Marie Jacinthe de Botidoux to Martha Jefferson (Randolph)

[ca. 1789]

Vainqueur De gibraltar, fameux Comte D’artois pourquoi donc t’enfois tu Devant Cette Canaille? un hero Si Connu par tout de beaux exploits a-t-il pu redoute d’effroi d’une bataille? et vous brave Condé, vous belliqueux Conti, qu’êtes vous Devenues? Laches vous avez fui: vous avez très bien fait, Car Le Senat Moderne Vous auroit Sur Le Champ Conduits à La Lanterne

editors’ translation

[ca. 1789]

Gibraltar’s vanquisher, the famous comte d’Artois, why did you flee from that canaille? Did a hero renowned for so many beautiful feats fear a dreadful battle? And you, brave Condé, you, belligerent Conti, what became of you? Cowards, you fled: and you did right, because the new Senate would have promptly conducted you to the lamppost

MS (Privately owned, 2015); undated; unsigned; on a scrap of paper. Translation by Dr. Roland H. Simon.

In the early days of the French Revolution, mobs (canaille) in Paris cried out à la lanterne while hunting down hated officials to hang from street lampposts (Gregory Fremont-Barnes, ed., Encyclopedia of the Age of Political Revolutions and New Ideologies, 1760–1815 [2007], 1:388–9).

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December 31, 1789
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