Carnavalet Museum — situated in the oldest neighbourhood at the very heart of the French capital and exclusively dedicated to the history of Paris — has taken the unusual step this year of organising an exhibition that explores all the fascinating and horrifying details of the French Revolution.

1789, the year of the Storming of the Bastille and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, is often considered to be the glorious year of the Revolution and is even seen by some as embodying the French Revolution in its entirety. But, compared to the clarity of 1789, 1793 appears much darker and thornier. This long political year, spanning from the spring of 1793 to the summer of 1794, was called the “terror”.

The period of 1793-1794 is also called “Year II” by some — a year defined by its breaking with the past and its revitalising of revolutionary utopias. The exhibition at the Carnavalet Museum specifically focuses on “Year II” of the Republican calendar, covering the period from September 22, 1793 to September 21, 1794 — a key year for the French Revolution.

Titled ‘Paris 1793-1794: A Revolutionary Year’, the exhibition offers more than 250 varied works. These include paintings, sculptures and documents, amongst other works, many of which have been brought in temporarily from a number of European museums. The works on display highlight the contrast between the terror and the daily lives of the common, working class people during that time period.

An exhibition in Paris contends with the simultaneously remarkable and horrific changes ushered in by the French Revolution

As we follow, step-by-step, the interesting line of paintings, statues and written texts from the era on display at the exhibition, we are gradually brought to the conclusion that things turned darker and darker as the revolutionaries continued to march through the streets. The ensuing period, ‘The Reign of Terror’, saw both King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette losing their heads at the guillotine.

The exhibition has put together works of all kinds — paintings, sculptures, decorative art objects, posters and pieces of furniture —as well as written statements by well-known individuals at the time who had participated in the terror, either willingly or unwillingly.

One of the most important figures of the French revolution was Jean-Paul Marat, who was given a significant post in the “people’s regime.” Marat was a journalist by profession and had continued writing columns for his newspaper L’Ami du Peuple [People’s Friend] despite his official duties. He was stabbed to death in his bathtub when he wrote a number of articles denouncing the atrocities of the so-called people’s regime. A painting of this murder by the artist Jacques-Louis David is an important part of the current exhibition.

‘Paris 1793-1794: A Revolutionary Year’ was on display at the Carnavalet Museum in Paris from October 16, 2024-February 16, 2025

The writer is an art critic based in Paris. He can be reached at zafmasud@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, March 16th, 2025