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(Beheaded Jan. 21, 1793)
From “The Chronicle of the Drum”
“YOU all know the Place de la Concorde? | |
| ’Tis hard by the Tuileries wall. | |
| ’Mid terraces, fountains, and statues, | |
| There rises an obelisk tall. | |
| There rises an obelisk tall, | 5 |
| All garnish’d and gilded the base is: | |
| ’Tis surely the gayest of all | |
| Our beautiful city’s gay places. | |
| |
| “Around it are gardens and flowers, | |
| And the cities of France on their thrones | 10 |
| Each crown’d with his circlet of flowers, | |
| Sits watching this biggest of stones! | |
| I love to go sit in the sun there, | |
| The flowers and fountains to see, | |
| And to think of the deeds that were done there | 15 |
| In the glorious year ninety-three. | |
| |
| “’Twas here stood the Altar of Freedom; | |
| And though neither marble nor gilding | |
| Was used in those days to adorn | |
| Our simple republican building, | 20 |
| Corbleu! but the Mère Guillotine | |
| Cared little for splendour or show, | |
| So you gave her an axe and a beam, | |
| And a plank and a basket or so. | |
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| “Awful, and proud, and erect, | 25 |
| Here sat our republican goddess. | |
| Each morning her table we deck’d | |
| With dainty aristocrats’ bodies. | |
| The people each day flocked around | |
| As she sat at her meat and her wine: | 30 |
| ’Twas always the use of our nation | |
| To witness the sovereign dine. | |
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| “Young virgins with fair golden tresses, | |
| Old silver-hair’d prelates and priests, | |
| Dukes, marquises, barons, princesses, | 35 |
| Were splendidly served at her feasts. | |
| Ventrebleu! but we pampered our ogress | |
| With the best that our nation could bring, | |
| And dainty she grew in her progress, | |
| And called for the head of a King! | 40 |
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| “She called for the blood of our King, | |
| And straight from his prison we drew him; | |
| And to her with shouting we led him, | |
| And took him, and bound him, and slew him | |
| ‘The monarchs of Europe against me | 45 |
| Have plotted a godless alliance; | |
| I’ll fling them the head of King Louis,’ | |
| She said, ‘as my gage of defiance.’ | |
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| “I see him as now, for a moment, | |
| Away from his gaolers he broke; | 50 |
| And stood at the foot of the scaffold, | |
| And linger’d and fain would have spoke. | |
| ‘Ho, drummer! quick, silence yon Capet,’ | |
| Says Santerre, ‘with a beat of your drum.’ | |
| Lustily then did I tap it, | 55 |
| And the son of Saint Louis was dumb.” | |
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