"In Chesapeake Bay we were landed;
In vain strove the British to pass;
Rochambeau our armies commanded,
Our ships they were led by De Grasse.
Morbleu! how I rattled the drumsticks,

The day we marched into Yorktown!
Ten thousand of beef-eating British

Their weapons we caused to lay down.

"Then homewards returning victorious,
In peace to our country we came,
And were thanked for our glorious actions
By Louis Sixteenth of the name.
What drummer on earth could be prouder
Than I, while I drummed at Versailles
To the lovely court ladies in powder,
And lappets, and long satin tails?

"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 Bastile!
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 onwards 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.

"With pikes, and with shouts, and with torches, Marched onwards our dusty battalions ;

And we girt the tall castle of Louis,

A million of tatterdemalions!

We stormed the fair gardens where towered
The walls of his heritage splendid;

Ah, shame on him, craven and coward,

That had not the heart to defend it!

"With the crown of his sires on his head,

His nobles and knights by his side, At the foot of his ancestors' palace

'Twere easy, methinks, to have died. But no; when we burst through his barriers, 'Mid heaps of the dying and dead,

In vain through the chambers we sought him, He had turned like a craven and fled.

"You all know the Place de la Concorde?

'Tis hard by the Tuilerie 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 Were used in those days to adorn

Our simple republican building, Corbleu! but the MERE 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 sate 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.

66

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!