished as land. The Vendeans [people of coastal Brittany] remaining stedfast in the Royal Cause, and to the present time preferring death to a renunciation of their principles: are supposed, embarked, to recover the lost standard of their ancient Constitution." Below the map is a legend memorializing the execution of "the unfortunate & ever to be lamented" Louis XVI, along with Marie Antoinette and the king's sister Elizabeth, as well as the death of the Dauphin in prison. And in the lower right corner of the page is a quote adapted from Shakespeare: "Such are their crimes, they would incarnadine the multitudinous ocean, making the green, one red!" (Macbeth 2.2.) Each department of France is numbered on the map and keyed to a list at the foot.
This map was originally the centerpiece of a larger broadside with two columns of text on either side listing in great detail the "Events of Paris from the beginning of the Revolution" on July 11, 1789, to December 26, 1775. See https://www.loc.gov/resource/g5831a.ct000188/, accessed May 8, 2021. A close examination of the version in the collection reveals the edges of the typeface on the left side of the sheet where the map was separated from the text.
The origin of this work is unknown. At the very bottom left are the words "Publish'd as the Act directs, June 28th, 1796, by the Author, No. 49 Great Portland Street." There is a good deal of information about London printers, engravers, book artists, publishers and booksellers at the end of the 18th century, as well as general directories of residents. A diligent search of these materials has failed to identify a single person residing or doing business at that address, let along anyone associated with the book trade. There is a slightly different form of this map depicting France not as a galleon on the rocks, but as a rotting "oak whose branches extend towards those countries where the Present Anarchists have endeavoured to fix their infamous principles." http://digitalarchive.mcmaster.ca/islandora/object/macrepo%3A21825, accessed May 8, 2021. Although some of the text on the "oak" version is different, the reference to the unknown "Author, No. 49 Great Portland Street" is identical. One scholar has suggested that the broadside was simply commissioned by a French emigre living at that address who preferred to remain anonymous.
Cornell University Library is pleased to present this digital collection of Persuasive Maps, the originals of which have been collected and described by the private collector PJ Mode. The descriptive information in the “Collector’s Notes” has been supplied by Mr. Mode and does not necessarily reflect the views of Cornell University. - Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.