The frontispiece of a political almanack from autumn 1791 imagines a half human, half vegetal skeleton entitled Ancien Régime (see fig. 1). Once mighty, as is shown by the crown on its skull, it is now withering away, having lost its roots; its leaves, “Aristocracy”, “Clergy”, “Princes”, etc., are drying up, because it can scarcely nourish them any longer from the “émigrés’ …