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Hall-Dennis and the Road to Utopia
CARLETON LIBRARY SERIES

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254 Mrs Dalgairns’s Kitchen Rediscovering “The Practice of Cookery”
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255 Blacks in Canada
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256 Hall-Dennis and the Road to Utopia Education and Modernity in Ontario
Josh Cole
Hall-Dennis and the Road to
Utopia

Education and Modernity in

Ontario

JOSH COLE

Carleton Library Series 256

McGill-Queen’s University Press

Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago
© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2021

ISBN 978-0-2280-0633-6 (cloth)

ISBN 978-0-2280-0634-3 (paper)
ISBN 978-0-2280-0718-0 (ePDF)
ISBN 978-0-2280-0719-7 (ePUB)

Legal deposit third quarter 2021

Bibliothèque nationale du Québec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-
consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian
Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to
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Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Hall-Dennis and the road to utopia : education and modernity in Ontario /
Josh Cole.
Names: Cole, Josh, 1974- author.
Series: Carleton library series ; 256.
Description: Series statement: Carleton library series ; 256 | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210137150 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210137517 |
ISBN 9780228006336 (cloth) | ISBN 9780228006343 (paper) | ISBN
9780228007180 (ePDF) | ISBN 9780228007197 (ePUB)
Subjects: LCSH: Ontario. Provincial Committee on Aims and Objectives of
Education in the Schools of Ontario. | LCSH: Education—Aims and objectives—
Ontario. | LCSH: Educational change—Canada. | LCSH: Education and state—
Ontario. | LCSH: Education—Ontario.
Classification: LCC LA418.O6 C496 2021 | DDC 370.9713—dc23
This book was designed and typeset by studio oneonone in 11/14 Minion
 Contents

Abbreviations
A Note on Usage
Figures

Introduction: Children, Schools, and Modernity in Postwar

Ontario
1 Progressive Conservatism and Progressive Education
2 The “Learning Circus”: Public Consultation and Hall-Dennis
3 “A Theory of Pegs and Gaps”: Expert Presentations and
Research Reports
4 The Curriculum of the Future
5 Global Village, Global Classrooms: Hall-Dennis on the World
Stage
6 Reading Living and Learning, I: The General Framework of
Educational Modernity
7 Reading Living and Learning, II: The Specifics of Passive
Revolution
8 To Dream the Impossible Dream: The Demise of Utopianism
in Ontario Education

Notes
Index
 Abbreviations

ABBE Association for Better Basic Education

AO Archives of Ontario, Toronto
CMA Canadian Manufacturers’ Association
CUE Culture, Understanding, and Enrichment project of the New
York State Education Department
CUSO Canadian University Service Overseas
ETV Educational television
FWTAO Federation of Women Teachers’ Associations of Ontario
IEA Indian-Eskimo Association of Canada
K–6 From Kindergarten to Grade Six
K–12 From Kindergarten to Grade Twelve
LAC Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa
Living and Learning Provincial Committee on Aims and Objectives of
Education in the Schools of Ontario, Living and Learning: The
Report of the Provincial Committee on Aims and Objectives of
Education in the Schools of Ontario (Toronto: Ontario Department
of Education, 1968)
NDP New Democratic Party
OECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
OEO Office of Economic Opportunity [United States]
OGTA Ontario Geography Teachers’ Association
OISE Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto
OTF Ontario Teacher’s Federation
RG Record Group
SEF Study of Educational Facilities, created by William Davis in
1965 to undertake the design and manufacture of prefabricated
schools
VoW Voice of Women
 A Note on Usage

Hall-Dennis worked at a time just before the feminist movement

alerted many people to the sexist implications of using “man” as a
synonym for “humanity” and male pronouns as ways of indicating
both males and females. When I quote from primary documents, I
leave them in this form; when I paraphrase Hall-Dennis, I cast its
observations in gender-neutral language unless stylistic conventions
forbid it.

References to “Indians and Eskimos” are preserved in citations from

original documents, whereas my paraphrases of arguments about
them use the terms “Indigenous,” “Native,” and “First Nations”
peoples.
Figure 1 Children’s Faces as a Divisional Marker. Living and Learning,
47.
Figure 2 Ghostly Presences: The Founding Fathers of Educational
Theory. Living and Learning, 66.

Figure 3 Urban Desolation: Anonymous Crowds. Living and Learning,

36.
Figure 4 Urban Desolation: Alienation in an Apartment Block. Living
and Learning, 31.
Figure 5 Alienation and ETV. Living and Learning, 160.
Figure 6 The Education System as Machine, I. Living and Learning,
54.
Figure 7 The Education System as Machine, II. Living and Learning,
146.
Figure 8 Lines as Punishment. Living and Learning, 56.

Figure 9 Cultural Deprivation in the North, I. Living and Learning,

100.
Figure 10 Cultural Deprivation in the North, II. Living and Learning,
40.

Figure 11 Engagement in the Classroom. Living and Learning, 3.

Figure 12 Practical Activities in the Classroom. Living and Learning,
58.
Figure 13 Spelling as Fun. Living and Learning, 120.
Figure 14 The Joy of Appropriate Technology. Living and Learning,
115.
Figure 15 The Modern Classroom. Living and Learning, 125.

Figure 16 The School as Cultural Centre, I. Living and Learning, 90.

Figure 17 The School as Cultural Centre, II. Living and Learning, 21.

Figure 18 The Joy of a Birthday. Living and Learning, 51.

Figure 19 Children’s Art as an Expression of Happiness, I. Living and
Learning, inside front cover.

Figure 20 Children’s Art as an Expression of Happiness, II. Living and

Learning, 72.
Figure 21 The Romance of Nature. Living and Learning, 22.
Figure 22 A Boy’s Sense of Adventure. Living and Learning, 168.
Figure 23 Bucolic Children, Bucolic Nature. Living and Learning, 32.
Figure 24 A Delighted Flower Child. Living and Learning, 46.
Figure 25 Dashing to the Future. Living and Learning, 223.

Figure 26 Living and Learning, cover illustration.

Figure 27 Students Writing a Standardized Examination. Living and
Learning, 165.

Figure 28 The New Program of the New School. Living and Learning,
78.
Figure 29 Stephen’s Program. Living and Learning, 79.
Figure 30 The Teacher as a Multitasking Curriculum Planner. Living
and Learning, 77.
Hall-Dennis and the Road to Utopia
 Introduction
Children, Schools, and Modernity
in Postwar Ontario

It stands as one of the most unusual and famous documents from the
1960s in Canada: a report whose call for a transformed educational
system announced its iconoclasm not only in words but in images.
Living and Learning: The Report of the Provincial Committee on Aims
and Objectives of Education in the Schools of Ontario, commissioned by
Ontario Minister of Education William Davis in 1965, was delivered
to him in 1968. Unlike the conventional staid, leather-bound
volumes embalming most such commissions, Living and Learning –
which has generally come to be known as “The Hall-Dennis Report”
– has the dimensions and appearance of a coffee-table book, with an
abundance of photographs, some of which are so large that they
spread over two of the report’s 12.5ʺ by 10.5ʺ pages. The text strikes
an equally unusual note for a government report. The report opens
with an essay by Co-Chair Emmett Hall, emblazoned with the
biblical motto “The Truth Shall Set You Free,” in which he describes
education in the most exalted terms. Hall writes: “[t]he underlying
aim of education is to further man’s unending search for truth. Once
he possesses the means to truth, all else is within his grasp.”1 As this
statement makes clear, the committee’s analysis of the aims and
objectives of education for Ontario in the late 1960s is deeply
idealistic: education is seen by Hall and his fellow commissioners as
the key vehicle through which young people could make the most of
themselves as unique individuals and as members of a society
moving inexorably toward a new era of justice, humanism, and
global harmony.
It was a strange document to emerge from an ostensibly
Conservative government, but the “Progressive Conservative”
government of Ontario in the 1960s was a curious entity itself, one
committed both to free enterprise and a massively expanded state.
During his tenure as minister of education, Bill Davis proved himself
very invested in the expansion and modernization of education in
the province: from 1962 to 1970, his department eliminated the
one-room schoolhouse in Ontario, consolidated thousands of
localized school boards into a few hundred centralized units,
oversaw both the foundation of the province’s technical and
vocational college system and the expansion of its universities,
created a world-famous provincial educational television system
(ETV, later renamed TVO), and established the equally renowned
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE).2
At some point in the mid-1960s, Davis came to feel that his
educational empire lacked something fundamental: a comprehensive
statement regarding the aims of kindergarten, primary, and
secondary education. He wanted to bring education in Ontario “up
to speed” with the social, cultural, and economic changes sweeping
the postwar world. He contacted Canadian Supreme Court Justice
Emmett Hall, who had just completed his service on the Royal
Commission Inquiry into National Health Services – the acclaimed
1965 report that eventually led to the adoption of universal
healthcare in Canada – to ask him if he would lead such a review.
Davis and his advisors felt that Hall, who had so radically
overhauled Canada’s healthcare system, would be the ideal person
to head a committee that could have similarly seismic implications
for education in Ontario. Hall, knowing precious little about
educational policy or politics in Ontario – or anywhere else for that
matter – swiftly accepted.3
The “Hall Committee,” as it was initially known, was to make a
“careful study of the means whereby modern education can meet
the present and future needs of children and society.” Further, the
committee would “identify the needs of the child as a person and as
a member of society,” “set forth the aims of education for the
educational system of the Province,” “outline objectives of the
curriculum for children in the age groups presently designated as
Kindergarten, Primary and Junior Divisions,” “propose means by
which these aims and objectives may be achieved,” and “submit a
report for the consideration of the Minister of Education.”4 The
initial boundaries of this mandate were soon broadened to
encompass all schooling in the province, including secondary
schooling, the committee (successfully) arguing that modern
education could not be treated piecemeal but only as an organic
whole.
The committee consisted of twenty-four Ontarians who brought a
diversity of perspectives to their work. They included, among
others, two university presidents, a representative of the Franco-
Ontarian school system, the heads of two separate school boards, a
poultry and livestock farmer, a homemaker and trustee, and three
figures from within the Department of Education who would exert
crucial influence upon the committee members’ work: Dr E.J. Quick,
an assistant superintendent of Curriculum; Dr Reva Gerstein, a
highly unorthodox educational psychologist; and Lloyd Dennis, an
equally unorthodox writer of Canadian school textbooks, former
high school principal, and progressive education enthusiast. After
Hall suffered a heart attack in 1966, Dennis, who was already
shouldering much of the committee’s work as secretary and research
director, was made Hall’s co-chair, giving the report its more
familiar name, “The Hall-Dennis Report.”5
The committee left no stone unturned and spared no expense.
The public demanded spending on education (although the
committee members did come to acknowledge a certain level of tax-
fatigue) and good schooling for their children. The Progressive
Conservative government was proud to have dotted the province
with universities and community colleges. Spending $697,137 on
the committee – whose members were enabled to travel to other
continents and whose report is a full-colour, glossy tribute to the
designers’ and publishers’ arts – was simply in keeping with the
spacious days of the 1960s.6 Committee members read widely (if
perhaps not always deeply) in educational theory and philosophy,
tracked pedagogical developments in various countries, heard no
fewer than eighty-eight briefs on various aspects of education, and
attended thirty “expert presentations,” many by esteemed social
scientists, on subjects including special education, economics,
Indigenous schools, and private and alternative institutions of
learning. They held public hearings in such Ontario centres as
Toronto, Sudbury, London, and Ottawa. And they embarked upon
several extensive research trips within the province, the country,
and internationally in order to see first-hand what other
educationalists were doing. These excursions included examinations
of architectural design in Scarborough, Ontario, school
centralization in New Brunswick, “computer-assisted instruction” in
California and Japan, “multiculturalism” and multilingualism in
Israel and Ireland, decentralized schooling in Sweden, and
educational research in the Soviet Union. After all this research had
been absorbed and synthesized by committee members, the report
itself was composed collectively from 1966-1968. This book will
examine these various activities, pointing toward the long 1960s
horizon within which they were situated, before devoting two
chapters to a close reading of the report itself.
If Davis expected a fresh approach to Ontario’s educational
system, he got what he bargained for when the report hit his desk
on 12 June 1968. Its full title was Living and Learning: The Report of
the Provincial Committee on Aims and Objectives of Education in the
Schools of Ontario. It bore little resemblance to any educational
report hitherto produced in Canada. Neither dull nor grey, it
announced its distinctiveness in a brightly coloured cover depicting
children running freely through a lush meadow (figure 26). It
contained copious pictures of “hip” youths “hanging out” in the
modern cityscapes of Ontario, as well as full-colour, multi-page
examples of children’s art. (A discussion of these illustrations can be
found at the conclusion of chapter 6.) With “pop art,” “psychedelic,”
and “avant-garde” influences evident in its typography and design,
the report is startling in form. It was clearly designed to reflect, and
ultimately to influence, the times that had produced it. Few
documents, and perhaps almost none from within the belly of the
state itself, encapsulated the atmosphere of “The Sixties” in North
America quite so vividly. Even after many decades have passed,
there is still something surreal about such an avant-garde report
emanating from an ostensibly Conservative government.
It was not just the form but also the content of the report that
was radical. One of Living and Learning’s basic postulates was that
contemporary children and young people in Ontario were living in
an era of constant change, in a “technatomic” environment in which
they were “daily barraged, enriched, and deeply affected by the
wonders of the age.”7 In such a world, children needed to be
educated in a new way. Students were no longer to be conceived of
as mere “learners,” but rather as “integrating organisms,” constantly
studying new things in unique ways. Static and isolated subject
disciplines were to be replaced by a liberated, flexible notion of
curriculum – one in which the “inquisitive, goal-seeking, self-
reconstructing minds of children [could] be brought in touch with
subject matter relevant to their individual interests and needs.”
Individual subjects (such as English, History, or Mathematics) were
to be recast as “resources for knowledge,” accessed by the student in
multiple ways at different, individualized moments.8 While
conventional subjects and approaches would not disappear entirely
– facility in speaking and writing, for instance, was the “sine qua non
of education in a civilized society” – they were to be subsumed into
three new, synthetic learning categories.9 These would include
“Communications,” by which the committee members meant “all
learning” that pertained to speaking, reading, mathematics, business
and commerce, performing arts, and the analysis of technological
communications; “Man and His Environment,” which would be
primarily vocational, involving science, applied mathematics,
geography, agriculture, and “home and consumer electronics”; and
“Humanities,” which pertained to “the search for the ideal, the
constant probing of the unknown, the seeking for truth, the intuitive
effort towards unity [and the] humanizing values [that would] lift
man toward a nobility of thought and purpose,” through art,
physical education, and philosophy.10 Such categories as “subjects”
and “disciplines” are introduced in the report only to be subjected to
a kind of liquefaction as they are blended into each other. Moreover,
because individual students developed at different speeds,
conventional notions of age-based “stages” of education – in which
students moved successfully through grades one, two, three, and so
on – were to be discarded in favour of a fluid “learning continuum”
in which each student would progress according to his or her own
unique developmental rhythms.
And what of that primordial educational dichotomy, the one
separating teachers from students? Such categories were also to be
transformed. Rather than conventional teachers using rote
techniques to fill children and young people with “facts and
principles,” Hall-Dennis imagined ideal teachers who were to guide
students towards knowledge, placing them “in the centre of the
learning activity,” encouraging and assisting them “in learning how
to enquire, organize, and discuss, and to discover answers to
problems.”11 These teachers, according to Living and Learning, would
not be experts in front of a captive audience. They would be
facilitators of a modern learning process that would be flexible and,
to a great extent, student-centred. Furthermore (barring some
testing in the field of communications), tests and examinations,
blamed for impeding students’ learning or, in some cases, stopping it
altogether, would become irrelevant. Corporal punishment was
another traditional feature slated for oblivion in the world imagined
by Living and Learning.
Principals would also be transformed in the Hall-Dennis
committee’s vision of education reform. They would no longer be
authority figures who ran the school as captains ran their ships.
Rather, they would become “consultant, advisor, and coordinator,”
building bridges between children, educators, and the wider
community.12 Each principal would also act as the school’s resident
educational philosopher, acquiring and processing new pedagogical
findings as they became known, and adapting the school’s approach
in the light of that new knowledge. Similarly, other actors in the
system such as superintendents, school boards, and “teacher’s
federations” would all act to support each child’s unique
pedagogical development, providing “service, rather than …
surveillance.”13
Living and Learning also called for a fundamental transformation
of the classroom environment from something too cold, uninviting,
and “antiseptic.”14 The Hall-Dennis approach would require a
learning environment as “activity-oriented” flexible as modern
children themselves. One imagined educational settings whose
dimensions and layout one could transform “according to new needs
and emphases as they emerge.” Such environments would serve “as
an adjustable instrument for tomorrow’s learner.” Living and
Learning’s ideal classroom was to be a space appropriate for a
modern liberal-humanistic education, lending itself to the plastic
arts, dramatic performances, and scientific experiments. As befit the
technatomic age, it would be well stocked with typewriters, film
projectors, record players, radios, and even computers.15 Television
would play a particularly important role in education’s “electronic
future.”16 Via television, classrooms would enjoy access to events
occurring throughout the world at any particular time, as well as to
specific educational programming provided by the province.
Regional, county, and local producers would also provide
educational programs. The Hall-Dennis classroom and its facilities
would also be fully open to the community beyond the school day
for various social, cultural, and educational uses.17
The fundamental aim of Ontario education was to guarantee “the
right of every individual to have access to the learning experience
best suited to his needs.” Every school authority was charged with
the responsibility of providing “a child-centered learning continuum
that invites learning by individual discovery and inquiry.”18
Provisions for a diversity of “special learning situations” would be
intrinsic to the province’s new educational paradigm. Concerns
about the enormous costs of such a radical overhaul of education in
the province were countered by assurances of the massive economic
gains in “human capital” that the “new education” would
undoubtedly produce. And lest anyone feared that these
recommendations would lead to an anarchic break with traditional
Ontario values, Hall-Dennis schools would produce well-rounded,
truly democratic citizens, imbued with a deep appreciation of both
liberty and civic virtue.
“A free society cannot be taken for granted, and truth and
freedom must be guarded as precious treasures,” Hall-Dennis
proclaims. “Each of us has the right to enjoy them. More than that,
we have the obligation to protect them, and we each must have the
courage to accept and embrace the responsibilities that they hold
out to us each day.”19 The world is changing rapidly and
unpredictably, the report warns, and the traditional, hierarchical,
and inward-looking Ontario educational system is ill-suited to
respond to it. In a world of rapid and relentless transformation,
Ontario would have to change its schools or pay a steep price. If it
responded to this challenge, it would stand a good chance of
becoming a veritable utopia, a place where happy children freely
developed their capacities in a society that treasured them. The
pursuit of this utopian dream is the subject of this book.

To this day, the report is revered by some as a visionary manifesto

for a child-centred educational system that captures the best of the
traditions of progressive education and dismissed by others as a
prescription for an “edutopia,” a vintage product of a “pseudo-
psychedelic” decade of idle dreams and unwise experiments.20 This
book sets out to provide a more scholarly exploration of the moment
of Hall-Dennis. In particular, it sees Hall-Dennis – using this term
throughout to denote the process, the report, and the reaction to it
as one organically unified phenomenon – as something that can
teach us invaluable lessons about modernity in postwar Canada.
This “moment of Hall-Dennis” is not just an event in the history of
Canadian education, but in Canadian cultural history as well.
But what is modernity? For some scholars, such as Anthony
Giddens, modernity is characterized by trust in abstract systems.21
Others, Zygmunt Bauman among them, privilege the reality and
experience of fluidity, the omnipresence in contemporary life of
relationships and phenomena that, for all their seeming solidity, are
in fact “liquid.”22 For his part, Marshall Berman prioritizes, as the
defining characteristic of the modern world, the omnipresence of
change: “If we think of modernism as a struggle to make ourselves
at home in a constantly changing world, we will realize that no
mode of modernism can ever be definitive.” As he explains, “To be
modern is to live a life of paradox and contradiction. It is to be
overpowered by the immense bureaucratic organizations that have
the power to control and often to destroy all communities, values,
lives, and yet to be undeterred in our determination to face these
forces, to fight to change the world and make it our own. It is to be
both revolutionary and conservative: alive to new possibilities for
experience and adventure, frightened by the nihilistic depths to
which so many modern adventures lead, longing to create and to
hold on to something real even as everything melts.”23
Bauman agrees: all that is liberating and exciting about modern
times carries with it a dark, ominous side – that of radical
uncertainty in a world in which the entire planet is governed by
forces beyond the control of any individual or polity: “If the idea of
an ‘open society’ originally stood for the self-determination of a free
society cherishing its openness, it now brings to most minds the
terrifying experience of a heteronomous, hapless and vulnerable
population confronted with, and possibly overwhelmed by forces it
neither controls nor fully understands; a population horrified by its
own undefendability and obsessed with the tightness of its frontiers
and the security of the individuals living inside them – while it is
precisely that impermeability of its borders and security of life
inside those borders that elude its grasp and seem bound to remain
elusive as long as the planet is subject to solely negative
globalization.”24 Thus states, mandated to establish order for their
citizens, are perpetually confronted by the spectre of forces –
operating invisibly and knowable only by virtue of their effects –
over which they can exert little control, yet mastery over which is
an essential aspect of their claims to legitimacy. The transformation
of spatiotemporal relations that all modern scholars would place at
the heart of modernity – i.e., the evaporation of distances as
obstacles to a vast diversity of transactions and relationships and the
greatly speeded-up tempo of processes and experiences at both the
personal and the planetary levels – thus places all states in a
dilemma, especially those whose identities can be traced back, as is
the case of Canada, to the liberal revolution in the nineteenth
century.25
Influenced by these authorities, this book adopts a five-fold
definition of modernity. First, modernity entails the transformed
economic relations of corporate capitalism and their spatio-temporal
consequences. The forces of production, distribution, and exchange
are all transformed beyond recognition – as evidenced by
automobiles, highways, new systems of global finance and
transformed systems of communication. And the relations of
production associated with them are transformed no less radically.
There are new perceptions of class divisions, gender and race
relations, appropriate standards of living, and the proper role of the
state, whose structures and functions are expanded far beyond their
previous limits. Even the institutions painstakingly built to monitor
and safeguard the global functioning of this system, far from
offering the seeming “solidity” of the categories of classical
economics, in fact exemplify Bauman’s liquidity.
Second, it entails a future-oriented perspective towards time: an
impatience with tradition and merely parochial specifics; a
resistance to pointless formalism, if this impedes acknowledging the
global forces that tend to liquefy all such traditions; a sharp
apprehension of the risks the future might entail – especially for
liberals who wish to safeguard the autonomy and dignity of the
individual – combined with an exhilarating humanism, in which
humans are the measure of all things; and an equally sharp
resistance to age-old forms of hierarchy, especially if these stand in
the way of a progressive adaption to that liberal democracy which
allows individuals to adapt to change.
Third, it means a cultural revolution predicated upon the general
sense that the “centre does not hold”: an awareness of the extent to
which the individual might be alienated and undermined by the
coldness and impersonality of modern life and an equally acute
sense that conditions of modernity allow for unprecedented freedom
of individual expression.26
Fourth, it means a respect for the social sciences as sources of
knowledge about these daunting developments, a support for more
comprehensively planned systems of governance, and a greatly
enhanced emphasis on reflexivity – meaning that one can no longer
take for granted the “naturalness” and “obviousness” of the given
world, which must, on the contrary, be subjected to scrutiny and
analysis.
Finally, it means – to return to Bauman – an implicit (and at
times explicit) utopianism: the putting forth of ideals (such as the
universal human right to education) whose radical implementation
might well be at odds with popular “common sense,” but upon
whose expression the survival of freedom depends: ideals that serve
to highlight the need for the existing order to change, even in the
absence of any concrete analysis of the potential agents of, or
realistic strategies for, that change.
It is in this precise sense that Hall-Dennis was deeply modern.
Modernity is the theory that makes the ideas and images juxtaposed
in Living and Learning understandable rather than merely
cacophonous (an impression that many, then and now, have come
away with). Through its years of deliberation from 1964 to 1967
and in the report itself in 1968, the omnipresent assumption is that
a world without deep and painful divisions, one of enlightened
individuality and egalitarianism, can be created if men and women
of good will are given the opportunity to do so. Under the wise
leadership of principals and teachers, idealistic educators may be
free to develop their talents and inspire the young, and children be
given the means with which to realize the gifts with which nature
has blessed them. There is scant room in this vision for social
conflicts, agonizing choices between competing cultural visions, or
even the grinding routinism of the giant bureaucracy required by a
system with over a million students: rather, in this modernist utopia,
each individual, cognizant of the rights of all other individuals,
pursues his or her destiny in dignity and freedom.
Another random document with
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 X

LE CYCLE HÉROIQUE CHRÉTIEN

 LE PARRICIDE.

Dessiné par F. Flameng. - Gravé par R. de

Los Rios.
L. HÉBERT, ÉDITEUR - Imp. Wittmann.
 L E PA R R I C I D E

Un jour, Kanut, à l’heure où l’assoupissement

Ferme partout les yeux sous l’obscur firmament,
Ayant pour seul témoin la nuit, l’aveugle immense,
Vit son père Swéno, vieillard presque en démence,
Qui dormait, sans un garde à ses pieds, sans un chien;
Il le tua, disant: Lui-même n’en sait rien.
Puis il fut un grand roi.

Toujours vainqueur, sa vie

Par la prospérité fidèle fut suivie;
Il fut plus triomphant que la gerbe des blés;
Quand il passait devant les vieillards assemblés,
Sa présence éclairait ces sévères visages;
Par la chaîne des mœurs pures et des lois sages
A son cher Danemark natal il enchaîna
Vingt îles, Fionie, Arnhout, Folster, Mona;
Il bâtit un grand trône en pierres féodales;
Il vainquit les saxons, les pictes, les vandales,
Le celte, et le borusse, et le slave aux abois,
Et les peuples hagards qui hurlent dans les bois;
Il abolit l’horreur idolâtre, et la rune,
Et le menhir féroce où le soir, à la brune,
Le chat sauvage vient frotter son dos hideux;
Il disait en parlant du grand César: Nous deux;
Une lueur sortait de son cimier polaire;
Les monstres expiraient partout sous sa colère;
Il fut, pendant vingt ans qu’on l’entendit marcher,
Le cavalier superbe et le puissant archer;
L’hydre morte il mettait le pied sur la portée;
L hydre morte, il mettait le pied sur la portée;
Sa vie, en même temps bénie et redoutée,
Dans la bouche du peuple était un fier récit;
Rien que dans un hiver, ce chasseur détruisit
Trois dragons en Écosse et deux rois en Scanie;
Il fut héros, il fut géant, il fut génie;
Le sort de tout un monde au sien semblait lié;
Quant à son parricide, il l’avait oublié.
Il mourut. On le mit dans un cercueil de pierre,
Et l’évêque d’Aarhus vint dire une prière
Et chanter sur sa tombe un hymne, déclarant
Que Kanut était saint, que Kanut était grand,
Qu’un céleste parfum sortait de sa mémoire,
Et qu’ils le voyaient, eux, les prêtres, dans la gloire,
Assis comme un prophète à la droite de Dieu.

Le soir vint; l’orgue en deuil se tut dans le saint lieu;

Et les prêtres, quittant la haute cathédrale,
Laissèrent le roi mort dans la paix sépulcrale.
Alors il se leva, rouvrit ses yeux obscurs,
Prit son glaive, et sortit de la tombe, les murs
Et les portes étant brumes pour les fantômes;
Il traversa la mer qui reflète les dômes
Et les tours d’Altona, d’Aarhus et d’Elseneur;
L’ombre écoutait les pas de ce sombre seigneur;
Mais il marchait sans bruit, étant lui-même un songe;
Il alla droit au mont Savo que le temps ronge,
Et Kanut s’approcha de ce farouche aïeul,
Et lui dit:—Laisse-moi, pour m’en faire un linceul,
O montagne Savo que la tourmente assiége,
Me couper un morceau de ton manteau de neige.—
Le mont le reconnut et n’osa refuser.
Kanut prit son épée impossible à briser,
Et sur le mont, tremblant devant ce belluaire,
Il coupa de la neige et s’en fit un suaire;
Puis il cria:—Vieux mont, la mort éclaire peu;
De quel côté faut-il aller pour trouver Dieu?—
Le mont au flanc difforme, aux gorges obstruées,
 , g g ,
Noir, triste dans le vol éternel des nuées,
Lui dit:—Je ne sais pas, spectre, je suis ici.—
Kanut quitta le mont par les glaces saisi;
Et, le front haut, tout blanc dans son linceul de neige,
Il entra, par delà l’Islande et la Norvége,
Seul, dans le grand silence et dans la grande nuit;
Derrière lui le monde obscur s’évanouit;
Il se trouva, lui, spectre, âme, roi sans royaume,
Nu, face à face avec l’immensité fantôme;
Il vit l’infini, porche horrible et reculant
Où l’éclair quand il entre expire triste et lent,
L’ombre, hydre dont les nuits sont les pâles vertèbres,
L’informe se mouvant dans le noir, les Ténèbres;
Là; pas d’astre; et pourtant on ne sait quel regard
Tombe de ce chaos immobile et hagard;
Pour tout bruit, le frisson lugubre que fait l’onde
De l’obscurité, sourde, effarée et profonde,
Il avança disant:—C’est la tombe; au delà
C’est Dieu.—Quand il eut fait trois pas, il appela;
Mais la nuit est muette ainsi que l’ossuaire,
Et rien ne répondit; pas un pli du suaire
Ne s’émut, et Kanut avança; la blancheur
Du linceul rassurait le sépulcral marcheur;
Il allait. Tout à coup, sur son livide voile
Il vit poindre et grandir comme une noire étoile;
L’étoile s’élargit lentement, et Kanut,
La tâtant de sa main de spectre, reconnut
Qu’une goutte de sang était sur lui tombée.
Sa tête, que la peur n’avait jamais courbée,
Se redressa, terrible, il regarda la nuit,
Et ne vit rien, l’espace était noir, pas un bruit.
—En avant! dit Kanut, levant sa tête fière.
Une seconde tache auprès de la première
Tomba, puis s’élargit, et le chef cimbrien
Regarda l’ombre épaisse et vague, et ne vit rien.
Comme un limier à suivre une piste s’attache,
Morne, il reprit sa route, une troisième tache
Tomba sur le linceul Il n’avait jamais fui;
Tomba sur le linceul. Il n avait jamais fui;
Kanut pourtant cessa de marcher devant lui,
Et tourna du côté du bras qui tient le glaive;
Une goutte de sang, comme à travers un rêve,
Tomba sur le suaire et lui rougit la main;
Pour la seconde fois il changea de chemin,
Comme en lisant on tourne un feuillet d’un registre,
Et se mit à marcher vers la gauche sinistre;
Une goutte de sang tomba sur le linceul;
Et Kanut recula, frémissant d’être seul,
Et voulut regagner sa couche mortuaire;
Une goutte de sang tomba sur le suaire.
Alors il s’arrêta livide, et ce guerrier,
Blême, baissa la tête et tâcha de prier,
Une goutte de sang tomba sur lui. Farouche,
La prière effrayée expirant dans sa bouche,
Il se remit en marche; et, lugubre, hésitant,
Hideux, ce spectre blanc passait; et, par instant,
Une goutte de sang se détachait de l’ombre,
Implacable, et tombait sur cette blancheur sombre.
Il voyait, plus tremblant qu’au vent le peuplier,
Ces taches s’élargir et se multiplier;
Une autre, une autre, une autre, une autre, ô cieux funèbres!
Leur passage rayait vaguement les ténèbres;
Ces gouttes, dans les plis du linceul, finissant
Par se mêler, faisaient des nuages de sang;
Il marchait, il marchait; de l’insondable voûte
Le sang continuait à pleuvoir goutte à goutte,
Toujours, sans fin, sans bruit, et comme s’il tombait
De ces pieds noirs qu’on voit la nuit pendre au gibet;
Hélas! qui donc pleurait ces larmes formidables?
L’infini. Vers les cieux, pour le juste abordables,
Dans l’océan de nuit sans flux et sans reflux,
Kanut s’avançait, pâle et ne regardant plus.
Enfin, marchant toujours comme en une fumée,
Il arriva devant une porte fermée
Sous laquelle passait un jour mystérieux;
Alors sur son linceul il abaissa les yeux;
C’était l’endroit sacré, c’était l’endroit terrible;
On ne sait quel rayon de Dieu semble visible;
De derrière la porte on entend l’hosanna.

Le linceul était rouge et Kanut frissonna.

Et c’est pourquoi Kanut, fuyant devant l’aurore

Et reculant, n’a pas osé paraître encore
Devant le juge au front duquel le soleil luit;
C’est pourquoi ce roi sombre est resté dans la nuit,
Et, sans pouvoir rentrer dans sa blancheur première,
Sentant, à chaque pas qu’il fait vers la lumière,
Une goutte de sang sur sa tête pleuvoir,
Rôde éternellement sous l’énorme ciel noir.
 LE MARIAGE DE ROLAND

Ils se battent—combat terrible!—corps à corps.

Voilà déjà longtemps que leurs chevaux sont morts;
Ils sont là seuls tous deux dans une île du Rhône.
Le fleuve à grand bruit roule un flot rapide et jaune,
Le vent trempe en sifflant les brins d’herbe dans l’eau.
L’archange saint Michel attaquant Apollo
Ne ferait pas un choc plus étrange et plus sombre.
Déjà, bien avant l’aube, ils combattaient dans l’ombre.
Qui, cette nuit, eût vu s’habiller ces barons,
Avant que la visière eût dérobé leurs fronts,
Eût vu deux pages blonds, roses comme des filles.
Hier, c’étaient deux enfants riant à leurs familles,
Beaux, charmants;—aujourd’hui, sur ce fatal terrain,
C’est le duel effrayant de deux spectres d’airain,
Deux fantômes auxquels le démon prête une âme,
Deux masques dont les trous laissent voir de la flamme.
Ils luttent, noirs, muets, furieux, acharnés.
Les bateliers pensifs qui les ont amenés
Ont raison d’avoir peur et de fuir dans la plaine,
Et d’oser, de bien loin, les épier à peine;
Car de ces deux enfants, qu’on regarde en tremblant,
L’un s’appelle Olivier et l’autre a nom Roland.

Et, depuis qu’ils sont là, sombres, ardents, farouches,

Un mot n’est pas encor sorti de ces deux bouches.

Olivier, sieur de Vienne et comte souverain,

A pour père Gérard et pour aïeul Garin.
Il f t b t h billé è
Il fut pour ce combat habillé par son père.
Sur sa targe est sculpté Bacchus faisant la guerre
Aux normands, Rollon ivre, et Rouen consterné,
Et le dieu souriant par des tigres traîné,
Chassant, buveur de vin, tous ces buveurs de cidre.
Son casque est enfoui sous les ailes d’une hydre;
Il porte le haubert que portait Salomon;
Son estoc resplendit comme l’œil d’un démon;
Il y grava son nom afin qu’on s’en souvienne;
Au moment du départ, l’archevêque de Vienne
A béni son cimier de prince féodal.

Roland a son habit de fer, et Durandal.

Ils luttent de si près avec de sourds murmures,
Que leur souffle âpre et chaud s’empreint sur leurs armures;
Le pied presse le pied; l’île à leurs noirs assauts
Tressaille au loin; l’acier mord le fer; des morceaux
De heaume et de haubert, sans que pas un s’émeuve,
Sautent à chaque instant dans l’herbe et dans le fleuve;
Leurs brassards sont rayés de longs filets de sang
Qui coule de leur crâne et dans leurs yeux descend.
Soudain, sire Olivier, qu’un coup affreux démasque,
Voit tomber à la fois son épée et son casque.
Main vide et tête nue, et Roland l’œil en feu!
L’enfant songe à son père et se tourne vers Dieu.
Durandal sur son front brille. Plus d’espérance!
—Çà, dit Roland, je suis neveu du roi de France,
Je dois me comporter en franc neveu de roi.
Quand j’ai mon ennemi désarmé devant moi,
Je m’arrête. Va donc chercher une autre épée,
Et tâche, cette fois, qu’elle soit bien trempée.
Tu feras apporter à boire en même temps,
Car j’ai soif.

—Fils, merci, dit Olivier.

—J’attends,
Dit Roland, hâte-toi.

Sire Olivier appelle

Un batelier caché derrière une chapelle.

—Cours à la ville, et dis à mon père qu’il faut

Une autre épée à l’un de nous, et qu’il fait chaud.

Cependant les héros, assis dans les broussailles,

S’aident à délacer leurs capuchons de mailles,
Se lavent le visage, et causent un moment.
Le batelier revient, il a fait promptement;
L’homme a vu le vieux comte; il rapporte une épée
Et du vin, de ce vin qu’aimait le grand Pompée
Et que Tournon récolte au flanc de son vieux mont.
L’épée est cette illustre et fière Closamont,
Que d’autres quelquefois appellent Haute-Claire.
L’homme a fui. Les héros achèvent sans colère
Ce qu’ils disaient; le ciel rayonne au-dessus d’eux;
Olivier verse à boire à Roland; puis tous deux
Marchent droit l’un vers l’autre, et le duel recommence.
Voilà que par degrés de sa sombre démence
Le combat les enivre; il leur revient au cœur
Ce je ne sais quel dieu qui veut qu’on soit vainqueur,
Et qui, s’exaspérant aux armures frappées,
Mêle l’éclair des yeux aux lueurs des épées.

Ils combattent, versant à flots leur sang vermeil.

Le jour entier se passe ainsi. Mais le soleil
Baisse vers l’horizon. La nuit vient.

—Camarade,
Dit Roland, je ne sais, mais je me sens malade.
Je ne me soutiens plus, et je voudrais un peu
De repos.
 —Je prétends, avec l’aide de Dieu,
Dit le bel Olivier, le sourire à la lèvre,
Vous vaincre par l’épée et non point par la fièvre.
Dormez sur l’herbe verte; et, cette nuit, Roland,
Je vous éventerai de mon panache blanc.
Couchez-vous et dormez.

—Vassal, ton âme est neuve,

Dit Roland. Je riais, je faisais une épreuve.
Sans m’arrêter et sans me reposer, je puis
Combattre quatre jours encore, et quatre nuits.

Le duel reprend. La mort plane, le sang ruisselle.

Durandal heurte et suit Closamont; l’étincelle
Jaillit de toutes parts sous leurs coups répétés.
L’ombre autour d’eux s’emplit de sinistres clartés.
Ils frappent; le brouillard du fleuve monte et fume;
Le voyageur s’effraye et croit voir dans la brume
D’étranges bûcherons qui travaillent la nuit.

Le jour naît, le combat continue à grand bruit;

La pâle nuit revient, ils combattent; l’aurore
Reparaît dans les cieux, ils combattent encore.

Nul repos. Seulement, vers le troisième soir,

Sous un arbre, en causant, ils sont allés s’asseoir;
Puis ont recommencé.

Le vieux Gérard dans Vienne

Attend depuis trois jours que son enfant revienne.
Il envoie un devin regarder sur les tours;
Le devin dit: Seigneur, ils combattent toujours.

Quatre jours sont passés, et l’île et le rivage

Tremblent sous ce fracas monstrueux et sauvage.
Ils vont viennent jamais fuyant jamais lassés
Ils vont, viennent, jamais fuyant, jamais lassés,
Froissent le glaive au glaive et sautent les fossés,
Et passent, au milieu des ronces remuées,
Comme deux tourbillons et comme deux nuées.
O chocs affreux! terreur! tumulte étincelant!
Mais enfin Olivier saisit au corps Roland,
Qui de son propre sang en combattant s’abreuve,
Et jette d’un revers Durandal dans le fleuve.

—C’est mon tour maintenant, et je vais envoyer

Chercher un autre estoc pour vous, dit Olivier.
Le sabre du géant Sinnagog est à Vienne.
C’est, après Durandal, le seul qui vous convienne.
Mon père le lui prit alors qu’il le défit.
Acceptez-le.

Roland sourit.—Il me suffit

De ce bâton.—Il dit, et déracine un chêne.

Sire Olivier arrache un orme dans la plaine

Et jette son épée, et Roland, plein d’ennui,
L’attaque. Il n’aimait pas qu’on vînt faire après lui
Les générosités qu’il avait déjà faites.

Plus d’épée en leurs mains, plus de casque à leurs têtes.

Ils luttent maintenant, sourds, effarés, béants,
A grands coups de troncs d’arbre, ainsi que des géants.

Pour la cinquième fois, voici que la nuit tombe.

Tout à coup Olivier, aigle aux yeux de colombe,
S’arrête et dit:

—Roland, nous n’en finirons point.

Tant qu’il nous restera quelque tronçon au poing,
Nous lutterons ainsi que lions et panthères.
Ne vaudrait-il pas mieux que nous devinssions frères?
É j’ i l b ll A d b bl
Écoute, j’ai ma sœur, la belle Aude au bras blanc,
Épouse-la.

—Pardieu! je veux bien, dit Roland.

Et maintenant buvons, car l’affaire était chaude.—

C’est ainsi que Roland épousa la belle Aude.

 AY M E R I L L O T

Charlemagne, empereur à la barbe fleurie,

Revient d’Espagne; il a le cœur triste, il s’écrie:
—Roncevaux! Roncevaux! ô traître Ganelon!
Car son neveu Roland est mort dans ce vallon
Avec les douze pairs et toute son armée.
Le laboureur des monts qui vit sous la ramée
Est rentré chez lui, grave et calme, avec son chien;
Il a baisé sa femme au front et dit: C’est bien.
Il a lavé sa trompe et son arc aux fontaines;
Et les os des héros blanchissent dans les plaines.

Le bon roi Charle est plein de douleur et d’ennui;

Son cheval syrien est triste comme lui.
Il pleure; l’empereur pleure de la souffrance
D’avoir perdu ses preux, ses douze pairs de France,
Ses meilleurs chevaliers qui n’étaient jamais las,
Et son neveu Roland, et la bataille, hélas!
Et surtout de songer, lui, vainqueur des Espagnes,
Qu’on fera des chansons dans toutes ces montagnes
Sur ses guerriers tombés devant des paysans,
Et qu’on en parlera plus de quatre cents ans!

Cependant il chemine; au bout de trois journées

Il arrive au sommet des hautes Pyrénées.
Là, dans l’espace immense il regarde en rêvant;
Et sur une montagne, au loin, et bien avant
Dans les terres, il voit une ville très forte,
Ceinte de murs avec deux tours à chaque porte.
Ell ff à i l it i i d l l i t i
Elle offre à qui la voit ainsi dans le lointain
Trente maîtresses tours avec des toits d’étain,
Et des mâchicoulis de forme sarrasine
Encor tout ruisselants de poix et de résine,
Au centre est un donjon si beau, qu’en vérité,
On ne le peindrait pas dans tout un jour d’été.
Ses créneaux sont scellés de plomb, chaque embrasure
Cache un archer dont l’œil toujours guette et mesure,
Ses gargouilles font peur, à son faîte vermeil
Rayonne un diamant gros comme le soleil,
Qu’on ne peut regarder fixement de trois lieues.

Sur la gauche est la mer aux grandes ondes bleues,

Qui jusqu’à cette ville apporte ses dromons.

Charle, en voyant ces tours, tressaille sur les monts.

—Mon sage conseiller, Naymes, duc de Bavière,

Quelle est cette cité près de cette rivière?
Qui la tient la peut dire unique sous les cieux.
Or, je suis triste, et c’est le cas d’être joyeux.
Oui, dussé-je rester quatorze ans dans ces plaines,
O gens de guerre, archers, compagnons, capitaines,
Mes enfants! mes lions! saint Denis m’est témoin
Que j’aurai cette ville avant d’aller plus loin!—

Le vieux Naymes frissonne à ce qu’il vient d’entendre.

—Alors, achetez-la, car nul ne peut la prendre.

Elle a pour se défendre, outre ses béarnais,
Vingt mille turcs ayant chacun double harnais.
Quant à nous, autrefois, c’est vrai, nous triomphâmes;
Mais, aujourd’hui, vos preux ne valent pas des femmes,
Ils sont tous harassés et du gîte envieux,
Et je suis le moins las, moi qui suis le plus vieux.
Sire, je parle franc et je ne farde guère.
D’ailleurs nous n’avons point de machines de guerre;
D’ailleurs, nous n’avons point de machines de guerre;
Les chevaux sont rendus, les gens rassasiés;
Je trouve qu’il est temps que vous vous reposiez,
Et je dis qu’il faut être aussi fou que vous l’êtes
Pour attaquer ces tours avec des arbalètes.

L’empereur répondit au duc avec bonté:

—Duc, tu ne m’as pas dit le nom de la cité?

—On peut bien oublier quelque chose à mon âge.

Mais, sire, ayez pitié de votre baronnage;
Nous voulons nos foyers, nos logis, nos amours.
C’est ne jouir jamais que conquérir toujours.
Nous venons d’attaquer bien des provinces, sire,
Et nous en avons pris de quoi doubler l’empire.
Ces assiégés riraient de vous du haut des tours.
Ils ont, pour recevoir sûrement des secours,
Si quelque insensé vient heurter leurs citadelles,
Trois souterrains creusés par les turcs infidèles,
Et qui vont, le premier, dans le val de Bastan,
Le second, à Bordeaux, le dernier, chez Satan.

L’empereur, souriant, reprit d’un air tranquille:

—Duc, tu ne m’as pas dit le nom de cette ville?

—C’est Narbonne,

—Narbonne est belle, dit le roi,

Et je l’aurai; je n’ai jamais vu, sur ma foi,
Ces belles filles-là sans leur rire au passage,
Et me piquer un peu les doigts à leur corsage.—

Alors, voyant passer un comte de haut lieu,

Et qu’on appelait Dreus de Montdidier.—Pardieu!
Comte, ce bon duc Naymes expire de vieillesse!
Mais vous, ami, prenez Narbonne, et je vous laisse
Tout le pays d’ici jusques à Montpellier;
Car vous êtes le fils d’un gentil chevalier;
Votre oncle, que j’estime, était abbé de Chelles;
Vous-même êtes vaillant; donc, beau sire, aux échelles!
L’assaut!

—Sire empereur, répondit Montdidier,

Je ne suis désormais bon qu’à congédier;
J’ai trop porté haubert, maillot, casque et salade;
J’ai besoin de mon lit, car je suis fort malade;
J’ai la fièvre; un ulcère aux jambes m’est venu;
Et voilà plus d’un an que je n’ai couché nu.
Gardez tout ce pays, car je n’en ai que faire.

L’empereur ne montra ni trouble ni colère.

Il chercha du regard Hugo de Cotentin:
Ce seigneur était brave et comte palatin.

—Hugues, dit-il, je suis aise de vous apprendre

Que Narbonne est à vous; vous n’avez qu’à la prendre.

Hugo de Cotentin salua l’empereur.

—Sire, c’est un manant heureux qu’un laboureur!

Le drôle gratte un peu la terre brune ou rouge,
Et, quand sa tâche est faite, il rentre dans son bouge.
Moi, j’ai vaincu Tryphon, Thessalus, Gaïffer;
Par le chaud, par le froid, je suis vêtu de fer;
Au point du jour, j’entends le clairon pour antienne;
Je n’ai plus à ma selle une boucle qui tienne;
Voilà longtemps que j’ai pour unique destin
De m’endormir fort tard pour m’éveiller matin,
De recevoir des coups pour vous et pour les vôtres,
Je suis très fatigué. Donnez Narbonne à d’autres.

Le roi laissa tomber sa tête sur son sein.

Chacun songeait, poussant du coude son voisin.
Pourtant Charle, appelant Richer de Normandie:
—Vous êtes grand seigneur et de race hardie,
Duc; ne voudrez-vous pas prendre Narbonne un peu?

—Empereur, je suis duc par la grâce de Dieu.

Ces aventures-là vont aux gens de fortune.
Quand on a ma duché, roi Charle, on n’en veut qu’une.

L’empereur se tourna vers le comte de Gand.

—Tu mis jadis à bas Maugiron le brigand.

Le jour où tu naquis sur la plage marine,
L’audace avec le souffle entra dans ta poitrine;
Bavon, ta mère était de fort bonne maison;
Jamais on ne t’a fait choir que par trahison;
Ton âme après la chute était encor meilleure.
Je me rappellerai jusqu’à ma dernière heure
L’air joyeux qui parut dans ton œil hasardeux,
Un jour que nous étions en marche seuls tous deux,
Et que nous entendions dans les plaines voisines
Le cliquetis confus des lances sarrasines.
Le péril fut toujours de toi bien accueilli,
Comte; eh bien! prends Narbonne, et je t’en fais bailli.

—Sire, dit le gantois, je voudrais être en Flandre.

J’ai faim, mes gens ont faim; nous venons d’entreprendre
Une guerre à travers un pays endiablé;
Nous y mangions, au lieu de farine de blé,
Des rats et des souris, et, pour toutes ribotes,
Nous avons dévoré beaucoup de vieilles bottes.
Et puis votre soleil d’Espagne m’a hâlé
Tellement, que je suis tout noir et tout brûlé;
Et, quand je reviendrai de ce ciel insalubre
Dans ma ville de Gand avec ce front lugubre,
Ma femme, qui déjà peut-être a quelque amant,
M d fl d!
Me prendra pour un maure et non pour un flamand!
J’ai hâte d’aller voir là-bas ce qui se passe.
Quand vous me donneriez, pour prendre cette place,
Tout l’or de Salomon et tout l’or de Pépin,
Non! je m’en vais en Flandre, où l’on mange du pain.

—Ces bons flamands, dit Charle, il faut que cela mange.—

Il reprit:

—Çà, je suis stupide. Il est étrange

Que je cherche un preneur de ville, ayant ici
Mon vieil oiseau de proie, Eustache de Nancy.
Eustache, à moi! Tu vois, cette Narbonne est rude;
Elle a trente châteaux, trois fossés, et l’air prude;
A chaque porte un camp, et, pardieu! j’oubliais,
Là-bas, six grosses tours en pierre de liais.
Ces douves-là nous font parfois si grise mine
Qu’il faut recommencer à l’heure où l’on termine,
Et que, la ville prise, on échoue au donjon.
Mais qu’importe! es-tu pas le grand aigle?

—Un pigeon,
Un moineau, dit Eustache, un pinson dans la haie!
Roi, je me sauve au nid. Mes gens veulent leur paie;
Or, je n’ai pas le sou; sur ce, pas un garçon
Qui me fasse crédit d’un coup d’estramaçon;
Leurs yeux me donneront à peine une étincelle
Par sequin qu’ils verront sortir de l’escarcelle.
Tas de gueux! Quant à moi, je suis très ennuyé;
Mon vieux poing tout sanglant n’est jamais essuyé;
Je suis moulu. Car, sire, on s’échine à la guerre;
On arrive à haïr ce qu’on aimait naguère,
Le danger qu’on voyait tout rose, on le voit noir;
On s’use, on se disloque, on finit par avoir
La goutte aux reins, l’entorse aux pieds, aux mains l’ampoule,
Si bien, qu’étant parti vautour, on revient poule.
Je désire un bonnet de nuit. Foin du cimier!