Henri V of France

by Brett Rutherford

 

Adapted and expanded from Victor Hugo, l’Année Terrible, “July 1871”

 

i

They came to call on the Comte de Chambord.
In his reception hall, festooned
with armor and portraiture,
they offer him the crown of France,
a Bourbon Restoration. Henri, the last
of his line and childless, had one
and only one main condition:

 

“The hated tricolor flag must go,
to cancel the guillotine, the blood,
the Terror. Our banner must bear
a single fleur-dy-lys.” — 

                                      “Your majesty,
a people weaned on Revolution
are not about to surrender
freedom, equality, fraternity.
Why not three colors behind
one fleur-de-lys, embroidered
in the finest white and gold?
Or let the nation have its flag,
while you retain the lily proud
as your personal emblem?
Surely Monsieur will not object?” —

“Impossible! One line
from Hugh Capet to Louis the Last
runs in my blood. The state is me,
and my standard is the fleur-de-lys.

It is that, or nothing.” —

 

“On this, Monsieur,
     no compromise is possible.
Paris would go up in flames again!” —

 

“Well, then, this audience is over.”

 

The members of the deputation bow.
They are shown the door. Their carriages
roll down the dusty colonnade.

 

2

Henri, if I may address you informally:
I was an adolescent when you were a child.
Some of my earliest poems were sung
around your fragile and triumphant cradle.

Now winds from the abyss have thrown
you onto one peak, me onto another,
because misfortune has a way
of hurling thunderbolts,
     stranding some men on mountaintops.
The gulf between us,
     makes us seem antipodes to one another.

You go about with a king's mantle
     weighing your shoulders down,
and in your hand
     you wield a once-dazzling scepter,
          with the same ease I wield my pen.
I exceed you in white hairs, and years,

and I know a good man when I see him.
That man is virile and strong,
     who turns a pitiable end
          into a suicide,
who knows how to abdicate everything,
     except his original honor,
who would rather be Hamlet in Elsinore,
and who, knowing himself a ghost already,
     refuses to sell his flag
          even with a kingdom offered.

 

Well, fine. You stood your ground,
as I stood mine, in exile.
They hailed you King for less time
     than it takes to consume
          a carafe of coffee.
Did you enjoy it? The lily is,
as the lily is, all white. It is
what it is, and cannot be otherwise.

It is good, certainly, to remain Capet,
and being Bourbon, you are inclined
    to be an honest man, after all.
(What a shock to the House of Orleans
who had every intention
     of succeeding you!)

 

The ups and downs of history
make many upright persons crawl
where once they strode triumphant.
The sinkholes are piled full of us.
It is better to come out well, prince,
     than to make a bad entrance.

Henri, I tip my tricolor cap
     in honor of your uncrowned head.