How, in the Tuilleries palace,
The glass-windows gleam gay and bright!
Yet, the familiar old specters,
Still wander there, in broad day-light.
The famous flora pavilion
Is haunted by Marie Antoinette;
She holds there her morning-rituals,
With the strictest etiquette.
Fully dressed court-ladies are there,
Standing or sitting around the place,
Dressed in satin and gold brocade,
Adorned by jewelry and lace.
Their waists are tight, their petticoats
Swell, and underneath them peep
Their pretty high-heeled small feet.
If only their heads they could keep!
None of the lot has a head on,
The queen herself is missing
A head, therefore her Majesty
Goes around with no hair-dressing,
She, who had so much dignity,
With hair as high as a tower,
Maria Theresa's daughter,
Descendant of German power.
She is now reduced to haunt,
Without a head, without her hair,
Amongst all her maids of honor,
Who, her grim fate, appear to share.
The revolution is to blame,
With so pernicious a doctrine-
At fault are Jean Jacques Rousseau,
Voltaire and the guillotine.
Yet, strange as it may be, I think
That the poor creatures, though dead,
Didn't realize how dead they are,
Nor that they have lost their head!
Here the ladies bow and scrape,
Like always, falsely smiling,
And all those curtsies with no heads
Are both funny and appalling.
A first tirewoman brings a linen
Shirt and curtsies politely;
A second hands it to the queen
And both retire slowly.
The third and fourth ladies curtsy
And bend before the queen so low,
As to be in a position,
Her majesty's stockings to draw.
A maid of honor curtsying brings
The queen's robe for the morning;
Another maid curtsying arrives,
The queen's petticoat, holding.
The mistress of the robes stands there,
She is fanning her white bosom,
And in the absence of a head,
Happily smiles with her bottom.
The sun which through the window
Threw glances of inquisition,
Shudders in fearful amazement,
At such a dreadful apparition.