Page 1040 - les-miserables

Tuck into your trousers the shirt-tail that is hanging out.
Let it not be said that patriots have hoisted the white flag.

There they amused themselves with puns which were con-
sidered terrible, with innocent plays upon words which they
supposed to be venomous, with quatrains, with distiches
even; thus, upon the Dessolles ministry, a moderate cabinet,
of which MM. Decazes and Deserre were members:—

Pour raffermir le trone ebranle sur sa base,
Il faut changer de sol, et de serre et de case.

In order to re-establish the shaken throne firmly on its base,
soil (Des solles), greenhouse and house (Decazes) must be
changed.

Or they drew up a list of the chamber of peers, ‘an
abominably Jacobin chamber,’ and from this list they com-
bined alliances of names, in such a manner as to form, for
example, phrases like the following: Damas. Sabran. Gou-
vion-Saint-Cyr.—All this was done merrily. In that society,
they parodied the Revolution. They used I know not what
desires to give point to the same wrath in inverse sense.
They sang their little Ca ira:—

Ah! ca ira ca ira ca ira!
Les Bonapartistes a la lanterne!

Songs are like the guillotine; they chop away indifferent-

1040 Les Miserables