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CARTOONS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
    I. MirabeauYou must have shocked your father when you came,Club-footed, pimpled. 'Twas for him as whenA gardener finds a crooked root to tend;He feared the flower would stink and bring him shame.He did not want your morals to be lameAt least, It was the same old thing again. . . .Revolt has always claimed the best in menAnd so you cried, "God damn the family name!"
And yet how sad a thing it was for France. . . .You spent just half your strength to make France freeAnd half in jail through women and the dance.And at the cry, "To arms!" you did but seeA dearer challenge in a haughty glance,Behind the throne the lips of Queen Marie.
    II. Theroigne de MericourtYou taught more economics than a tomeContains, you women marching on Versailles.You were not there to save a world, or try.Your theory was the simple monochromeOf hunger, black as crusts you ate at home.And either you or Louis had to die.That simpler thinker only blinked his eyeLike Nero fiddling in the flames of Rome.
And you, Theroigne, there where none had grown,Led forth a Reason: Women crying, "Bread,"Plain women in the rain before a throne.Assemblies talked, you knew not what they said.You taught us there that hunger is the stoneWe bear or hurl till we or kings fall dead.
The MeasureStirling Bowen

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