54
My nose is in tears, my friend Bugeaud, lend me thy gendarmes that I may say a word to them. With a blue capote and a chicken in his shako, here’s the banlieue, co-cocorico.
55
Love letters.
56
“The bird slanders in the elms,
And pretends that yesterday, Atala
Went off with a Russian,
Where fair maids go.
Lon la.
My friend Pierrot, thou pratest, because Mila knocked at her pane the other day and called me. The jades are very charming, their poison which bewitched me would intoxicate Monsieur Orfila. I’m fond of love and its bickerings, I love Agnes, I love Pamela, Lise burned herself in setting me aflame. In former days when I saw the mantillas of Suzette and of Zéila, my soul mingled with their folds. Love, when thou gleamest in the dark thou crownest Lola with roses, I would lose my soul for that. Jeanne, at thy mirror thou deckest thyself! One fine day, my heart flew forth. I think that it is Jeanne who has it. At night, when I come from the quadrilles, I show Stella to the stars, and I say to them: “Behold her.” Where fair maids go, lon la.
57
But some prisons still remain, and I am going to put a stop to this sort of public order. Does any one wish to play at skittles? The whole ancient world fell in ruin, when the big ball rolled. Good old folks, let us smash with our crutches that Louvre where the monarchy displayed itself in furbelows. We have forced its gates. On that day, King Charles X. did not stick well and came unglued.
58
Steps on the Aventine Hill, leading to the Tiber, to which the bodies of executed criminals were dragged by hooks to be thrown into the Tiber.
59
Mustards.
60
From casser, to break: break-necks.
61
In allusion to the expression, coiffer Sainte-Catherine, “to remain unmarried.”
62
“Thus, hemming in the course of thy musings, Alcippus, it is true that thou wilt wed ere long.”
63
Tirer le diable par la queue, “to live from hand to mouth.”
64
“Triton trotted on before, and drew from his conch-shell sounds so ravishing that he delighted everyone!”
65
“A Shrove-Tuesday marriage will have no ungrateful children.”
66
A short mask.
67
In allusion to the story of Prometheus.
68
Un fafiot sérieux. Fafiot is the slang term for a bank-bill, derived from its rustling noise.
69
He sleeps. Although his fate was very strange, he lived. He died when he had no longer his angel. The thing came to pass simply, of itself, as the night comes when day is gone.