« Ah ! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira / Les aristocrates à la lanterne / Ah ! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira / Les aristocrates on les pendra ! » (“Ah! It’ll be fine, it’ll be fine, it’ll be fine / Hang the aristocrats up high / Ah! It’ll be fine, it’ll be fine, it’ll be fine / We’re going to hang the aristocrats up high!”): this couplet composed by the singer Ladré was well known. And the lamppost in question actually existed! It was called the “king’s corner lamppost” or the “Grève lamppost.” Located above a grocery-chocolate shop, it became the symbol for popular justice: as of July 22, 1789, Foulon de Doué, who replaced Necker in the Ministry of Finances, and the intendant of Paris Bertier de Sauvigny, his son-in-law, hated by the people, were hung here. Neither the object nor the location was chosen by accident. This lamppost was located near a bust of Louis XIV, who embodied despotism. Moreover, it was on the Place de Grève where public executions had been organized during the Ancien Régime.
On July 23, 1789, after Being Arrested in the Village of Viry, Foulon Was Taken to the Hôtel de Ville in Paris
When journalists acted as the people’s spokesperson
The Lamppost Speech to Parisians, Given by the Public Prosecutor
After the lynching of Foulon as well as Flesselles, the Provost of the Merchants (equivalent to the Mayor of Paris), the journalist Camille Desmoulins published his Discours de la Lanterne aux Parisiens. In the engraving that accompanied his text, he had himself depicted as the prosecutor of the people, defending the interests of the nation in front of the lamppost, as if this was, in some way, the judge of an open-air tribunal! In his speech, Desmoulins justified popular violence as a kind of justice.
