Habits of New French Legislators, and other Public Functionaries, AKA French Habits

NOTE: You have selected one of twelve plates of a series in which members of the Whig opposition are portrayed wearing the new ceremonial robes designed by Jacques-Louis David for the public officials of the French Directorate. To minimize the repetition of information common to all twelve prints, this page is intended as a general introduction. Links to more detailed commentaries on specific prints can be found at the bottom of this page. At the end of each of those commentary pages, I have included a link to the next plate in the French Habits series so you can click from one plate to another in sequence. Or you can return to this page to select a specific plate from the series to explore.

Ever since 1791, Gillray had been suggesting that Fox and his Whig followers were more French than English, implicating them in plots to undermine British order, dressing (or rather undressing) them as sans culottes, and showing them wearing the revolutionary bonnet rouge and tri-color cockade. As the threat of a French invasion of Britain was becoming more and more real, however, Gillray went even further. So here he portrays the most prominent Whigs in the prescribed robes appropriate to their positions in an imagined post-revolutionary government.

Like much of the art of David and the French revolution, the ceremonial robes of the French Directorate were a conscious departure from earlier courtly fashion and were at least partly inspired by republican Rome, featuring flowing capes, sashes, and togas. They were officially described and illustrated in Collection des nouveaux costumes des autorités constituées, civils et militaires in 1795/96. There are at least two editions of this specification available on the internet with minor variations between the two. To illustrate my commentaries, I use both, selecting, in each case, the best image for that plate I can find:

In 1797, a "translation" of the French specification appeared in English as Dresses of the Representatives of the People, Members of the Two Councils, and the Executive Directory printed by E. Harding, PrintSeller, in London 98 Pall Mall. But it would be more accurate to describe it as an English "version" of the pamphlet. The text is longer and more detailed providing not just a description of the robes themselves but of the administrative function. The illustrations bear almost no resemblance to the French, often differing in the pose of their figures, and many of the details of their dress. In general, Gillray follows the French version but sometimes includes details from the English. And in one instance, Le Boureau where there is no dress described for that function in either the French or English versions, he almost certainly bases his print on an illustration from the English version of a seemingly unrelated function. But in almost every case, Gillray adds touches of his own, and the whole is aesthetically far superior to his sources.

The first plate in Gillray's series contained the longer title, Habits of New French Legislators, and other Public Functionaries that made the connection with the orginal French publication clearer. The remaining plates were given the abbreviated title French Habits to pun on the two meanings of "habits:" as clothing and as a repeated action or tendency, suggesting that if the revolutionary clothes do not "make the man," they certainly reveal his aspirations. So Fox appears, for example, in the robes of Le Ministre D'Etat, a kind of prime minister. And Sir William Pulteney appears as Le Tresorier, treasurer or finance minister. The first six plates were published by Hannah Humphrey on April 18, 1798; the second six plates appeared approximately a month later on May 21st.

A somewhat similar, though much simpler, series had been created by James Sayers in 1794 called Illustrious Heads Designed for a New History of Republicanism in French and English Dedicated to the Opposition. But in that case the opposition Whigs were identified with a specific French revolutionary figure such as Robespierre or the Duc d'Orleans, not an administrative function or title. And in that case, there was no attempt beyond the title to establish a visual resemblance between the English Whig and the Revolutionary Frenchman.

Illustrious Heads Designed for a New History of Republicanism in French and English Dedicated to the Opposition

James Sayers
Illustrious Heads Designed for a New History of Republicanism
in French and English Dedicated to the Opposition [May 12, 1794]
© Trustees of the British Museum

Gillray's series, on the other hand, consists of full length portrait caricatures of the best known Whigs of his day in a variety of poses, etched in exquisite detail, with dress and backgrounds unique and appropriate to each figure.

Sources and Reading

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