Card: 9.8cm x 7.2cm
Printed card with ink inscriptions. The obverse with a portrait of Michel Le Pelletier surmounted by a Phrygian cap, surrounded by oak leaves, over a plinth inscribed ‘UNION ET FRATERNITE / VIVRE LIBRE OU MOURIR’ / ‘Carte dépurement & de / Civisme de la section / Michel Le Pelletier n° 17 / donnée au citoyen Pierre / Mercadé le 2 messidor / Bordx L'an 2 de la République / Française une & Indivisible’. The reverse bearing checklist of the recipient's physical features and several autographs. Numbered 177. Overall with frame: 17cm (6.7in) x 10cm (4in).
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Issued under the authority of the Committee of Public Safety to control movement and monitor suspected enemies of the state during The Reign of Terror (September 1793-July 1794), identity papers were a key tool of state surveillance. The revolutionary government required identity checks for internal travel and, following the Louis XVI’s flight to Varennes in 1791, for entering or leaving the country. Often featuring detailed physical descriptions, such documents became crucial for distinguishing citizens from suspected foreign threats or counter-revolutionaries.
The politician Louis-Michel le Peletier, Marquis of Saint-Fargeau, (1760-1793) was a martyr of the French Revolution. Born into the aristocracy, he trained as a lawyer and during his political career argued for the abolition of the death penalty, of the galleys and of branding, and the substitution of beheading for hanging. This attitude won him great popularity. He was assassinated on 20 January 1793 in a restaurant in the Palais Royale, on the eve of the Louis XVI’s execution, for tipping the balance in National Convention against a reprieve the day before, which led to the King’s execution by guillotine on 21 January 1793.