"Et Tartufe? Il nous dit entre deux cremus
Que pour tout bon Francais l'empire est e Rome,
Et qu'ayant pour aieux Romulus et Remus
Nous tetterons la louve e jamais--le pauvre homme."
The new Tartufe worships St. Chassepot, who once, it will not be
forgotten, "wrought miracles"; but he has his doubts as to the
morality of explosive bullets. The nymph of modern warfare is
addressed as she hovers above the Geneva Convention, -
"Quoi, nymphe du canon raye,
Tu montres ces pudeurs risibles
Et ce petit air effraye
Devant les balles exploisibles?"
De Banville was for long almost alone among poets in his freedom
from Weltschmerz, from regret and desire for worlds lost or
impossible. In the later and stupider corruption of the Empire,
sadness and anger began to vex even his careless muse. She had
piped in her time to much wild dancing, but could not sing to a
waltz of mushroom speculators and decorated capitalists. "Le Sang
de la Coupe" contains a very powerful poem, "The Curse of Venus,"
pronounced on Paris, the city of pleasure, which has become the city
of greed. This verse is appropriate to our own commercial
enterprise:
"Vends les bois ou dormaient Viviane et Merlin!
L'Aigle de mont n'est fait que pour ta gibeciere;
La neige vierge est le pour fournir ta glaciere;
Le torrent qui bondit sur le roc sybillin,
Et vole, diamant, neige, ecume et poussiere,
N'est plus bon qu'e tourner tes meules de moulin!"
In the burning indignation of this poem, M.
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