"The Little Counter-Revolution", 1791

On an improvised wooden stage, a street musician sings a murder ballad about local current events. Accompanying himself with a fiddle, he performs the satirical song to the popular tune "Vas t'en voir s'ils viennent Jean", and every verse is illustrated by a field in the spanned illustrated print. "Gentlemen and ladies", he calls out to the bystanders, "here you can observe, first, the failed revolt [of the counter-revolutionaries]; second, the soldiers' changing their tune due to women visiting the barracks; third, the bloody conspiracy of the seminarians; and, fourth, the arrival of the cannons and the flight of the nobles". The singer has the ballad prints ready for sale.

"Die kleine Gegenrevolution: Tragikomödie in 4 Akten, aufgeführt in Straßburg am 3. und 15. bis 17. Januar 1791", coloured etching, 23.9 x 17.2 cm, France, 1791, unknown artist; source: Prometheus – Das verteilte Bildarchiv für Forschung und Lehre, Lexikon der Revolutions-Ikonographie, Justus Liebig Universität Gießen, Historisches Institut,  https://prometheus-bildarchiv.de/de/ (fee for access).