Honore that was said to have turned half the moustache of Henri of
Navarre suddenly white, from a presentiment of the crime which has become
known as the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Here, in 1648, the barricade was
raised which gave the signal for all the troubles of the Fronde. It was at
No 3--then called L'Auberge des Trois Pigeons--that Ravaillac was lodging
when he was waiting to murder Henry IV.; here the first gun was fired in
the Revolution of July, 1830, which overturned Charles X.; and here, in
the Revolution of 1848, a bloody combat took place between the insurgents
and the military. Throughout this street, as Marie Antoinette was first
entering Paris, the poissardes brought her bouquets, singing:
"La rose est la reine des fleurs.
Antoinette est la reine des coeurs."
("The rose is the queen of flowers, Antoinette is the queen of hearts")
and here, as she was being taken to the scaffold, they crowded round her
execution-cart and shouted:
"Madame Veto avait promis
De faire egorger tout Paris,
Mais son coup a manque
Grace a nos canonniers;
Dansons la carmagnole
Au bruit du son
Du canon!"
("Madame Veto had promised to have the throat cut of all Paris, but her
attempt failed, thanks to our gunners.
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