Dernier conseil des ex ministres (Last Cabinet Meeting of the Ex-Ministers)

When Louis-Philippe abdicated the throne and fled to England in 1848, Daumier expressed his relief in this allegorical representation of the Republic, with her signature Phrygian cap, chasing out the members of the King’s cabinet and establishing herself as the legitimate and enlightened ruler of France. The day after the Republic was proclaimed, Philipon made a similarly dramatic statement when he wrote, “Paris woke up in the morning under a Monarchy and went to sleep at night as a Republic.”