Please burn immediately because of one line.
My dear little d'Albu, I found these idiotic verses and I'm copying them out for you.
A rich marriage may Albu make,
What's more, sufficiently ducal;
As for the rest it's all the same;
The Duchesse doesn't care.
Love, happiness may turn our heads,
Beautiful eyes, triumphal smile,
They turn away a rich young man
From contemplating the armorial:
The Duchesse doesn't care.
The Duc smiles into his beard;
His son is a Marquis and not badly off,
He must make a rich marriage
And worthy of his ancestral name.
If his wild life, lying fallow,
Is deprived its ideal happiness
If he heads off on the richer course
Like an ox led to the stall,
What matter! Marquis and not badly off,
In the patriarchal sphere,
He must make a good marriage
And worthy of his ancestral name.
For the rest it's all the same:
The Duchesse doesn't care.
The table is melancholy where are placed
These stale aristocrats
Who neither wished nor knew how to live,
And the young man with heart aflame
Who conceived the imprudent dream
To be both dreamer and lover
Intoxicated by a little heavenly love!
So his conduct is shocking:
It is life, it is April,
Between them and him nothing pleases.
He breaks a piece of bread
And the proud hearted Duchesse
Who, moreover doesn't care,
Seeing him take his bread
Says: "So what use is your hand?
One would think one was seeing on the road
A peasant gnawing on a loaf."
Dedication
Duchesse I am a poet
Which is to say a worthless man.
To have a name, to do well
Never, alas, was any concern to me.
People, if one is born Des Cars,
Keep their distance from you
Like Little Tich,
Preferring to brave lascars
A La Rochefoucauld who cheats!
Be one as beautiful as Ceres
And be one born Cambacérès
Me, I don't care!
One single thing to me is precious
Which is the friendship of Louis.
To keep his exquisite heart for any length of time
Is a bold chimera.
Having no ancestral name,
Being neither noble nor rich,
Everything else is indifferent for me:
With your ducal permision,
When all's said and done I don't care!
Poem sent to Louis d'Albufera, March or May 1904, in the form of a
pastiche of a medieval ballad, before his marriage. Beaussant Lefèvre,
Drouot, Paris, 10 July 2019, Lot 7.
Created 14.06.2019