A Tutelary Genius leaves the Senate and exterminates the Oppressors, 9 Thermidor Year II (Pierre-Cha

A Tutelary Genius leaves the Senate and exterminates the Oppressors, 9 Thermidor Year II (Pierre-Charles Coqueret)

A tutelary Genius leaves the Senate, armed with a blazing sword, it exterminates the oppressors of France. The atrocious Revolutionary Tribunal, knocked down into the dust, lets [everyone] glimpse its visage under the mask of Justice, its satellites flee, with daggers in hand, and rush to carry off the fruits of their pillages. The terrible but blind force, which shattered the most beautiful productions of Genius stops and ceases to destroy. Tyranny, savage and always concerned, torments literature and the fine arts, it assassinates Chemistry and Physics, which it tears away from their useful works, it drags [the art of] Painting into the dungeon, it throws old age and childhood there, who moan while awaiting death.

Circa 1794, Musée Carnavalet.