France in Disarray

RINGMASTER
The winter of eighty-eight and nine
Was aching cold, it chilled the very soul
They came from the country in twos and threes
A trickle, a river, a torrent, a sea
Driven by hunger, driven by pain

RINGMASTER
A hundred thousand reached the barricade

SERGEANT
Company...Halt!...
Present... Fire!...

RINGMASTER
Three hundred dead, shot down like rats
Three hundred lives, snuffed out like that
Have a care if you treat your people like vermin
You could end up with bloodstained ermine
But soft
As ever in the ebb and flow
Sweet reason, deft and incorrupt
Adoring of the human kind illuminates man's plight
Should he embrace
The brute and base
Tilt blindly at the carousel
Or note, at least, that other voice
And entertain the choice
Between the darkness and the light?