The Wallpaper that formed the backdrop of the French Revolution

This is the story of Jean-Baptiste Réveillon (1725–1811). In 18th-century France, this wallpaper manufacturer became connected to hot-air ballooning, celebrity endorsement and ultimately the outbreak of the French Revolution. 

Réveillon started a wallpaper business at a time when wallpaper became more popular and affordable. The bourgeoisie had suddenly access to bright interior decor, which was previously the domain of the upper classes and their silk wall panels. The second half of the 18th century was marked by an incredible acceleration of inventions in technology and the sciences. With these came wealth to many people who wished to spend it on pretty things. Réveillon utilised manufacturing technology and chemical improvements to dyes and product development to satisfy this consumer market. He was swiftly successful at this, having received a financial boost by the dowry of his rich wife but being intrepid and business-savvy enough to make it worth her while. In 1775 Réveillon opened a paper mill to produce more and higher quality paper. Réveillon himself discovered a new chemical process for making vellum paper. 

In 1776 he had opened a shop close by the Tuileries where his products could be seen by both middle-class and aristocratic flâneurs. His fame was soon to be carried to the highest circles. Marie Antoinette chose his papier bleu d'Angleterre to decorate her apartments and despite her rather ambivalent public image, it propelled Reveillon‘s shop to new heights of success. The court wanted what the Queen endorsed, despite her being publicly considered a spendthrift consort and never losing her image as the foreign princess from the enemy realm of Austria. The middle classes aspired to the signifiers of status which the court had. 

The paper was a hit. The following year, 1777, he was granted permission to use the title of Manufacture Royale. Réveillon was not the first to smartly utilise celebrity endorsement. In England, Josiah Wedgwood had won the favour of the Queen and been allowed to name his white ‚Queen‘s Ware‘ in her honour, also landing a sales hit. Already in Ancient Rome, gladiators were sponsored by brands to endorse them. The affiliation of public fame with consumer goods is millennia old. Nonetheless, both Wedgwood and Reveillon stand at the beginning of a whole new era of sales and marketing brought about by mass manufacturing. Nowadays, brands engaging celebs and influencers are completely commonplace. Réveillon is an ancestor to this.

Not just socially but also quite literally Réveillon‘s papers were to ascent to great heights. Réveillon‘s paper brought him the attention of Etienne de Mongolfier who needed quality paper (and lots of it) for his huge balloons. 

It was from Réveillon's garden at Folie Titon that the first hot-air balloon was launched on 12 September 1783. Réveillon, never one to miss a good marketing opportunity, created a special brightly coloured celebratory wallpaper which was used as a cover for the balloon. The second balloon, launched with a group of animals at Versailles soon after, was even called Le Réveillon. The wallpaper manufacturer was making science history. In October 1783, Reveillon‘s employees André Giroud de Villette and Jean-Francois Pilâtre de Rozier dared to board a balloon and became pioneers of aviation history.

But around the confined flames propelling the Mongolfieres, Paris was heating up at large. The first crackling fires of Revolution were spreading and Réveillon was soon caught up in this. With his wealth and connections to the aristocracy, he might have been affected sooner or later. Yet he was to become a bit of an early linchpin, one of the first lightning rods of the angry mob. Marie Antoinette almost certainly never said ‚Let them eat cake‘ but her reputation suffered heavily from the attribution of carelessness. Réveillon suffered a similar baked-goods related incident which drew the ire. It was a misinterpreted statement about bread prices. Réveillon, advocating for different strategies in baking which was highly regulated by guild systems and price enforcement, wrote an essay. His position was that by making bread more affordable, society and the economy would both be better off. "Since bread was the foundation of our national economy," he wrote, "its distribution should be deregulated, permitting lower prices. That in turn would allow lower wage costs, lower manufacturing prices and brisk consumption." Réveillon was interested in lower manufacturing costs and wages as a manufacturing entrepreneur. He was certainly no social reformer or activist. He part of the owning classes and had every interest to remain so. At the same time, Réveillon demonstrates an awareness for the heated issue of bread prices and the words being misinterpreted as simply a push for lower wages per se did not do him full justice. He employed around 300 people and was known to be a good employer and a benefactor to his local area. 

Wages are usually tied to the cost of living in an area and in Paris at this time the cost of food was very out of step with the wages of the overall population. If wages would not go up, food prices had to come down. Réveillon himself had established his business outside of the guild structure and he was wary of them. Since the medieval era, guilds across Europe maintained quality standards in various trades but they also made competition hard and essentially produced artificial prices. His statement targeted these high bread prices that were out of sync with the economic realities and caused so many people to be unable to buy enough bread to feed themselves and their families at all sufficiently. 

Nonetheless, 'Reveillon is a wage thief' spread like wildfire. Rumours circulated that he had given a speech announcing lower wages. The misinterpretation and oversimplification of his position was to bring about one of the first revolutionary riots and made a certainly wealthy but at the same time not that significant wallpaper producer a remarkable figure amidst the history of the French Revolution. One is inclined to draw parallels to the celebrity singing of John Lennon‘s Imagine during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020; a well-intentioned but ultimately tone-deaf gesture that drew somewhat disproportionate ire of a struggling population. 

On 26 April 1789, protest marches descended on Réveillon‘s Paris neighbourhood. Initially, the protest remained peaceful but clashes with official forces happened and worsened the situation by the evening. On 27 April, the protests continued unabated, although the Réveillon factory withstood the attacks on that day. On 28 April 1789, the protesters then broke through. The Réveillon factory was destroyed and also his mansion was attacked and looted. The press of people was so great that around 25 lost their lives in the fervent confusion of looting and the French Guard moving in to disperse the riots. Yet the anger and distress of the population remained. 

The Réveillon Riots therefore mark part of the opening scene of the French Revolution and his wallpapers form the backdrop. Just two months later, the National Assembly was formed in June 1789 by the Third Estate breaking away from the Estates General. By July, the Storming of the Bastille took place and the French Revolution began in full force. 

In the end, the Réveillon family were lucky enough. They had managed to climb a wall and escape when their home was broken into. They could relocate to England and upon their return later claimed the plot of land back and rented it out to another wallpaper producer until 1840.