The name Garance rhymes with France and means a red flower: a delicate symbol of freedom and of a simple and beautiful elegance. Garance personifies liberty. Liberty as depicted by Delacroix, where again the colour red dominates: red for a nationalistic passion and vitality for revolutionary liberty. The metaphor is strong and simple.
Garance is loved by four men: the romantic mime, the gallant actor, the amoral criminal, and the banal aristocrat. In a simple yet profoundly symbolic gesture, Garance gives her red flower, her love and liberty, to the mime, the man of and from the people. She says love is simple. But it must be grasped impulsively and tightly held lest it is lost. The actor who loves all women does take her as she wishes to be taken, but he cannot hold her. His passion is ultimately selfish as he wants to possess her and not be one with her: he is too political, in love with his own oratory. The criminal cannot be loved by Garance and he destroys the aristocrat who can buy her companionship but not her love.
Liberty is for the people up in the stalls, les enfants du paradis, but requires sacrifice – sometimes a terrible wounding sacrifice. Will Baptiste impose that sacrifice on his family? Will liberty be won for the people?
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