Stirring up passions: politics, bande dessinée, and images in the nineteenth century and the late Third Republic -- What your children are reading: bande dessinée, Catholics, and communists -- Notre grand-papa Pétain: the national revolution and bande dessinée in Vichy -- Vive la France! now who are we?: reconstruction, identity, and the 16 July law -- The commission at work: saying "non" to microcephalic Hercules and determining what makes for a good French BD -- Culture becomes policy: bande dessinée as monumental architecture.