Entitled: "A republican belle - a picture of Paris for 1794." Shows an old woman, a sans-culotte, in ragged dress, her arms folded across her chest, holding a pistol in one hand, which she fires at a man lying on the ground, and a dagger in the other. There is a skull and crossbones design on her garment, she wears a miniature guillotine hanging from her neck, and claws are showing through her shoes. At a tavern in the background, men are smoking pipes and bowling with skulls beneath a sign showing the severed and bleeding head of Louis XVI and from which a naked body hangs. The French Revolution was a period of far-reaching social and political upheaval in France that lasted from 1789 until 1799, and was partially carried forward by Napoleon during the later expansion of the French Empire. The Revolution overthrew the monarchy, established a republic, experienced violent periods of political turmoil, and finally culminated in a dictatorship by Napoleon that rapidly brought many of its principles to Western Europe and beyond. Inspired by liberal and radical ideas, the Revolution profoundly altered the course of modern history, triggering the global decline of absolute monarchies while replacing them with republics. Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history. Hand-colored etching by Isaac Cruikshank, 1794.