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The ghost of Buonaparte appearing to the directory!!!

Description

Abstract:
Bonaparte (l.), wearing nothing but a pair of boots and a long white shirt tied with a sash, enters a meeting of the Directory. The members of the Directory shrink in fear from the spectral figure who brandishes a cragged sword and approaches the table. Cruikshank here parodies the Christian account of the resurrected Jesus appearing before his disciples; Napoleon, like the risen Christ, has a gash in his right side, and his white shirt takes on the appearance of a shroud. As the members of the group recoil, they reveal a paper on the table on which is written, "Item: Send Buonaparte to Egypt to prevent his Organizing the Directory." The satire implies that in sending Napoleon to Egypt, the Directory had hoped to rid themselves of him for good--or at least long enough to reconfigure the post-revolutionary government. The sheet, damaged in the left corners, has been provisionally repaired at some earlier time.
Notes:
Published by Samuel W. Fores,1799-01-01. British Museum, BM 9336. .
Dialogue: Bonaparte: "Regicides, Parricides, Fratricides, & Patricides, this is the Effects of your Insatiable thirst for Conquest, this is Your reward for my Glorious Atchievements [sic] in Italy, Germany, etc., -- to die by the Hand of an Assassin,--a D--d Musselman; & all my Brave Legions Destroyed by Water Melons & the Arabs. Go Murderers in Cold Blood; may your Conscious Guilt ever prey upon your vitals: & may the name of Nelson ever haunt you Sleeping or waking."

Access Conditions

Rights
No Copyright - United States
Restrictions on Use
Collection is open for research.

Citation

"The ghost of Buonaparte appearing to the directory!!!" (1799). Prints, Drawings and Watercolors from the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, Napoleonic Satires. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:232260/

Relations

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