Among the innumerable images created to celebrate the revolutionary nation-in-arms, none is better known, and none more influential, than François Rude's sculpture, Le départ des volontaires en 1792, engraved on one of the great panels that decorate the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Here are portrayed, in the high romantic style of the early nineteenth century, all the central themes of the revolutionary legend – the voluntarism of the recruits, their selflessness, their burning patriotism and devotion to the cause of the French republic. It is a heroic image, destined to achieve iconic status and to be reproduced many times on posters, etchings and patriotic prints; we find it serving as a recruitment tool in the early months of the Great War, and as an encouragement to French civilians to invest in war loans in 1915 and 1916. And yet this republican icon conceals a crucial ambivalence. It may seem to celebrate voluntarism; yet 1792 was the last time the French felt confident enough to rely on the voluntary ideal, and their armies, as we have seen, were recruited largely by imposing quotas, drawing lots, resorting to some form of compulsion. And the tablet depicting the departure of the first volunteers does not stand alone, however much its fame now surpasses that of the other sculptures that accompany it. For Rude's commission was not to celebrate republicanism.