Discover French view images of the American Revolution behind our videos and posts. These visuals shape how we remember — and reimagine — the Revolutionary Era. Each image tells its own story, highlighting a key figure, event, or idea, with context about the artist and historical significance. Explore these Revolutionary Era visuals to dig even deeper into history.
Explore the Images of the American Revolution – A French View
One of my favorite aspects of the American Revolution is its wonderful images. Images of the French view that inform us about the American Revolution complement our videos and posts, where there is often limited space to share more about the images themselves, their artists, and their backstories. Yet we believe you should know them — at least to some extent — because they add depth to how we Americans perceive and picture the Revolution and, equally important, how our collective memory of the Revolutionary Era has been shaped and reshaped over the centuries.
Almost all of the images we use in our program, as well as the music, are in the Public Domain. For those that aren’t, we’ve included links, licenses, and attributions. If you use any of these images, please provide proper credit and include links when required.
This post features French view images of the American Revolution, each presented individually with its historical significance and the artist’s background. These posts are designed for exploration — enjoy browsing, learning, and linking to related history posts. Explore these Revolutionary Era visuals to dig even deeper into history.
France: the House of Bourbon
This is the Universal standard of the kings of France from the House of Bourbon. The standard was in use from early 17th century to 1789 – the year the French Revolution began. And then again, from 1814 to 1830, a post-Napoleonic period in which the House of Bourbon was restored. During the Bourbon Restoration, two brothers of Louis XVI (who was guillotined in 1792) ruled over France: Louis XVIII (1814–1815, 1815–1824) and Charles X (1824–1830).
The fleur-de-lis in this standard has a long history, dating back 1,000 years in France and symbolizing the monarchy’s authority, divine right to rule, and its connection to the Catholic church. It was featured on royal banners, coats of arms, and even used as a marker for crimes against the king’s law. According to one popular legend, King Clovis I (466-511), the first king of the Franks, was given a golden lily by an angel before his baptism and victory over the Alamanni tribe (a confederation of west Germanic peoples). He then adopted the fleur-de-lis as his emblem.
Note the white flag raised by French forces on the left side of the scene in Surrender of Lord Cornwallis (painting above). It is not the Standard of the House of Bourbon because the “French white ensign” was the naval ensign of the Kingdom of France until the French Revolution.
This image is by LouisXVofFrance, and is provided under CC BY-SA 4.0 license terms. No alterations have been made to this image.
Louis XVI
At only 19 years of age, he became King of France and Navarre on May 10, 1774, the day his grandfather, Louis XV, died. He is reported to have said “We are too young to reign!”
His coronation took place more than a year later – on June 11, 1775. He ruled France until September 21, 1792 – the day the French First Republic was proclaimed. On January 21, 1793 – less than a year later, he was guillotined.
Louis XVI was indecisive and conservative. He reluctantly agreed to support the American cause, and only after the Americans seemed to be fighting a winnable war against the British, as evidenced by their victory in the Battles of Saratoga (September 19 and October 7, 1777).
In our program, Rafe Blaufarb reveals the inner debates and deliberations of the French mindset of vengeance against Great Britain. I will provide a link to that interview here when it publishes in 2026.
Dr. Blaufarb is the Director of the Napoleonic Studies in Florida State University. He has published extensively about French military history and the French Revolution. In our sister podcast, History Behind News, he explained Napoleon’s power and propaganda genius – the story of how an almost foreigner who spoke French with an accent became the Emperor of the French!
This is a 1778 full-length portrait of Louis XVI (23 years old then) by Antoine-François Callet (1741–1823), the King’s official portraitist.
At about the age of 23, Antoine Callet won the Grand Prix de Rome, which was a scholarship established by King Louis XIV of France for art students to study in Rome for three to five years.
This image is in the Public Domain.
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris was signed by representatives of the American colonies and King George III of Great Britain.
According to Dr. Blaufarb, the French were shocked when they learned that the Americans—whose war for independence they had supported—had conducted separate and secret negotiations with the British. France engaged in separate negotiations with Britain, as did its allies Spain and the Dutch Republic. Together these were called the Peace of Paris, and they were signed in separate locations on September 3, 1783. The American colonies and Great Britain signed in Paris. The Kingdom of France and Great Britain signed in Versailles.
This painting is Benjamin West and is appropriately titled Treaty of Paris. The American delegation John Jay (standing in the far left), John Adams (sitting in front of Jay), Benjamin Franklin (also sitting), Henry Laurens (standing) and William Temple Franklin (resting his chin on his left hand).
The British commissioners refused to pose, and the portrait was never finished.
Benjamin West (1738-1820) was an American artist with an impressive gallery of historical paintings to his credit, including The Death of Nelson (1806) and Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky (1805).
There is an interesting story hidden in this lineup of American delegates, one that represents the deep and irreconcilable divisions caused by the American Revolution.
William Temple Franklin was Benjamin Franklin’s grandson. Although William was a Patriot, his father, William Franklin (Benjamin Franklin’s son), was the leader of the Loyalists who left the American colonies in 1782 for London and never returned. William Franklin, as most of us should remember from high school history, was the Colonial Governor of New Jersey (1763-76), and was captured and imprisoned by the Patriots from 1776 to 1778. Benjamin Franklin refused to reconcile with his son, and met with him only once mainly for family business matters, after the Revolutionary War in Southampton, England, in 1785.
This image is in the Public Domain.
About This Program
Analyzing American Revolution (AAR) is a special series podcast production of the History Behind News program. In this series, 33 professors (and counting) analyze the American Revolution from 33 different angles through in-depth interviews with host Adel Aali.
Themes of the Revolution
Tap below for a closer look at the Revolutionary Era themes we examine—and to meet our guest scholars.
Visit our Revolutionary Era Blog page for
- Interview Transcript Highlights
- Interview Image and Artist Highlights
- Quiz Answers and Backstories
Visual Index of the American Revolution
Explore the backstories and artist bios behind images of our Founding—before and after the American Revolution. These visuals shape how we remember—and reimagine—the Revolutionary Era.
Experienced Analysis of History
About HbN Program:
The History Behind News program (HbN) is committed to making in-depth history researched and written by scholars enjoyable and accessible to everyone. Our motto is bridging scholarly works to everyday news.
The histories we’ve uncovered encompass an impressively wide range of subjects from ancient history to U.S. politics and economy to race, women’s rights, immigration, climate, science, military, war, China, Europe, Middle East, Russia & Ukraine, Africa and the Americas to many other issues in the news. We also receive advanced copies of scholarly books and discuss them in our program (in the context of current news).
198 Scholars & Counting:
Our guests are scholars in prestigious institutions, such as Oxford, Yale, Caltech, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, the Hoover Institution, the American Enterprise Institute, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, King’s College London, Princeton University, Notre Dame, Dartmouth College, Columbia University, the Atlantic Council, Duke, Amherst College, University of Michigan, Rhodes College, Emory University, Northwestern Law, Vanderbilt University, US Naval War College, Air Command and Staff College, Marine Corp University, US Army War College, UVA, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, NYU, Rice, University of Chicago, White House Historical Association, Baylor University, USC, UC Berkeley, UCSF, UCI, UCSD, UC Davis, UCR, Tel Aviv University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Israel Democracy Institute, University of Aberdeen, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, University of Navarra, University of Seville, Helsinki University, Diego Portales University (Chile), Lund University (Sweden), University of Edinburgh, Near East University (Türkiye), Cardiff University, the Free University of Berlin and many others.
They include Pulitzer Prize winners, renowned documentary producers, former White House advisors and other high-ranking government officials, and current and former senior reporters at The Wall Street Journal and New York Times Magazine. Many have testified in Congressional hearings and others frequently contribute to major media outlets and widely read publications, ranging from the BBC, NPR, PBS and MSNBC to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
Think You Know the American Revolution?
