Citoyenne la traductrice jacobine

Today marks the 215th anniversary of the deaths of Maximilien and Augustin Robespierre, Saint-Just, Couthon, Dumas, Fleuriot-Lescot, Hanriot, Lavalette, Payan, Jean-Claude Bernard, Charles-Jacques-Mathieu Bougon, Christophe Cochefer, Jean-Barnabé Dhazard, Jean-Étienne Forestier, Antoine Gency, Adrien-Nicolas Gobeau, Nicolas Guérin, Denis-Étienne Laurent, Jean-Marie Quenet, Antoine Simon, Nicolas-Joseph Vivier, and Jacques-Louis-Frédéric Wouarmé on the scaffold, and of Le Bas, by his own hand. Requiescant in pace.

With them died the Republic of the Rights of Man and Citizen, of justice and democracy, but not the dream behind it, as the song I am posting today in their honor, dating to the Directoire, attests:
 

Le Dix Thermidor

10 Thermidor

Ah ! pauvre peuple, adieu le siècle d’or,

N’attends plus que peine et misère :

Il est passé dès le dix thermidor,

Jour qu’on immola Robespierre.

Ah! Poor people, farewell golden age!

No longer expect anything but pain and poverty:

It has happened since 10 Thermidor,

The day they immolated Robespierre.

Quand il vivait, il allégeait nos maux,

Il avait toute notre estime :

Les décemvirs, pour perdre ce héros,

L’accusent de leur propre crime.

Ah ! pauvre peuple, adieu le siècle d’or…

While he lived, he lessened our ills,

He had all our esteem:

To destroy this hero, the decemvirs

Accuse him of their own crime.

Ah! Poor people, farewell golden age!

Commune, aussi, tu fus de leur complot,

Avec eux tu brisas le trône ;

Pour t’en punir, tu meurs sur l’échafaud,

Et c’est le Sénat qui l’ordonne.

Il nous ravit cet heureux siècle d’or

Et nous plonge dans la misère,

En égorgeant, aux jours de thermidor,

Nos magistrats et Robespierre.

Commune, you too were part of their plot,

With them you smashed the throne;

To punish you for it, you died on the scaffold,

And on the Senate’s orders!

It takes that happy golden age from us

And plunges us into poverty,

By cutting the throats of our magistrates

And Robespierre in the days of Thermidor.

Républicains qui, dans ces jours d’horreur,

Sûtes échapper au carnage,

Rallions-nous et, d’une même ardeur,

Jurons de venger tant d’outrages.

Reconquérons notre heureux siècle d’or,

Exécrons celui de misère ;

Vengeons la France, et du dix thermidor,

Et de la mort de Robespierre.

Republicans who, in those days of horror,

Were able to escape the carnage,

Let us rally, and with equal ardor,

Let us swear to avenge so many outrages.

Let us win back our happy golden age,

Let us execrate that of poverty;

Let us avenge France, and 10 Thermidor,

And the death of Robespierre.