Adrien Marie, “Les Aboyeurs” (The Barkers),  L’Eclipse 4th year, no. 140, June 1871

Caption: Ses malheurs n'avaient point abattu sa fierté. / Her misfortunes had not diminished her pride. (Jean Racine, Athalie, 1691)

With the ruins of the recently-suppressed Paris Commune in the background, a female personification of the new French Republic attempts to fend off a pack of barking dogs. Each dog represents a different political faction – Legitimists and Orleanist hounds symbolize efforts to restore the monarchy, while a black-and-white Bonapartist mongrel and a fierce looking mutt sporting a revolutionary medallion advance their own claims on the nation’s future. Marie’s cartoon foreshadows a debate over the nation’s government that wasn’t finally resolved until 1879.

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