"Matin!" (the cur!) said a workman who was looking with me at the picture before a printshop. "On le représente sans-culotte, mais nous savons bien qu'il est jésuite." In a similar work of art he is seen weeping with his little sister, and beneath are these sentimental lines:—
"Oh! que j'ai douce souvenance
Du beau pays de mon enfance," &c.
Songs and poems of every kind in praise of the young Henry circulate in great numbers, and are well paid for.[1] As there was once a Jacobite poetry in England, so France has now its Carlistic.
But the Bonapartist poetry is far more significant, weighty, and threatening to the Government. There is not a grisette in Paris who does not sing and feel the songs of Beranger. The people best understand this Bonaparte poetry, the poets speculate on it, and other people in their turn on them.[2]
- ↑ "Und sie werden gut bezahlt." Omitted in the French version. It would seem to have been absolutely impossible for any French artist or poet, in the beginning of this century, to be in the least degree pathetic or sentimental without becoming supremely silly, and the acme of this niaiserie and affectation was reached in these "Henridicules," which are still to be found in abundance in old printshops.—Translator.
- ↑ French version—"Et c'est là-dessus que spéculent les poëtes, les petits et les grands, qui exploitent l'enthousiasme de la foule au profit de leur popularité. Par exemple, Victor Hugo, dont la lyre résonne encore du chant du sacre de Charles X., se
