He predicts a general cataclysm, declares his intention of doing all in his power to bring it on,—
“J’ameuterai le peuple à mes vérités crues, Je prophétiserai sur le trépied des rues,”—
and exults in the prospect,—
“Et moi, j’applaudirai; ma jeunesse engourdie Se réchauffera bien à ce grand incendie.”
Pierre Dupont (peer almost of Burns in his simple country songs), who died disgraced by reason of his toadyism towards the government of the Third Napoleon, which had banished and then pardoned him, displayed a fine revolutionary fervour in 1848, before his banishment. His “Chant des Ouvriers” and his poem—
“On n’arrête pas le murmure Du peuple quand il dit, j’ai faim, Car c’est le cri de la Nature, Il faut du pain, il faut du pain,”
will be recited and sung by the people of France as long as there is such a thing as hunger within its borders.
At the same epoch, Alfred de Vigny distilled bitterness against society in his Destinées and Journal d’un Poète; and Leconte de Lisle vented his accumulated scorn as follows:—
“Hommes, tueurs des Dieux, les temps ne sont pas loin Où, sur un grand tas d’or, vautrés dans quelque coin, Vous mourrez bêtement en emplissant vos poches!”