Welcome to 1789...

I was wondering a year or so ago about the popularity of tiger imagery in the 1790's - Blake's 'Tyger' and "tygers of wrath", comparisons of Robespierre and Marat to tigers, tiger imagery in revolutionary speeches: I wondered if it had anything to do with the death-by-tiger of the son of the head of the British East India company, an event celebrated in 'Tippoo's Tiger', the amazing automaton made for Tipu Sultan, now in the V &A - but that was in 1792, and tiger imagery was already popular by then - in the end I think it's just that they're big and savage and don't have the royal connotations of 'lion'...but in the course of looking I came across the line that Billaud was nicknamed Le Tigre because of his two-tone hair (I found it on google, so it may well be a mistake - he doesn't even appear to be wearing a wig in most portraits, unless it's a 'natural' unpowdered one). I can't remember where I came across the puce coat - but I have a puce suede 70's coat with big buttons and huge lapels so it stuck in my head!