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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  From ‘The Chronicle of the Drum’

C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

From ‘The Chronicle of the Drum’

By William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863)

AT Paris, hard by the Maine barriers,

Whoever will choose to repair,

Midst a dozen of wooden-legged warriors

May haply fall in with old Pierre.

On the sunshiny bench of a tavern

He sits and he prates of old wars,

And moistens his pipe of tobacco

With a drink that is named after Mars.

The beer makes his tongue run the quicker,

And as long as his tap never fails,

Thus over his favorite liquor

Old Peter will tell his old tales.

Says he, “In my life’s ninety summers

Strange changes and chances I’ve seen,—

So here’s to all gentlemen drummers

That ever have thumped on a skin.

“Brought up in the art military

For four generations we are;

My ancestors drummed for King Harry,

The Huguenot lad of Navarre.

And as each man in life has his station

According as Fortune may fix,

While Condé was waving the baton,

My grandsire was trolling the sticks.

“Ah! those were the days for commanders!

What glories my grandfather won,

Ere bigots and lackeys and panders

The fortunes of France had undone!

In Germany, Flanders, and Holland,—

What foeman resisted us then?

No; my grandsire was ever victorious,—

My grandsire and Monsieur Turenne….

“The princes that day passed before us,

Our countrymen’s glory and hope:

Monsieur, who was learned in Horace,

D’Artois, who could dance the tight-rope.

One night we kept guard for the Queen

At her Majesty’s opera-box,

While the King, that majestical monarch,

Sat filing at home at his locks.

“Yes, I drummed for the fair Antoinette,

And so smiling she looked and so tender,

That our officers, privates, and drummers

All vowed they would die to defend her.

But she cared not for us honest fellows,

Who fought and who bled in her wars:

She sneered at our gallant Rochambeau,

And turned Lafayette out of doors.

“Ventrebleu! then I swore a great oath,

No more to such tyrants to kneel;

And so, just to keep up my drumming,

One day I drummed down the Bastille.

Ho, landlord! a stoup of fresh wine:

Come, comrades, a bumper we’ll try,

And drink to the year eighty-nine

And the glorious fourth of July!

“Then bravely our cannon it thundered

As onward our patriots bore:

Our enemies were but a hundred,

And we twenty thousand or more.

They carried the news to King Louis;

He heard it as calm as you please,

And like a majestical monarch,

Kept filing his locks and his keys.

“We showed our republican courage:

We stormed and we broke the great gate in,

And we murdered the insolent governor

For daring to keep us a-waiting.

Lambesc and his squadrons stood by;

They never stirred finger or thumb:

The saucy aristocrats trembled

As they heard the republican drum.

“Hurrah! what a storm was a-brewing

The day of our vengeance was come!

Through scenes of what carnage and ruin

Did I beat on the patriot drum!

Let’s drink to the famed tenth of August:

At midnight I beat the tattoo,

And woke up the pikemen of Paris

To follow the bold Barbaroux….

“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,

All garnished 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,

Each crowned 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

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,—

Corbleu! but the MÈRE GUILLOTINE

Cared little for splendor or show,

So you gave her an axe and a beam,

And a plank and a basket or so.

“Awful, and proud, and erect,

Here sat our republican goddess:

Each morning her table we decked

With dainty aristocrats’ bodies.

The people each day flocked around

As she sat at her meat and her wine:

’Twas always the use of our nation

To witness the sovereign dine.

“Young virgins with fair golden tresses,

Old silver-haired prelates and priests,

Dukes, marquises, barons, princesses,

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!

“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

Have plotted a godless alliance:

I’ll fling them the head of King Louis,’

She said, ‘as my gage of defiance.’

“I see him, as now for a moment

Away from his jailers he broke;

And stood at the foot of the scaffold,

And lingered, 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,

And the son of St. Louis was dumb.”