A Satirical Look at The XYZ Affair | BRIdge from the Past: Art Across U.S. History

0:05 Hi everybody. Welcome to another edition of Bridge from the Past. This is Mary Patterson with you once again. And today we are going to be looking at one of my favorite things: satire. Satire is using humor or irony to expose or criticize someone’s vices or perhaps their stupidity or naivity.

0:26 It’s basically the older fancier brother of sarcasm, which is another one of my absolute favorite things. Our visual primary source for today is a satirical look at one of the first great challenges facing the United States on the world stage the XYZ Affair. To help me decode this, I’ve brought in the big guns. BRI’s content director Kirk Higgins.

0:48 Kirk, thank you so much for being with us today. Yeah, thanks for having me on. Mary. Excited to look at some of the satire? Yes. Are you ready for some satire? I am. All right, let’s dive in. Here is our primary source. Again, this is a satirical look at The XYZ Affair, and this political cartoon is entitled Property Protected à la Francoise from 1798.

1:13 So à la Francoise means in the French style or in the French manner, and there’s a lot going on in this cartoon. But again, the first thing we have to do is just look and make some observations and start forming questions to help us decode this. Kirk, what do you notice or what strikes you when you look at this image? Well, my eyes are immediately drawn,

1:35 sort of a group of people standing in front of me who are dressed in sort of outlandish fashions, and I see some treasure there, which I think is probably of interest, and then some interesting symbolism repeated. So on the side of the gentleman who’s kneeling there, his hat, he has a symbol that is sort of standing out to me, and I see it repeated on three

2:00 of the different people that are that are kneeling there. Yes. This red, white, and blue. Interesting. I’m also noticing I see a lot of text in this image, and I can’t read a lot of it, but I’m wondering if I need to or I have to, if that would help me figure out what’s going on here. But it looks like there’s also some guys

2:21 in the background, so I’m wondering who they are and what’s their relation to the lady in the feathered headdress? I’m assuming that’s America, because America is usually depicted as a woman Lady Liberty, but, yeah, I think we need some context to really appreciate what’s going on and why this is satirical. So, Kirk, this is where I’m hoping that you can help us out here.

2:45 Sure. So this painting or this satirical cartoon it’s not a painting was written within the context of the XYZ Affair. The XYZ Affair, as Mary mentioned, was one of the first political incidents at the beginning of the John Adams Administration that had to do with America’s relationship abroad.

3:06 So in 1797, it had been several years since the French revolution had begun in 1789. It had gone through several phases, from a constitutional monarchical phase to a pure legislative assembly phase. And now we were in a period called the Directory. And the reason that’s important is because France was an ally of the United States during the Revolutionary War.

3:29 And France had come in then under Louis XVI and signed a treaty supporting America both financially and militarily, which helped us gain our independence. Now, fast forward to 1797. That government no longer exists, but France still looks to us as partly inspiring their own revolution. And also, because of our relationship with them,

3:52 they felt as though we should be more friendly, I guess. So politically, in the United States, this was contentious. There were a group of people who were more in favor of the British. Those tended to be Federalists. They thought that that was more economically a sound decision to make and that we inherited more of our sort of culture and background and politics from the British.

4:16 And on the other side, there were Jeffersonian Republicans who were emerging or a group around Jefferson who were more in favor of France. France they saw them as like the enlightened ideals of the revolution. They wanted to support that. So in and amongst this time, there’s some challenges happening where the French Navy is interdicting, which means intervening in American trade.

4:40 We had signed the Jay treaty in 1795, which settled some of the lingering problems with the United States after the American Revolution. France wanted something similar. We weren’t willing to give it to them. France in this intermediate time had also gone to war in 1792, with most of the continent of Europe, Great Britain included, so that there was more tensions building

5:02 in America had declared its neutrality, which did not appeal to the French. The French thought we should support them in their war. So Adam sends a diplomatic mission, meaning a group of individuals over to Europe to negotiate with France to try to hammer out a treaty. And that’s when the XYZ affair took place, which was, in short, France.

5:25 And the gentleman down there in the corner, his name is Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord. He was a French foreign minister who had quite the interesting reputation for lots of things. But he’s most well known for being very duplicitous, solicited an affair from the American officials in saying that if you would like

5:46 to negotiate with us, it would be great if you could pay us a certain amount of money, and then we’ll be happy to negotiate with you. This didn’t sit well with the Americans, and so then they left. They weren’t able to hammer out a treaty. This became political news when John Adams tried to repress the information about soliciting the bribe from the popular press because he was afraid of how

6:07 the Federalists would respond, that they would really start pushing for war. He didn’t want that to happen. And on the other side, the Jeffersonian Republicans wanted to know why they had pulled out, that they didn’t think that they were being fair in trying to solicit a treaty. They thought they were just backpedaling. So when these dispatches, which is how they used to send official information back and forth, became public,

6:29 exactly what Adams was afraid what happened happened. The Federalists began to push for war. They felt that America had been embarrassed by having not being taken seriously. And on the other side, the Jefferson Republicans now felt that they couldn’t now come to the defense of France. And then they were upset by that. And so you have what results in what was called the Quasi War, which was sort of a state of war with France, but not quite.

6:52 We’re going to kind of take each other’s, mess with each other’s trade, but we’re not going to actually fight each other. And that went on for another several years. And that, I think, is the context in which this cartoon is printed. So I hope that that helps, Mary. I hope that adds a little bit of context. Yeah, absolutely. So the French Revolution is going on and it’s kind of a mess, right?

7:15 So that is not the subject of this video, but it’s a big mess. The United States is really just a baby country. We’re only on our second president, John Adams. He desperately wants to keep us neutral. And this guy Talleyrand, you said his name so beautifully in the bottom here. He’s kind of slippery. He basically asked for a bribe right.

7:36 From the US delegation. So people find out about it and they’re upset. That’s right. Fair summary. Okay, so now the other thing we need to look at, the other piece of the puzzle for interpreting this is who made this and who would have seen it. So this print is actually British.

7:57 It was published in June of 1798 in London. And this fellow here on the cliff here, he represents sitting on Shakespeare’s cliff, he represents Great Britain. It’s a character named John Bull. And you’ll see him again and again and again in cartoons, even all the way up into World War I. And it’s important to remember, like,

8:17 as you said, France in the context of the revolution, they are at war with most of continental Europe, including Great Britain. And Great Britain and France have been rivals and fighting since pretty much forever. Now, that’s a little bit of sarcasm, because it’s not technically forever, but they really have been fighting on and off since the Middle Ages. So there’s some deep bad blood between these two groups.

8:38 And again, as you said, the French helped the United States in our revolution. And this isn’t that long after the United States became its own country. So perhaps Britain still has a little ire. They’re so angry that they lost in North American colonies. So here’s where I think we see. Great Britain is kind of making fun of us and perhaps making fun of France,

9:00 because I think that’s, you know, we always take an opportunity to do that. It’s Great Britain. You have America, the sole female figure here, and all the guys around her. This is the French. So we have two of the directors from the directory on either side of her, and America is saying, America will not have her rights infringed upon.

9:21 But if you look at what’s happening to America, there’s this big treasure sack. The guy is pulling one of her feathers out. He’s holding a little purse. It looks like he lifted it off of her. The other guy is kind of turning her head away so she can’t see what’s going on. They’re taking America for a ride, right? Yeah absolutely. It’s exactly what happened, kind of in the XYZ affair.

9:43 And we have this sack that one of the directors is pointing to says, personal plunder of the Directory. So that’s a direct reference to the bribe that Talleyrand demanded. And over here we have these two fellows with the red, white and blue, the tree color, the symbol of the French Revolution. One of their bags says,

10:06 I lost it exported from Portugal and borrowed perforce from Switzerland. And this guy’s sword says French argument. So, as you said, if France is at war with the entire continent of Europe, it’s not just America that’s having issues with France. It’s kind of everybody. And this seems to imply that everybody is getting robbed by the French.

10:30 Yeah absolutely. And I think it’s worth pointing out, too, that national reputation was a big thing. I think it’s still probably a big thing, but it was very big, particularly for a new country. And I think this is one of the things that John Adams was really concerned about, was how is America being seen on the world stage? And clearly, from this British cartoon, not very seriously.

10:52 And I think that was also the concern with a bribe being solicited from us. If France, another sovereign nation, isn’t going to take the United States seriously, then what then does that mean for the United States? Right. Again, we’re still such a young country that we’re setting precedents still at this point.

11:14 So we need to set a precedent that the United States wants to be taken seriously. We don’t want our rights infringed upon, as poor America is saying here. And then again, this isn’t really happening in a vacuum. So the United States, these guys off in the corner, represent different European countries. So you have the Pope, he’s been robbed.

11:35 Swiss, Spain, Austria and a Dutchman. They’re all sort of in the same boat. We’ve seen this happen to us. And then John Bull again off in the corner, kind of taking it all in from the safety across the British Channel or the English Channel. Yeah, you can actually see the English Channel in the background. I didn’t notice that the first time I was

11:57 watching or I guess looking at the picture. And again, that’s one of the best parts of looking at these images, especially with other people, is you always notice something different or someone will point something out to you that you didn’t see before. So this is definitely some sarcasm. I don’t know, perhaps Great Britain is trying to say, we told you so, or this is what you get for a line with France.

12:18 It’s kind of fun to speculate, especially knowing there is all that bad blood between the two countries, but it’s a really fascinating print. The XYZ Affair is really interesting episode in early American history. So this is just sort of the tip of the iceberg, and we hope that you learned something. Make sure to check out other videos that BRI offers us.

12:41 If you learn something, be sure to like the video. And Kirk, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you, Mary. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, we’ll see you guys next time. Take care.