Ïambes. – André Chénier

I. HYMNE SUR L’ENTRÉE TRIOMPHALE DES SUISSES DE CHATEAUVIEUX.

This poem first appeared in the Journal de Paris, on April 15, 1792,
the day of the festival. In 1790 the Swiss Regiment of Chateauvieux at
Nancy had mutinied, seized the military chest, and killed heroic young
Desilles, captain of the Régiment du Roi, who was attempting to
prevent fratricide bloodshed. For these misdeeds they were condemned
to the galleys. In 1792 they were amnestied by a decree of the National
Assembly, and Collot d’Herbois, at the Club des Jacobins, carried a
motion that they should make a triumphal entry into Paris. See Carlyle,
French Revol., pt. ii, bk. ii, ch. vi, and bk. vi, ch. x.

Against this disgraceful resolution Chénier rose indignantly in several
letters to the editors of the Journal de Paris, in an address to the
National Assembly, and in the present poem.

L. 8. Désille. See the above introductory notice.

L. 6. The body of Mirabeau was transferred to the Pantheon on April 5,
1791.

L. 10. Voltaire died in Paris in 1778, but as the clergy had not been
called upon to assist him at his last moments his body was denied
sepulture in Paris, and was buried at the Abbey of Scellières, of which
a nephew of his was commendator. His remains, however, re-entered Paris
solemnly on July 11 of the same year, where they lie in the crypt of the
Pantheon.

L. 15, tu conduiras Jourdan. Tu refers to divin triomphe. Jourdan,
nicknamed Coupe-tête, was at the head of the brigands of Vaucluse
during the disturbances in the South of France in October, 1791.

L. 17. Coblentz. The general quarters of the Émigrés.

L. 27. An allusion to a meal taken in common by Pétion and his
colleagues of the Commune of Paris at a tavern, at La Râpée-Bercy, which
they had caused to be mentioned in newspapers belonging to their party
as something to be proud of.

L. 34. Persans. The appellation Persans is generally reserved for
the Persians of to-day, the ancient Persians being designated as les
Perses.

L. 45. Eudoxus and Hipparchus, two celebrated ancient astronomers.

Ll. 46-8. Berenice’s hair, a small northern constellation near the tail
of Leo. Berenice was the wife of Ptolemy Energetes, king of Egypt, c.
248 B. C.

L. 49. Argo, a constellation in the Southern Hemisphere.

L. 55. en leur galère. ‘The forty Swiss,’ writes Carlyle, ‘were
mounted into a triumphal car resembling a ship,’ Fr. Rev. II. iii, x.