Liberté, as a female personification, was able to be manipulated throughout the Revolution, continuously changing to fit new ideas. Her depiction evolved alongside the political and social upheavals of the period, embodying ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity, but also reflecting the struggles and contradictions within the revolutionary movement. This malleable icon became a powerful symbol not just of liberation, but of control, persuasion, and the collective identity of a nation redefining itself. By examining the ways in which Liberté was portrayed—through art, rhetoric, and action—we can better understand the revolutionary fervour that shaped the French Republic and the enduring tension between idealism and pragmatism in its creation.

At the beginning of the Revolution, Liberté is represented as resigned and feminine. This is evident in the print La France Républicaine (1792) by artist Louis Darcis (?-1801), in which Liberté has a dreamy eye, curvy figure and relaxed posture. In this image she is pictured with an exposed breast. This symbol has multiple meanings, the first being that as the breast is a sexualized body part, its being exposed releases it from this state, symbolising freedom. Another meaning of the exposed breast is that it symbolises vitality and charity, in the state of motherhood, it is a predominant source of nourishment1. This image is of a more delicate and sedate Liberté; taking on a feminine role. The Republic was making a statement in regards to the vulnerability of the female form and the strength the Republic had in their ability to protect her, which in turn meant the people of France.

As the French Revolution progressed, there was a development in the way that the appearance of Liberté is portrayed, as well as the symbolism surrounding her image. In 1793, Liberté begins to take on stronger, almost more masculine attributes. In La Liberté: elle a renversé l'hydre de la Tyrannie, et brisé le joug du Despotisme (1793) by illustrator Pierre Paul Prud'hon (1758-1799) and Jacques Louis Copia (1764-1799), Liberté acquires a more stoic pose. She is pictured here with more defined muscles, looking leaner, more powerful and robust. Her breast is still shown, yet she is absent of many other feminine characteristics. She is wearing a wreathed crown, holding in one hand an axe, and yoke in the other. The head of the king is under one of her feet, while a hydra lays slain by her other foot. This image gives the viewer the impression that Liberté, herself, has slain the king and the hydra to attain liberty and freedom for the people.

The symbolism and form of Liberté continued to become stronger. This is largely due to the years in question, which have come to be known as the Reign of Terror. In 1792 France went to war with Austria and Prussia; Austria and Prussia hoping to get Louis XVI back on the throne. Due to the issues of what to do with Louis XVI, the radicals wanting him executed and others wanting to keep him as the figurehead of the country, the Parisian population started to riot, leading to the fall of the Legislative Assembly. There was then a hasty reorder and the Legislative Assembly was replaced by the National Convention2. In 1793, the war between France, Austria and Prussia was ongoing, as was the civil war within France. Due to a lack of funding, the Convention was under pressure to raise prices and taxes in order to gain reinforcements. The lower class was hungry and there was rioting in the streets. A similar civil unrest as seen at the beginning of the Revolution started to take place3. There was pressure for immediate action which led the Convention to vote, on March 10th 1793, to accelerate criminal cases that were prudent to the security of the nation. Twelve days later they elected a committee to assume ‘police power’ within France and within two weeks created the Committee of Public Safety to ‘provide direction to the government.’

This in turn led to more civil unrest as journalists and newspaper editors were arrested in the name of national security. In addition to the chaos, there was conflict between the two groups that made up the Convention, the Girondins and the Mountains. By May 1793, the Mountains wanted more radical laws, so in June the Jacobins facilitated an insurrection of the Convention, arresting the Girondins and seizing power for the radical party. In September 1793, Robespierre and the deputies ‘put Terror on the agenda’4. Now the only ones maintaining political power were the Mountains, who voted for a Revolutionary Tribunal to quickly convict and execute anyone who was perceived as an enemy of the Republic5. The governing rule was now in the hands of a totalitarian party6. The Terror was an unpredictable time. The average citizen was at risk if they indicated any sort of grievances and once arrested there were only two options, exoneration or death. In Paris during the spring of 1794 the number of executions were five a day; by the summer of that same year the average went up to twenty-six a day7.

An image, Untitled and artist Unknown, created between 1793 and 1794 shows a seated Liberté, with one hand holding the Phrygian cap while the other holds a club. This image of a seated Liberté gives the impression of her as reigning judge. She is staring out at the viewer asking for a choice to be made between liberty or death. This image emulates the phrase that became well known in 1793, ‘Liberty, Equality or Death’, borrowed from the original 1790 motto ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’. This image also mimics a statue of a seated Liberté that was erected in place of a statue of King Louis XVI in the Place de la Révolution. During the Reign of Terror the guillotine was placed in front of the statue, playing part to tens of thousands of deaths in the name of liberty.

A print drawn by Charles Monnet (1732-180?) published in 1794 titled Journée du 16 Octobre 1793 depicts the moments before Marie Antoinette was executed in the square. To the right of the frame the statue of the seated Liberté can be seen as her likeness faces the crowd, Marie Antoinette and the guillotine. Once France started to win the wars on its borders, there was a push to dissolve the Committee of Public Safety, and their excessive laws on arrests and detainment. In July of 1794 many of the radical leaders, including Robespierre, were arrested and executed, leading to the next stages of the Revolution8.

Thus far the changes in the depiction of Liberté from her relaxed features and inspired symbolism, prior to 1793, to a Liberté in action, more muscular, conveying violence with forceful symbolism surrounding her, is a direct response to the swift change in politics at the time9. During the early days of the Revolution Hunt states Liberté was a ‘young, fragile, almost always virginal image of the Republic’ making her a disparity to that of the King. Once the King was executed in the name of liberté, her image was used in order to ‘express the idea that the Republic is crushing the monarchy10.’ Jack J. Spector responds to the sudden change of form and symbolism of Liberté stating, ‘Now, the woman with the Phrygian cap that had served as an allegory of Liberty comes to represent the new French Republic—a maternal figure whose main characteristics paradoxically are masculine11.’ The Convention continued to control the people by their repeated adjustment to the depicting of Liberté to fit the Republic’s cause.

In July of 1794 a moderate group named the Thermidorians took control of the Convention, their aim to establish stability. After the Reign of Terror, the country was traumatized as well as still dealing with the remains of radical groups and figuring out what to do with them. In 1795 there was continued unrest in a the country still trying to heal from the horrific trauma of the Reign of Terror that effected all the citizens of France. This same year the Thermidorians created a new constitution and replaced the National Convention with the Directory. The new image of Liberté produced by the Republic is again adjusted, this time to a maternal and at times matronly state. At this point, she is depicted more as seated, no longer standing.

Her symbolism is very sedate and she has a presence, but is not physically active, as she was during the Reign of Terror12. In many depictions she is no longer returning the gaze of the viewer, but is now facing away, as to not intimidate, as was done in illustrations created during the Terror. An example of this is on a medallion from 1796 entitled Prix de l’Ecole de Sorèze by Jean Duvivier (1687-1761). Liberté is again holding her staff topped with the Phrygian cap, but it is angled away from the direction she is looking. She is pictured in her classical Roman garb, with a child, pointing to the Constitution of Year III. This Liberté is acting as nurturer and educator to the future generation, while keeping a reminder of the past behind her.

By 1799 Liberté was depicted in a very similar form to the 1792 seal. She is again standing, wearing her Roman garb, crowned with laurels and holding a staff, topped with a Phrygian cap. On a coin titled Théâtre de la République et des Arts (1799) by Nicolas Marie Gatteaux (1751-1832), Liberté is pictured holding a compass. It’s shape being made into equal parts, it symbolises equality. On an image reading ‘Commission du Directoire exécutif de la Répe Française à Rome’ from 1799 titled République Française, Liberté is in the same style, except she is again holding a fasces, to one side a small liberty tree and to the other, what appears to be a coat of arms.

These final depictions of Liberté from the years of the French Revolution come full circle, ringing in the original depiction of the goddess who was meant to stand for the liberty and equality of the people. While the French Revolution came to an end in 1799, there was very little civil unrest after the Directory was established. The Directory stayed in power until, by popular demand of the Parisian citizens, Napoleon Bonaparte eradicated the Directory and seized power.70 With Bonaparte’s rule came the slow dissolution of the allegory of Liberté.

Warner states, ‘Allegory thrives on the multiplicity of meanings men have attached to the female sex’ and this sentiment rings true for the female form named Liberté13. While Liberté was used throughout the Revolution, depicting her as was needed, there is some speculation as to the use of Liberté and why her female form was chosen as the official allegory of the Republic4. How was the allegory of Liberté able to take on and project all these different ideas and stages of the Revolution between the years? Each year, as noted, was radically different. Hunt offers an explanation.

Within the iconographic limits set by the Goddess of Liberty—and the limits were rather wide—every artist could image his own republic, and yet all referred to the Republic. […] The Republic was an idealised figure, a goddess who stood for various civic values but who herself exercised power only in the imagination.

Liberté’s evolving form mirrored the shifting ideals and turbulence of the French Revolution. Her adaptability, from nurturing to militant and passive to commanding, embodied the Republic’s changing priorities and struggles. As both an emblem of hope and a tool of control, Liberté captured the paradoxes of a revolution striving for liberty amid chaos. Though her prominence waned with Napoleon’s rise, she remains a powerful symbol of transformation and the enduring pursuit of freedom.

References

1 Marina Warner, Monuments & Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 277-278.
2 Steve Thompson and Jennifer Llewellyn, ‘The Legislative Assembly’, Alpha History, 2012.
3 Jack Richard Censer, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, (University Park, P.A.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), 86.
4 Ibid., 86.
5 Laurence H. Winnie, ‘The French Revolutionary Trials’, Political Trials in Theory and History, (2017), 136.
6 Ibid., 88.
7 Ibid., 102.
8 Censer, Liberty Equality Fraternity,102-03.
9 Hunt, ‘Engraving the Republic’, 17.
10 Maurice Agulhon, Marianne into Battle: Republican Imagery and Symbolism in France 1789-1880 trans. by Janet Lloyd, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981) 1.
11 Jack J. Spector, ‘Medusa on the Barricades’, American Imago, 53.1 (1996), 28.
12 Hunt, ‘Engraving the Republic’, 17.
13 Madelyn Gutwirth, The Twilight of the Goddesses: Women and Representation in the French Revolutionary Era. (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1992), 255.
14 Lynn Hunt, ‘Hercules and the Radical Image in the French Revolution’, Representations, (1983), 111.