L'amiral Coligny en impose à ses assassins

Painted in 1787 and held by the Louvre, L'amiral Coligny en impose à ses assassins (Admiral Coligny Confronting His Assassins) depicts the Protestant Admiral Gaspard de Coligny in the moments before his murder during the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572. Coligny, the leader of the French Huguenots, was one of the massacre's first targets; historical accounts described him meeting his killers with composure and dignity. The subject carried obvious resonance in the 1780s, when religious toleration had become a central issue in French political life: the Edict of Versailles of 1787, signed in the same year this painting was completed, formally granted civil rights to French Protestants for the first time since the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Suvée's painting was thus a topical intervention as well as a history painting, aligning with the reforming agenda of the late Ancien Régime.

The composition centers on Coligny's upright, composed figure confronting his armed assailants — a David-and-Goliath structure in which moral authority triumphs visually over physical force. Suvée uses strong illumination on the Admiral to distinguish his moral presence from the darker, more agitated assassins around him.