"Comme un geai sur l'arbre
Le roi se tient fier;
Son coeur est de marbre,
Son ventre est de chair.

"On a pour sa nuque
Et son front vermeil
Fait une perruque
Avec le soleil.

"Il règne, il végète
Effroyable zéro;
Sur lui se projette
L'ombre du bourreau.

"Son trône est une tombe,
Et sur le pavé
Quelque chose en tombe
Qu'on n'a point lavé."

But how to get the first line of the last stanza into five syllables I
cannot think. If ever I meet with the volume again I will look it out and
see how that _rude dompteur de syllables_ managed it. But stay, _son
trône est la tombe_; that makes the verse, and the generalisation would
be in the "line" of Hugo. Hugo--how impossible it is to speak of French
literature without referring to him. Let these, however, be the concluding
words: he thought that by saying everything, and saying everything twenty
times over, he would for ever render impossible the advent of another great
poet. But a work of art is valuable, and pleasurable in proportion to its
rarity; one beautiful book of verses is better than twenty books of