On the Playing Cards of the Dulac Brothers in the Year II

Abstract:On 18 Frimaire of the Year II (8 December 1793), the Committee of Public Safety in Paris issued an arrest warrant for Charles Dulac, a young officer in the revolutionary armies. During the arrest, revolutionary guards seized over 200 papers in Dulac's possession, many of which were written by his older brother Gregory, who was also a military officer. Curiously, they also impounded 120 playing cards, on the backs of which Gregory had scribbled observations on moral philosophy, politics, and civic duty. These cards represent a self-curated snapshot of a cultural heritage that resonated with these two young men, a type of evidence that is more revealing of their intellectual and emotional predispositions than if the guards had found the collected works of Rousseau or Voltaire or the complete Encyclopédie in their Parisian apartment. The writings on these 120 playing cards help to illuminate the unexpected experiences of the brothers during the French Revolution. In their ability to evoke the mundane as well as the profound, used playing cards like the ones found in the possession of Gregory and Charles Dulac offer insight into the material and intellectual worlds of individuals who lived through revolutionary upheaval at the end of the eighteenth century.