Rodama: a blog of 18th-century & Revolutionary France

   How can one lack strength, replied the young hero,  when one may usefully serve one's country? Unlike other child heroes of the First...

Ruffier's busts of Bara and Viala - copies on display at the Musée de la Révolution française, Vizille. As Jean-Clément Martin has empha...

  To 19th-century French schoolchildren the death of 16-year-old Jean-Baptiste Mermet alongside his father in the Vendée in 1794 was a famil...

"Le Jeune Darrudder", 1793. Engraving by Charles-Melchior Descourtis after Joseph Swebach Desfontaines  https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark...

" You are too small," said the sergeant to little Stroh, who had just enlisted under his country's colours. The lad gave him t...

Depictions of the boy-hero Viala are rare in art. This striking image, attributed to Pierre-Paul Prud'hon,  would  seem to owe more to  ...

  "Joseph Agricole Vialla", 1793. Engraving by Charles-Melchior Descourtis after Joseph Swebach Desfontaines  https://gallica.bnf....

An interesting perspective on David's Death of  Bara was provided by the exhibition of the painting  held in  Avignon in 1989 as part o...

  Early representations of Bara The Spring of 1794 saw a veritable outpouring of prints and engravings on the subject of  Bara.  Among the p...

  Aquatint by Angélique Briceau, c.1794   British Museum collections The heroic death of the soldier-boy Joseph Bara has long been a familia...