Où du butin tu détournas les yeux. Cf. Le REFUS
1. 53. ma mansarde. Béranger lived at this time partly in Paris, where he had kept his apartment, and more usually at Passy, with the Béga family. His room was evidently under the roof, for in March, 1837, Laffitte writes to him : 'Je ne suis pas tout ? fait l'homme aux illusions, comme vous me le dîtes un jour à Passy dans votre grenier.5
CHANSONS POSTHUMES (Edition de 1857).
Le Cheval arabe. (Page 127.)
Written between 1834 and 1838.
The remaining songs of this collection were published in 1857, after Béranger's death. Five of them deal with episodes of Napoleon's life. Béranger's note quoted below indicates that the period referred to in this song is the beginning of the year 1793. Bonaparte, who was second in command of the Ajaccio volunteers, had undertaken against Sardinia an expedition which failed, and was equally unsuccessful against the English, who had been called into Corsica by Paoli. He was obliged to return to France, where he obtained in March a captaincy in the 4th regiment of artillery. It was at this time that his mother was obliged to flee from Corsica with her family. She is supposed by the poet to have written to Bonaparte for the necessary funds.
1. 20. irait tendre la main. ' En 1793, madame Laetitia fut obligée, avec toute sa famille, de fuir la Corse, où le parti français avait le dessous ; elle se réfugia à Marseille dans un grand état de gêne, quoi qu'en aient dit quelques-uns de ses enfants, qui, sur ce point comme sur beaucoup d'autres, ne pensaient pas comme celui qui fonda leur fortune. Napoléon ne fit jamais mystère de ses temps de pauvreté.' (Note by Béranger.)
1. 32. Du grand projet qui m'occupe toujours/ Napoleon is supposed to be already dreaming of the invasion of Egypt.
I. 42. Ten ferai part à mes frères chéris. Joseph became King of Naples, and later of Spain ; Louis became King of Holland, and Jérôme King of Westphalia. These three ' frères chéris' had a great deal to suffer from the tyranny of Napoleon. As for Lucien, Béranger's patron and the organizer of the 1 18 Brumaire,' he lived in exile during the Empire, having deeply offended Napoleon by his marriage with Alexandrine de Bleschamp.
II. 43-44. ton pied fera de terre surgir des rois à mes sceurs pour maris. Caroline married Murât, and became for a time Queen of Naples ; Elisa became Grand Duchess of Tuscany, and Pauline, famous for her beauty, became Princess Borghese.
L'Aigle et l'Étoile. (Page 129.)
Written between 1834 and 1838.
This song is a poetical account of the ' Hundred Days,' and is generally recognized as one of Béranger's most finished productions. The reader will notice the felicity with which in each verse the second half of the second line is re-introduced in the fifth.
11. 12-13. De clocher en clocher, je vais vcler jusqu'aux tours Notre-Dame. Béranger quotes literally from the stirring proclamation issued by Napoleon when he returned from Elba, in which he said : ' La victoire marchera au pas de charge ; l'aigle, avec les couleurs nationales, volera de clocher en clocher, jusqu'aux tours de Notre-Dame.'
1. 19. quand renaissent les fleurs. Napoleon landed near Cannes on the 1st of March, and his partisans adopted the violet for their emblem.
1. 28. Pour le vingt mars, i.e. the anniversary of the birth of the ' Roi de Rome ' in 1 8 1 1 .
1. 3 1. Rois alliés, que faites-vous dans Vienne ? At the Congress of Vienna were present in person the Emperors of Austria and Russia, the Kings of Prussia, Denmark, Bavaria and Wurtemberg, the Elector of Hesse, the Grand Duke of Baden, and many other German princes. The other European States were represented by their ambassadors and ministers.
1. 32. Tous sont au bal. The Congress of Vienna was the occasion of numerous social functions and entertainments, which drew from the old Prince de Ligne the remark : ' Si le congrès ne marche pas, il danse,' and the cost of which has been estimated at 40 million francs. The Congress thereby incurred a considerable amount of adverse criticism, wrhich was one of the reasons why the congresses of the following years were held with much less ostentation in smaller towns ; Aix-la-Chapelle, Verona, Troppau, and Laibach.
1. 36. sur leur front éclate la nouvelle. It was on March 5,1815, during a ball, that a courier of the King of Sardinia brought the news that Napoleon had sailed from Elba.
1. 37. Pâlissent tous les rois. l Pâlissent' may be understood to be either in the indicative or in the subjunctive, though, strictly speaking, if the verb is in the subjunctive, the sentence should end with an exclamation-mark.
L 44. fuyons à Calais. Such was the original intention of Louis, but he changed his mind and spent the ' Hundred Days ' in Ghent.
1. 61. Cent jours passés. The expression * Cent Jours' was first used by the ' Préfet de la Seine,' Chabrol, in his address of welcome to Louis XVIII when the latter returned to Paris on July 8, 1815. The 'Hundred Days' are reckoned from March 20, when Napoleon entered Paris, to June 29, when he left Paris for Rochefort.
un Anglais. Captain Maitland, commander of the Belleropbon, which happened to be stationed off Rochefort. Napoleon delivered himself up to him on July 15.
Sainte-Hélène. (Page 131.)
Written between 1834 and 1838.
Two thousand years before Napoleon's death an angel is supposed to come down to earth to prepare a tomb for him. Napoleon's remains were still lying at St. Helena when this song was written ; they were transferred to the Hôtel des Invalides in 1840.
1. 1. Sur un volcan. The island of St. Helena is of volcanic origin.
1. 9. mon Ténare. Cape Taenarus, now called Cape Matapan, was situated at the south-west extremity of Laconia. Near the cape was a deep cavern which was taken to be the entrance to Hades. Hence Taenarus became synonymous with the underworld.
1. 11. V Argonaute. It was in the fifteenth century that the Portuguese discovered the Cape of Good Hope route to India. St. Helena is on the direct route to the Cape.
1. 21. au cercueil d'Alexandre-, Understand: Ravirait-on jusqu'au dernier lambeau de tant d'Etats au cercueil d'Alexandre ? ' Can it be that, among so many States, none will grant a corner for the remains of Alexander ? '
1. 23. Les vents . . . ont balayé sa cendre. The burial-place of Alexander the Great was unknown.
1. 31. Les loups du Nord. The hordes of Germans which invaded Italy at the beginning of the Christian era.
1. 50. Sois son geôlier, prends des traits odieux. Béranger identifies the Satanic spirit whom the angel is addressing with Sir Hudson Lowe! The latter (who died in 1844) was execrated in France after Napoleon's death, at the time of which many accounts— some grossly exaggerated — reached France of the ' odieuses vexations • to which he had subjected Napoleon. His Memoirs, published in 1845, seek to justify a number of acts on his part which it is to be regretted he was not actually able to deny. Lord Rosebery in his Napo-
leonic studies has more than once stigmatized the conduct of Sir Hudson Lowe towards the fallen emperor.
Il n'est pas mort. (Page 133.)
Written between 1834 and 183S.
The speaker is one of Napoleon's old soldiers, and the time is 1829 (cf. 1. 2), when the greatest unrest prevailed throughout the country, and it was evident to all that a revolution was imminent.
Béranger writes in a footnote : ' L'idée qui a fait faire cette chanson a bien longtemps régné au fond de nos campagnes, et même parmi les classes ouvrières des villes. Peut-être même trouverait-on encore, dans quelque province, des individus qui conservent cette superstition populaire.' It is a fact that until 1830 little credence was given in the provinces to the news of Napoleon's death in 1821, and the wildest rumours of his return from St. Helena constantly circulated among the people. He had escaped from St. Helena to Africa by an underground passage (few of the peasantry in those days had ever seen a map !) and was about to return at the head of half a million negroes to reconquer his throne ; he had landed in Asia or in Egypt and was leading a Persian or a Turkish army to the conquest of the North ; and so on. His reappearance was eagerly awaited during the disturbances of 1830, and after that date the people, disappointed in their expectation, gradually reconciled themselves to the idea of his death.
