Paris 1793-1794 A Revolutionary Year
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For the first time, the Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris, renowned worldwide for its collections on the French Revolution, has decided to single out one year in the revolution—without a doubt the most complex of them.
The “Year II” of the republican calendar, which covers the period from September 22nd, 1793 to September 21st, 1794, was a key year for the French Revolution.
© Collection Musée de la Révolution française - Département de l’Isère Dépôt du Musée du Louvre Design graphique : Atelier Pierre Pierre
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 even to embody the French Revolution in its entirety. It is the year during which Paris established itself as the capital of the Enlightenment and Revolutions.
But compared to the clarity of “89”, “93” appears much darker and thornier. As it was just coming to an end, this long political year spanning from the spring of 1793 to the summer of 1794 had already found a name: the “Terror”. Fabricated for political reasons, the word points to the authoritarian transition that the republican regime had undergone. And yet, the years 1793-1794 are also the years that some, confident in their ability to reinvent history, called “Year II”: a year defined by its breaking with the past and its revitalising of revolutionary utopias.
The exhibition is a collection of more than 250 works of all kinds: paintings, sculptures, objects of decorative arts, historical and memorial objects, wallpaper, posters, pieces of furniture… And all translate collective histories and incredible individual fates.
These varied objects reveal a context imbued with collective fears and state violence, but also with extraordinary daily activities, feasts, and celebrations.
Scientific commission
Valérie Guillaume, director of the Musée Carnavalet – Histoire de Paris
Philippe Charnotet, assistant curator and head of the numismatic collection at the Musée Carnavalet
Anne Zazzo, chief curator, head of the historical and memorial objects collection at the Musée Carnavalet
Scientific committee
Jean-Clément Martin, professor emeritus of History of the French Revolution at the University Paris I
– Panthéon-Sorbonne
Alain Chevalier, director of the Musée de la Révolution Française – Domaine de Vizille
Aurélien Larné, archivist at the Ministry of Justice – Department of the Archives, Documentation and Cultural Heritage
Marisa Linton, professor of Modern History at the University of Kingston – London
Guillaume Mazeau, senior lecturer of Modern History at the Université Paris I – Panthéon-Sorbonne
Allan Potofsky, professor of Modern History at the Université Paris-Cité
Charles Eloi Vial, curator of the Libraries for the Department of Manuscripts at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France
