After the execution of Ravachol[9] the airs of the “_Ça Ira_” and the _Carmagnole_ were combined into a chanson called _La Ravachole_, which, in spite of this hybrid origin, may fairly be classed as the latest and by far the most vindictive version of the _Carmagnole_.
_Dans la grande ville de Paris (bis) Il y a des bourgeois bien nourris, (bis) Il y a les miséreux Qui ont le ventre creux. Ceux-là ont les dents longues, Vive le son, vive le son, Ceux-là ont les dents longues, Vive le son D’ l’explosion._
_Dansons la Ravachole, Vive le son, vive le son, Dansons la Ravachole, Vive le son D’ l’explosion. Ah, ça ira, ça ira, ça ira, Tous les bourgeois goût’ront d’ la bombe, Ah, ça ira, ça ira, ça ira, Tous les bourgeois on les saut’ra, On les saut’ra._
_Il y a les magistrats vendus, (bis) Il y a les financiers ventrus, (bis) Il y a les argosins; Mais pour tous ces coquins Il y a d’ la dynamite, Vive le son, vive le son, Il y a d’ la dynamite, Vive le son D’ l’explosion!_
_Il y a les sénateurs gâteux, (bis) Il y a les députés véreux, (bis) Il y a les généraux, Assassins et bourreaux, Bouchers en uniforme, Vive le son, vive le son, Bouchers en uniforme, Vive le son D’ l’explosion._
_Il y a les hôtels des richards (bis) Tandis que les pauvres déchards (bis) A demi-morts de froid Et souffrant dans leurs doigts. Refilent la comète, Vive le son, vive le son, Refilent la comète, Vive le son D’ l’explosion._
_Ah, nom de dieu, faut en finir! (bis) Assez longtemps geindre et souffrir! (bis) Pas de guerre à moitié! Plus de lâche pitié! Mort à la bourgeoisie, Vive le son, vive le son, Mort à la bourgeoisie, Vive le son D’ l’explosion!_
The revolutions of 1830, 1848, and 1871, as well as the Great Revolution, left to the people generous heritages of bourgeois-baiting _chansons_. The barricades of those agitated periods rang with lyric improvisations born of the ferment and frenzy of the hour. The authors were oftener clerks or day labourers than they were poets or professional _chansonniers_, and their songs, many of the best of which have survived, were genuine songs of the people. But the one supremely great _chanson populaire révolutionnaire_ of the last half of the century just closed, a song as striking in its way as the _Carmagnole_, the “_Ça Ira_,” the _Père Duchêne_, or the _Marseillaise_, is the _Internationale_. Wherever there is revolt or faith in revolt, brotherhood or yearning after brotherhood, this stupendous hymn of the religion of humanity (for it is much more a hymn than a _chanson_) is fervidly and reverently sung. The _Internationale_ has something of the profundity and awfulness of Martin Luther’s “_Ein’ Feste Burg_.” Like that marvellous psalm, it is at once uplifting and crushing. In concept it is probably the biggest song of liberty that has ever been written. It is surely the biggest in this respect of all the French revolutionary _chansons_. As the _Marseillaise_, with its fierce, defiant staccatos and fiery, resistless appeal, is the perfect lyric expression of the fury of onset (_furia francese_) in the field, and as the _Carmagnole_, with its madly reeling, rolling, booming rhythms and its terrible, mocking, blasphemous mirth, is the perfect lyric expression of the drunkenness and dare-devilness of mobs and barricades, so the _Internationale_, with its slow, solemn, stately measure and its universal reach of feeling and of thought, is the perfect lyric expression of the eternal might and majesty of humanity. Hearing it, it is as if one heard the cadenced beat of the million-millioned tread of the advancing race, sweeping all barriers of pride and prejudice before it.
