Jean-Baptiste Réveillon (1725–1811) was a French

wallpaper Wallpaper is a material used in interior decoration to decorate the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come plain as "lining paper" (so ...

manufacturer. In 1789 Réveillon made a statement on the price of bread that was misinterpreted by the Parisian populace as advocating lower wages. He fled France after his home and his wallpaper factory were attacked and set on fire in what came to be known as the Reveillon riot.Chronology of the French Revolution: 1789–1790
In 1791 he leased his business premises to the wallpaper manufacturer Jacquemart & Bérnard.

Life

Réveillon apprenticed as a tradesman,

haberdasher In British English, a haberdasher is a business or person who sells small articles for sewing, dressmaking and knitting, such as buttons, ribbons, and zippers; in the United States, the term refers instead to a retailer who sells men's clothi ...

and stationer. In 1753 he began to import and hang

flock wallpaper Flocking is the process of depositing many small fiber particles (called flock) onto a surface. It can also refer to the texture produced by the process, or to any material used primarily for its flocked surface. Flocking of an article can be per ...

s from England. At that time, wallpaper was becoming popular among the bourgeoisie as a creative and economical way to decorate interior spaces. During the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (1754 ...

Reveillon started to produce wallpaper himself, marrying well and using his wife's dowry to produce velvet paper, pasted up into rolls and using vibrant colours, developed by Jean-Baptiste Pillement. In 1759 he moved to the

Faubourg Saint-Antoine The Faubourg Saint-Antoine was one of the traditional suburbs of Paris, France. It grew up to the east of the Bastille around the abbey of Saint-Antoine-des-Champs, and ran along the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Location The Faubourg Saint-An ...

, then a neighbourhood dominated by the various crafts associated with furnishing. Réveillon launched production of a full range of wallpapers. The nobility began to patronize his business and in 1765—--already extremely wealthy--—he bought a mansion, with a parc and a theatre inside ''La Folie Titon'', formerly owned by Évrard Titon du Tillet. Reveillon installed his wallpaper factory on the ground floor, retaining the upper floors for his private residence. In 1775 Réveillon opened a

paper mill A paper mill is a factory devoted to making paper from vegetable fibres such as wood pulp, old rags, and other ingredients. Prior to the invention and adoption of the Fourdrinier machine and other types of paper machine that use an endless belt ...

to improve both the quantity and quality of his paper supply. In 1776 he opened a shop near the

Tuileries The Tuileries Palace (french: Palais des Tuileries, ) was a royal and imperial palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the River Seine, directly in front of the Louvre. It was the usual Parisian residence of most French monarchs, from ...

. The ''papier bleu d'Angleterre'' became very popular when

Queen Marie Antoinette Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne (; ; née Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child and ...

decorated her apartments with them. Réveillon himself dabbled in chemistry enough to discover a new process for making

vellum Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other anim ...

paper in 1782. The following year he was granted permission to use the title of ''Manufacture Royale''. His purchase of the paper mill and expertise in paper production brought him into contact with Etienne de Montgolfier, and it was from Réveillon's garden at ''Folie Titon'' that the first

hot-air balloon A hot air balloon is a lighter-than-air aircraft consisting of a bag, called an envelope, which contains heated air. Suspended beneath is a gondola or wicker basket (in some long-distance or high-altitude balloons, a capsule), which carries p ...

was launched on 12 September 1783. Réveillon delivered a special and colourful wallpaper, used as a cover for the balloon. A second balloon, called ''Le Réveillon'', with a rooster, a duck and a sheep was launched a week later at

Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, ...

. On 19 October his employee André Giroud de Villette and

Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier () was a French chemistry and physics teacher, and one of the first pioneers of aviation. He made the first manned free balloon flight with François Laurent d'Arlandes on 21 November 1783, in a Montgolfier bal ...

went into the sky, as pioneers of flight. In the year 1789 Réveillon was the casualty of his own reflections on modern economics. "Since bread was the foundation of our national economy," he stated in an essay, "its distribution should be deregulated, permitting lower prices. That in turn would allow lower wage costs, lower manufacturing prices and brisk consumption." S. Schama (1989) Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, p. 325-330. This musing was misinterpreted by an already angry Parisian populace, who believed that Monseigneur Reveillon was advocating a lowering in wages. On 28 April 1789 his mansion was attacked and looted by an angry mob, all the wallpaper, glue, furniture and paintings were burned. His wine cellar, containing 2,000 bottles of wine, was pillaged and quickly consumed by the riotous mob. Réveillon and his family escaped by climbing a wall and fleeing to the nearby

Bastille The Bastille (, ) was a fortress in Paris, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine. It played an important role in the internal conflicts of France and for most of its history was used as a state prison by the kings of France. It was stor ...

. It was a bloody day, some say 25 people dying in the ensuing melee. The rioters were eventually dispersed in an opening episode of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

. Today plaques mark the site of the Reveillon riot. Jacquemart & Benard - Border - Google Art Project

Réveillon emigrated to England with his fortune intact, and after the French Revolution, leased his manufacture to Jacquemart & Bérnard, who continued to produce wallpaper till 1840.

References

Sources

*Leonard N. Rosenband, "Jean-Baptiste Réveillon: A Man on the Make in Old Regime France," French Historical Studies, 20, 1997, 481-510. *Christine Velut, "L'industrie dans la ville: les fabriques de papiers peints du faubourg Saint-Antoine (1750-1820)," Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, 49e, 2002, 115-137.

External links

An example
of Réveillon's Neo-Classic wallpaper in

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...

* http://www.artnet.com/library/07/0716/T071654.asp * https://web.archive.org/web/20110721000945/http://cerig.efpg.inpg.fr/histoire-metiers/nicolas-robert/page02.htm {{DEFAULTSORT:Reveillon, Jean-Baptiste 1725 births 1811 deaths Montgolfier brothers Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery 18th-century French businesspeople 18th-century French inventors French emigrants to the Kingdom of Great Britain Wallpaper manufacturers