The interior of notre dame, with liberty seated on 'pandora's box'; this is supported on a mound of grass and flowers from beneath which snakes emerge. She holds a staff on which is a large cap of liberty decorated with a guillotine; snakes form her hair and she beckons with her right forefinger to a grinning and sacrilegious crowd. Behind her (left) is a kiln inscribed 'torch or volcano of truth diffusing the light of reason to the surrounding departments'; from it issue flames inscribed 'blasphemy', 'distress', 'rapine', 'murder', 'rape', 'annihilation', 'plunder'. Behind it is the arch of (?) the nave; on each side is drawn an animal: (left) a grotesque spotted beast, seated, inscribed 'sacred to the memory of tyger marat' [assassinated 13 july 1793]; (right) a seated ape, 'sacred to the memory of monkey le pelletier' [assassinated 20 jan. 1793 for having voted for the execution of louis xvi]. Liberty extends a cloven hoof towards a kneeling man (? chaumette), who kisses it. Behind him on the right kneeling choristers sing with wide-open mouths, holding music books inscribed: 'new ode to liberty'; 'break locks bolts'; 'plunder rob and kill'. They have three pictures on poles: 'nature', a woman about to hurl an infant to the ground; 'liberty', a man laden with plunder tramples on a prostrate man; 'equality', a man holds another by the heels, head downwards. On the left lean and foppish frenchmen kneel at the feet of liberty, grinning broadly; they say, "von buss pray". Behind them a crowd of exulting republicans advances from the left. The foremost (? gobel), wearing long robes and a bonnet-rouge, breaks a crozier and tramples on a mitre. A companion, similarly dressed, also trampling on a mitre, breaks a crucifix across his knee. Two pictures are held aloft: 'truth', a seated woman much clothed, and 'reason', a maniac in chains. Over the group is the inscription: 'contrast this with happy england where a man may serve god without offending his neighbour and where religion and law secure real peace and true liberty'. On the opposite transept (right) is inscribed 'no religion death is only eternal sleep'. Beside it is a figure of liberty taking the place of christ on a large crucifix. In the foreground lie pieces of church plate inscribed 'for the crucible' and sacks inscribed 'church property'. After the title: 'nov. 10 1793 the people of paris, supported by a decree of the convention, resolved to abolish all religious ceremonies whatever - all priesthood - and to acknowledge none but the god of nature - the ceremony took place in the ci devant church of notre dame, now called the temple of reason, where they placed a woman in the dress of liberty and worshiped her as their divinity - of which the above print is, tho' a satyrical, a just representation, for however pleasing the figure and devices of those hypocritical monsters might appear, those unblinded by enthusiasm could view them in no other light than they are here too truly delineated. ' 5 december 1793
etching. Date: 1793. Dimensions: Height: 270 mm; Width: 371 mm. Medium: paper. Depicted People: Jean Baptiste Joseph Gobe. Collection: British Museum. The French Feast of Reason, or the Cloven-foot triumphant (BM 1868,0808.6313)
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