‘In my father’s garden the lilacs are in bloom
In my father’s garden the lilacs are in bloom
And all the birds in all the world come here to make their nest
My little blonde lassie
Let me sleep beside you now
My little blonde lassie
Sleep beside me now
All the birds in all the world come here to make their nest
All the birds in all the world come here to make their nest
Quails and turtledoves and pretty partridges too’
On the great royal highway leading to Bordeaux, a uniformed miquelet, on foot at the head of the column, was singing at the top of his lungs, bellowing the couplets of a song that the other soldiers would soon drum out with their heels behind him, as they picked up the refrain:
‘My little blonde lassie
Let me sleep beside you now
My little blonde lassie
Sleep beside me now’
This miquelet, a Sergeant Cartet by name, was a thick brutish fellow, fond of his blade. He wore his moustache as if it were the hilt of a dagger, curled back with a curling iron, and he sang, his mouth open wide on his black, crumbling teeth;
‘Quails and turtledoves and pretty partridges too
Quails and turtledoves and pretty partridges too
And my lovely dove who sings both day and night
My little blonde lassie
Let me sleep beside you now
My little blonde lassie
Sleep beside me now’
They sang the refrain in a chorus, and all the accents of France were to be heard, for the enlisted men came from many parts of the realm. They followed Cartet, who was marching them to Catalonia, and they listened as he belted out:
‘And my pretty dove who sings both day and night
And my pretty dove who sings both day and night
Who sings for all the girls who have not found a mate
My little blonde lassie
Let me sleep beside beside you now
My little blonde lassie
Sleep beside me now
Who sings for all the girls who have not found a mate
Who sings for all the girls who have not found a mate
She does not sing for me, for I’ve a lovely one’
Montespan, on horseback, smiled when he came upon the sergeant with the fearsome moustache singing of a lovely mate.
‘My little blonde lassie
Let me sleep beside you now
My little blonde lassie
Sleep beside me now
She does not sing for me, for I’ve a lovely one
She does not sing for me, for I’ve a lovely one
Tell us then, my lovely, where’s your husband dear?’
Louis-Henri looked away and thought of Athénaïs: before he had left Paris, he had signed a ‘general power of attorney granting the right to govern all their common property during his absence’, for he trusted her wholly and entirely.
‘My little blonde lassie
Let me sleep beside you now
My little blonde lassie
Sleep beside me now
Tell us then, my lovely, where’s your husband dear?
Tell us then, my lovely, where’s your husband dear?
He’s gone off to Holland, the Dutch have kept him there’
The marquis found himself humming along.
‘My little blonde lassie
Let me sleep beside you now
My little blonde lassie
Sleep beside me now’
The loving husband rode alongside the convoy, a pale, handsome cavalryman beneath the banner of the Duc de Noailles. In his saddle holsters he had slipped his fair lady’s stockings. Sometimes he lifted them out to sniff them.
The road climbed up the first hills. They went past meadows into a silent village, where not a cockerel or an anvil was to be heard; the inhabitants had bolted themselves indoors. Not a cloud, not a breath of air, nothing was stirring. Wasps flew here and there, black and yellow.
The journey was long and so was their marching song – fortunately, for it passed the time. They had left at the end of January and would not reach their destination until the beginning of March, to combat the Spanish Angelets. Away on the horizon there were peasants in the fields, who moved away when they noticed the soldiers.
‘He’s gone off to Holland, the Dutch have kept him there.
He’s gone off to Holland, the Dutch have kept him there.
What would you give, fair lady, your husband for to see?’
Following the troops was a baggage train, burdened with trunks and pulled by mules. Montespan, in his blue coat, the plumes of his hat rising into the sky, pulled on the reins and let the miquelets march ahead of him, in their outfits of red broadcloth; many of them would be killed. ‘To die, to sleep,’ says Shakespeare. If ’tis but that … thought the marquis dismissively. He pulled up next to a cart covered in a tarpaulin and lifted up the grey canvas.
‘My little blonde lassie
Let me sleep beside you now
My little blonde lassie
Sleep beside me now
What would you give, fair lady, your husband for to see?
What would you give, fair lady, your husband for to see?
I’d give all Versailles, Paris and Saint-Denis’
Beneath the tarpaulin, sheltered from the light, little Marie-Christine slept stretched out on sacks of gunpowder, dried meat and salt, among bushels of candles and jugs of vinegar. Louis-Henri would make a detour through Bonnefont and leave his daughter with Chrestienne de Zamet.
‘My little blonde lassie
Let me sleep beside you now
My little blonde lassie
Sleep beside me now
I’d give all Versailles, Paris and Saint-Denis
I’d give all Versailles, Paris and Saint-Denis
The towers of Notre-Dame and my own church bells’
Perhaps the child was dreaming of her mother as she moved her lips. Sometimes it seemed she, too, was murmuring:
‘My little blonde lassie
Let me sleep beside you now
My little blonde lassie
Sleep beside me now’