A satire on the massacres of 2-6 Sept. A cannibal feast with many revolting details takes place in a ramshackle room. Five persons sit at a round table on which is a head in a dish. The head of the family (left) is seated on a sack inscribed 'Propriété de la Nation', which disgorges a crown, sceptre, and mitre, with jewels, &amp;c. His vis-à-vis (who wears a bag-wig) is seated on the body of a woman whose throat is cut; a blood-stained axe is thrust through his belt.  All eagerly devour human fragments. An old hag is seated opposite a large fire in which plunder is burning; she bastes the body of an infant, transfixed on a spit. In the foreground (left) three small children, one wearing a dagger, crouch round a tub, eating the entrails which it contains. Heads and corpses appear through a door and in a rack slung to the ceiling. On the wall is rudely drawn figure of 'Petion', wearing a cocked hat, holding out an axe in one hand, a head in the other, with the inscription 'Vive la Liberte Vive le Egalitè'. Near it is the headless figure of Louis XVI as 'Lewis le Grand', in a pompous attitude. Plaster has peeled from the walls of the poverty-stricken room. Beneath the title is etched on a separate plate: 'Epigram extempore on seeing the above Print.
<p><br>"Here as you see, and as 'tis known,
<br>"Frenchmen mere Cannibals are grown;
<br>"On Maigre Days each had his Dish
<br>"Of Soup, or Sallad, Eggs, or Fish;
<br>"But now 'tis human Flesh they gnaw,
<br>"And ev'ry Day is Mardi Gras'   20 September 1792
</p>
<br>Hand-coloured etching
<div class="fn value">
<p>Print made by: James Gillray
</p>
<dl><dd>Published by: Hannah Humphrey</dd></dl></div>
1792<div style="display: none;">date QS:P571,+1792-00-00T00:00:00Z/9</div>
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