Sans-Culottes: Connoisseurs of Flesh

In this political cartoon titled Un Petit Souper a la Parisienne (or A Family of Sans-Culottes Refreshing after the Fatigues of the Day), the Revolutionaries are portrayed as brutal, blood-hungry cannibals.  James Gillray, a British printmaker and political cartoonist, published Un Petit Souper a la Parisienne in 1792.  Gillray, a conservative who opposed the French Revolution, produced hundreds of cartoons lampooning the French, especially members of the Jacobins and Cordeliers.

Political cartoons were popular during the French Revolution and the portrayal of Revolutionaries as blood-thirsty, crazed monsters was quite common.

In Gillray's Un Petit Souper a la Parisienne, the common (French) family is feasting on the corpses of noblemen and women (note the  corpse beneath the table wearing the fancy, buckled shoes, stockings, and breeches worn by nobility).  The diagram on the wall over the fireplace shows the proper way to butcher an aristo.  A body hangs from a lamppost and noble heads upon pikes can be seen outside the door. 

Also note the sans-culotte children gathered around the bucket of entrails; an overt suggestion that those ruling Paris in 1792 were even weaning their children on violence.

Further Reading:

Flatulent Fatties & Monsieur Fancy Pants: Political Cartoons of the Eighteenth Century