Dead of Ninety-two

“... Frenchmen of today, Bonapartists, Republicans, remember your fathers in ‘92, etc...”—Paul de Cassagnac, Le Pays

Dead of Ninety-two and Ninety-three as well,

Who, pallid with the mighty kiss of liberty,

Calmly, under your sabots, tromped the yoke so fell

Upon the soul and brow of all humanity;

Men ecstatic and tall within the very tempest,

You whose hearts leapt up with love beneath your rags,

O Soldiers whom great Death has sown, noble Mistress,

To regenerate them, in the furrows of the past;

You whose blood washed clean all greatness rendered filthy,

Dead of Valmy, Dead of Fleurus, Dead of Italy,

O million Jesus Christs with eyes gentle and dark;

We shall let you go to sleep with the Republic,

We, bent beneath kings as though beneath a cudgel

—They’re talking to us about you, the Messrs. de Cassagnac!

Arthur Rimbaud