Prints and Authors in the Time of Manet

Don’t Interfere with It! (Ne vous y frottez pas!!)

Lithograph, 1834
Frederick B. and Kate L. Shoemaker Fund, 1935.53

In the foreground a defiant printer stands with his feet planted firmly before the words “Liberty of the Press.” Behind him, at the left, the impatient King Louis-Philippe, pushed by General Attorney Persil and restrained by Deputy Guizot, strides forward to attack the press. In the right background, other monarchs comfort the defeated Charles X, whose repression of freedom led to the Revolution of 1830.