1789, the year of the Storming of the Bastille and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, is often considered to be the glorious year of the Revolution and even to embody the French Revolution in its entirety. It is the year during which Paris established itself as the capital of the Enlightenment and Revolutions.

But compared to the clarity of “89”, “93” appears much darker and thornier. As it was just coming to an end, this long political year spanning from the spring of 1793 to the summer of 1794 had already found a name: the “Terror”. Fabricated for political reasons, the word points to the authoritarian transition that the republican regime had undergone. And yet, the years 1793-1794 are also the years that some, confident in their ability to reinvent history, called “Year II”: a year defined by its breaking with the past and its revitalising of revolutionary utopias.

The exhibition is a collection of more than 250 works of all kinds: paintings, sculptures, objects of decorative arts, historical and memorial objects, wallpaper, posters, pieces of furniture… And all translate collective histories and incredible individual fates.

These varied objects reveal a context imbued with collective fears and state violence, but also with extraordinary daily activities, feasts, and celebrations.