Throughout nineteenth century France, rulers heavily censored political satire by stifling the media, composed by the products of the art world. However, the “July-monarchy” of Louis-Philippe advocated liberalism as a method of gaining popularity throughout his reign. In return, angry artists, whose careers were previously strangled by the lack of freedom to expression, retaliated by releasing wave-after-wave of political satires against the contemporary government. With his often-comedic representations of the government as usurpers, Daumier led the political attack, releasing multitudes of paintings that reviewed the government’s inability to empathize with their subjects.

Through his caricature rue Transnonian, Daumier spits at the aristocracy through his depiction of a brutally- massacred French middle-class family. The deceased subjects of his sketch allude to the aftermath of a riot that took place in St. Martin on April 5, 1834. In response to King Louis-Philippe’s new censorship laws,  Parisians violently protested throughout streets. When a governmental decree issued a warning to cut off their attacks through the military, middle-class families quickly constructed a shoddy barricade around their neighborhoods. The protagonists of Daumier’s painting lived on rue Transnonian, the lithograph’s namesake. That particular street was rumored to have housed occupants who shot (and killed) officers during the riots. In consequence to their insubordination, military units purged the building, killing almost over a dozen occupants.

Daumier, who supposedly occupied a flat less than three blocks from rue Transnonian, sketched the caricature in his spite against the monarchy. The subjects, left to bleed out within the privacy of their own home, heighten the public’s outrage through bluntly expressing the monarchy’s trespass.

After no time at all, Louis-Philippe immediately revoked all his liberal ideals and replaced them with its predecessor. France was censored once again.