Ung mand, der knælende beder sin elskede om tilgivelse (Le Pardon Général) 1770

Louise Gaillard engraved this print, ‘Le Pardon Général,’ sometime in the late eighteenth century. It depicts a young man kneeling before a woman, begging forgiveness. Their elaborate dress, complete with towering wig, places them in the French aristocracy, a class of people whose status depended on elaborate rituals of social exchange and display. This was a society in which social standing was performed through appearance and etiquette. The garden setting here acts as a stage, where intimate encounters are always also displays of status. Note, too, the discarded hat and the abandoned game on the ground. These objects tell us of disruption, a momentary lapse in composure that requires this earnest act of contrition. As historians, we look at prints like this and see a record of social norms, a world of expectations and anxieties that shaped the lives of people in the past. By studying fashion, architecture, and even the rules of etiquette, we can better understand the social theatre in which these figures played their parts.