Working on my proposed book for Routledge on French theater and India in the 18th and 19th centuries, one of the plays is written during the Revolution (1798, during the Second Directory), during a time when Napoleon was not just ascendant, but feared by many to be on the verge of taking over the Revolution. Which he did, a year later, but when this print was made, early in 1798, the French were preparing to invade England. No shortage of satirical prints about Bonaparte which I have been searching through online, hoping to find one to use in the chapter. So here are a few that I have dug up so far...
The latest fashion during the Directory - the "golden youths" were the dandies of the time. After the puritanical Reign of Terror and Robespierre, the Directory, not-quite-as-authoritarian and more conservative, oddly enough was more lax socially, with the result that the reigning fashions among women saw dresses in ancient Greek or Roman styles, often see through. And as Victorian prudery was still decades away, and Rousseauean prudery was now dead, people were having sex all over the place. Napoleon's sister was notoriously promiscuous, and was caught on at least a couple of occasions going at it behind a screen or some bushes at a party with a man she just met.
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