In many ways the French Revolution marks the apotheosis of Man as a political concept. In publishing the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen in 1789, the Constituent Assembly rendered both Man and citizen as central legitimating conceits of Revolutionary politics. The concept of the ‘citizen’ would play a vital role in demarcating sovereignty and re-fashioning identities over the ensuing decade. It levelled old hierarchies and facilitated new ones in the reconstruction of the political nation. Throughout this period Man also retained a powerful place in Revolutionary semiotics as the holder of rights, the bearer of needs and the object of reforming practices.