French Revolution 1790
Source; Philippe d'Orléans et le ci-devant Comte de Mirabeau jugé par le Père Duchesne. Imprimerie du Père Duchesne, Paris, 1790;
Translated: from the original for marxists.org by Mitchell Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2012.
On October 5-6, 1789 a largely female crowd went from Paris to Versailles to demand, among other things, bread. Upon arriving in Versailles their spokesman read a statement saying: “We are in Versailles to demand bread and at the same time to punish the bodyguards who insulted the cockade.” During the night the crowd invaded the royal apartments. As a result the king returned to Paris, led by the insurrectionists. Philippe d'Orléans and Mirabeau were put on trial at the Châtelet shortly thereafter as fomenters of the movement, and Père Duchesne leapt to their defense.
Good gold almighty! And so it seems there will always be conspiracies, always be damned scoundrels eager to harm true patriots. I'm not to be allowed a single instant of joy without being immediately forced to become angry again. You millions of the squadrons, I was so happy yesterday, but I have no choice but to get angry today.
M. d'Orléans and you M. Mirabeau, I call you before my tribunal. Know that it is as fearsome as the one where Camille Desmoulins, my good friend, worked as the procurator general. And so come to me, dear buggers, I am going to examine your affair. Come too, you witnesses who testified against them: I am going to give to each in accordance to his works.
As soon as I heard of the denunciations of the investigations committee against the brave men who were at Versailles I swore like a mad man. Fuck, I said, I'm cooked, me as well as the good citizens. We went to ask for bread from the Baker and the Bakeress and they want to hang us for doing so. Millions of bombardments! The buggers lied about this, but when I later learned that they accused you of being the authors of our just initiative; when I saw that they charged you with riling us up, then I got a second wind. Godammit, I wasn’t so much of a dope as to not see what was really happening.
It was especially when the trial at the Châtelet made known the damned witnesses who testified in your affair that I was reassured. Malouet, Virieux, Bergasse and a heap of good for nothings who are only happy in the midst of disorder, insisted on interpreting a movement that was caused by hunger and rumors as the kidnapping of the king in Metz. The damn scoundrels put forth as a pretext a plot aimed at destroying both the brave Parisians and you who lash out at them. Fuck! This is what I immediately figured out. If all the witnesses who accuse you had been buggers devoted to the Revolution I would have perhaps condemned you. If their depositions would have seemed to me as serious and strong as they are futile and vain, fuck, Père Duchesne would have looked more closely at the projects they claim you carried out. But he would nonetheless have seen that they were mad and impracticable. He would have considered the corrupters and the good for nothings who it is said allowed themselves to be corrupted. Name of a Rammed Musket Ball! Do you think he would have been so bad a citizen as to imagine that our brothers of the faubourg Saint-Antoine are capable of accepting money to commit murder? Come on, Monsieur d'Orléans, in this regard Père Duchesne echoes the public, he speaks for himself: you aren’t guilty and the shame falls on your accusers who God confounds and on the witnesses who slandered you.
You, Monsieur Mirabeau, who but yesterday deserved a civic crown because of your decree on the assignats, your glory has not been tarnished. But despite what I just said, don’t think that you are exempt from crime.
But fuck! Do people want to know what your true crimes are, those which would perhaps lead both of you to the gallows if we had failed in our great undertaking? You, Duc d'Orléans, it is that of not having been a good for nothing like the other former princes; it’s that of having foreseen from the beginning of the Revolution everything that would follow; of having preferred the role of an honest and loyal citizen to that of a damn vagabond; of having remained in your fatherland to encourage by your example those who avenged the rights of the people; of having protected and relieved those the damn scum wanted to crush, to slaughter; finally, of having been the hope, the savior of an empire they wanted to ravage and destroy. Fuck yes: these are your crimes, goddammit. They were what kept you far from us when your presence alone was our hope for salvation.
You who are insulted and slandered by a heap of good for nothings: what were your crimes, Mirabeau? That of having trampled on the stupid prejudices that fucking animals place above merit and virtue; of having preferred to be a man of talent rather than a courtier; of having detested those damn rascals who were once called the great who had been your executioners, who had thrown the people in dungeons from the time they were in their cribs. Yes, good God, there’s no doubt about it: it’s for having become our friend, the avenger of reason and humanity that those infamous good for nothings swore to destroy you.
Far from offending you the insults of buggers like these sing your praises. If, like Tragnier’s mad bulldog, you would have bayed against the National Assembly the damn rogues who were judges at the Châtelet, far from accusing you would have found you to be white as snow. In any case, everything nature has produced that is most wretched, the execrable monsters who wanted to murder us, drink our blood: the abominable l'Ambesc, de Broglio, and Bezenval are still alive and it’s that damn gambling den that has the balls to accuse you today, it’s the vile Châtelet that absolved them. This alone suffices to prove your innocence.
What is more, all the accusations that these damn good for nothings have published are nothing but crap that are not in the least bit true, and if an army of wretches like those who testify against you swore to it I would care as little as I do about the pope’s balls.
Have we ever seen anything as bold as these worthless judgments? How could these damn good for nothings not have feared that this people, which exterminated its tyrants, which crushed so many sacred dogs under the ruins of the Bastille so many sacred dogs would not seek vengeance for their iniquities and not hang them in place of the lampposts that surround the Châtelet? Oh, I would have taught them how to correctly render justice. The first time they would have arrested some aristocrat I would have prevented them from opening the fucking back door. It doesn’t matter if I was the hundredth or the thousandth I would have gone to that Châtelet and I would have said, “Let’s go, goddamit, here is the evidence of the witnesses; interrogate these scoundrels,” and then, off with their heads with no dithering...Oh good god, if they'd allowed me to have my way... This is how I see things, you gangrened wretches of judges and aristocrats...
And so all of you, you wretched good for nothings, enemies of the public good and the friends of our glorious revolution, be assured of the contempt you deserve. Learn, fuck it all, that the good patriots don’t give a fuck about your plotting against them.
You would have been punished long ago if the good people of Paris hadn’t respected the character you garbed yourself in, even when it covered the malicious intentions of counter-revolutionaries. Know that your rage, your tantrums are no longer feared. Tell your good for nothing of a confrere, that Desprémenil – who dared sully the Assembly with the excesses of his delirium – that men like Barnave, Lameth, Mirabeau, d'Orléans, and Robespierre are surrounded by brave buggers who will defend them come what may. Tell that ex-councilor that he can chant his crap all he wants, but we'll no longer be fooled by his nonsense. Fuck it all to hell, fellow citizens, my friends, my brothers: don’t forget what Père Duchesne tells you today: Philippe d'Orléans and Mirabeau the elder have the unquestionable right to the gratitude of all good Frenchmen and if you want the proof of this it is the persecution the fucking aristocrats are inflicting on them.