Another Sedan

France's constitutional crisis of 1877—President MacMahon's monarchist coup de seize mai versus the republican parliamentary majority—arrives here as a palanquin being upended. MacMahon, in military uniform, tumbles out of the sedan-chair while a papal-crowned figure clutches a scepter inside; an imperial eagle perches on the roof. Léon Gambetta is caricatured as a sans-culotte, physically tilting the vehicle alongside Marianne, France personified as a bourgeois woman. Wall posters read Vive la République and Manifesto, referencing Gambetta's Lille speech demanding MacMahon submit or resign. The caption quotes that ultimatum directly. Nast depicts republican pressure against the Church-military alliance through the overturning of the sedan-chair.