And will look well upon a billet-doux. Arn. Or in an order for a battle-field. Cæs. (sings). To horse! to horse! my coal-black steed Paws the ground and snuffs the air! There's not a foal of Arab's breed 550 More knows whom he must bear; [The so-called statue of Memnon, the beautiful son of Tithonus and Eos (Dawn), is now known to be that of Amenhotep III., who reigned in the eighteenth dynasty, about 1430 B.C. Strabo was the first to record the musical note which sounded from the statue when it was touched by the rays of the rising sun. It used to be argued that the sounds were produced by a trick, but of late years it has been maintained that the Memnon's wail was due to natural causes, the pressure of suddenly-warmed currents of air through the pores and crevices of the stone. After the statue was restored, the phenomenon ceased.] On the hill he will not tire, And will not such a voyage be sweet? [Charles de Bourbon, Comte de Montpensier, was born, February 17, 1490. He was ap pointed Constable of France by Francis I., January, 1515, and fought at the battle of Marignano, September 13. 1515- Not long afterward he lost the favour of the king who was set against him by his mother, Louise de Savoie, and was recalled from his command in Italy. After the death of his wife (Susanne Duchesse de Bourbon) in 1521, he broke with Francis and attached himself to the Emperor, Charles V. After various and varying successes, both in the South of France and in Lombardy, he found himself, in the spring of 1527, not so much the commander-in-chief as the popular cape of a mixed body of German, Spanish, and Italian condottieri, unpaid and ill-disciplined, who had mutinied more than once, who could only be kept together by the prospect of unlimited booty, and a timely concession to their demands. "To Rome! to Rome !" cried the hungry and tumultuous landsknechts, and on May 5, 1527, the "late Constable of France." at the head of an army of 30.000 troops, appeared before the walls of the sacred city. On the morning of the 6th of May, he was killed by a shot from an arquebuse. His epitaph recounts his honours: Aucto Imperio, Gallo victo, Superatâ Italiâ, Pontifice obsesso. Româ Captâ, Borbonius, Hic Jacet;" but in Paris they painted the sill of his gate-way yellow, because he was a renegade and a traitor. He could not have said, with the dying Bayard, "Ne me plaignez pas - je meurs sans avoir servi contre ma pairie, mon roy, et mon serment."] The battles of the monarchs of the wild And wood the lion and his tusky rebels Of the then untamed desert, brought to joust Song of the Soldiers within. The black bands came over The Alps and their snow; With Bourbon, the rover, They passed the broad Po. We have beaten all foemen, We have captured a King,1 We have turned back on no men, And so let us sing! Here's the Bourbon for ever! Though penniless all, We'll have one more endeavour With the Bourbon we'll gather Or break or climb o'er The wall: on the ladder, 130 An indifferent song For those within the walls, methinks, Bourb. Phil. Doubt not our soldiers. Were the walls of adamant, They'd crack them. Hunger is a sharp artillery. 180 Bourb. That they will falter is my least of fears. That they will be repulsed, with Bourbon for Their chief, and all their kindled appe tites To marshal them on- were those hoary walls [Brantôme (Memoires, etc., 1722, i. 215) quotes a "chanson" of "Les soldats Espagnols" as they marched Romewards. Calla calla Julio Cesar, Hannibal, y Scipion! Viva la fama de Bourbon."] |