CLEMENT, Jean-Baptiste (1836-1903)

Autograph manuscript signed « JB Clément »
N.p, dated 23rd April 1869,  4 p. in-8°

« J’en couperai pour cette belle France / Dont j’ai chanté la gloire et les revers »

EUR 2.800,-
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CLEMENT, Jean-Baptiste (1836-1903)

Autograph manuscript signed « JB Clément »
N.p, dated 23rd April 1869,  4 p. in-8°
Sealed L’Eldorado, some corrections in the text

Very rare manuscript of the revolutionary composer entitled “Rondeau”


« Pan ! Pan ! c’est moi le chantre de Lisette
Et du grenier qui fut mon paradis ;
Du grand et Pierre attrapant la lorgnette
Ah ! Laissez-moi revoir mon vieux Paris

[…]

Sur ce refrain, au temps des grandes guerres,
Que nous culbutions Messieurs les Autrichien,
Vous mes enfants plus joyeux que vos pères
Vous chanterez l‘pied qui r’mue aux Prussiens

[…]

Si le temps fuit l’humanité demeure
Et chancelante et prête à tomber,
La lune trône et la misère pleure
Pâle, livide et lasse d’espérer

[…]

Bonsoir, enfan[t]s, je vais chez l’espérance
Parler de vous sous les grandes rumeurs vertes,
J’en couperai pour cette belle France
Dont j’ai chanté la gloire et les revers »


Consisting of 84 verses in decasyllables, this nostalgic manuscript on a war background seems to be unpublished and does not appear in the published texts of the composer. However, we will notice the stamp of L’Eldorado (on the left of the first folio), an establishment both café and theater opened in 1858 and located 4 boulevard de Strasbourg, in the tenth arrondissement. It is therefore possible that this song was produced there. It was in the same establishment that the famous Temps des Cerises, which became the anthem of the Paris Commune, was set to music the previous year.
After returning from exile in 1867, Jean-Baptiste Clément collaborated with various newspapers opposing the Second Empire. He was then convicted of publishing a newspaper not endorsed by the emperor. He was imprisoned in the Sainte-Pélagie prison until the republican uprising of September 4, 1870.