ROUGET DE LISLE, Claude Joseph (1760-1836)

ROUGET DE LISLE, Claude Joseph (1760-1836)

Autograph poem: « L’Époux malheureux »
N.p.n.d., 2 p. in-folio
Inventory shelfmark in another hand; slightly frayed, with browning and fold marks.
Overwritings in the hand of Rouget de Lisle.

Moving poem on marital infidelity and the betrayal of a friend

« Ô vous qui portez dans mon cœur
L’effroi, l’horreur, la mort, la rage,
Ingrats ! venez voir votre ouvrage,
Venez jouir de mon malheur

[…]

Errant au milieu des ténèbres
Sur le bord des rocs menaçants,
Aux accens des oiseaux funèbres
Je joins mes lugubres accens.
Seul, isolé dans la nature,
Pleurant sur vos noirs attentats,
Je ne vois aux maux que j’endure
D’autre terme que le trépas

Perfide épouse ! ami parjure !
Je vous aimais si tendrement !
Puis-je avoir mérité l’injure
Qui fait ma honte et mon tourment ?
Couple abhorré ! Couple exécrable !
Vous fuyez en vain mon courroux :
Des dieux la foudre inévitable
Gronde, et va me venger de vous » etc.

Intended to be sung, the poem consists of three eight-line stanzas and a quatrain serving as a refrain. In the 1895 Didot edition of the Essais en vers et en prose, an epigraph by Rouget de Lisle (which does not appear on the present manuscript) sheds light on the context of this tragedy: “A young officer, married only recently to a woman he adored, had brought one of his comrades, his intimate friend, to live in his home. After three months, obliged to be away for a few days, he returns to find his wife and his friend gone, leaving unequivocal proof of their understanding. It was learned afterward that they had gone to Italy. It is this unfortunate husband who speaks.”