Le vendeur de rats

Performing Life Under Siege

Abstract

During the Siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), the hardships of life under siege were often performed by wealthy Parisians who, nevertheless, had access to sufficient resources throughout the conflict to be relatively unaffected. Most famously, this performative hardship manifested in the upper-class taste for culinary items prepared from feral animals and creatures harvested from Parisian zoos. This article analyzes Narcisse Chaillou’s 1871 painting Le vendeur de rats, pendant le siège de Paris, en 1870 (The rat seller, during the siege of Paris, 1870) in the context of the performance of besieged life by Parisians. It argues that rather than simply illustrating desperate circumstances in Paris under siege, Le vendeur des rats serves as a case study through which to view class divides accentuated by the Franco-Prussian War. Amid the shortages brought on by the siege of Paris, wealthy Parisians, who retained access to food and similar essentials throughout the siege, nonetheless chose to perform what they understood wartime life to be. Chaillou’s painting alludes to this practice, depicting working-class people presenting the realities of siege life in ways that make those hardships consumable—both as food and as spectacle—for wealthy Parisians engaging with them recreationally.