[Drop-head title:] The ashes of napoleon.
[s.i.].
[s.n.], [s.d., c. 1850]
Dimensions 110 x 260 mm.
Single sheet, printed on one side only. A trifle creased. Small tear to beginning of first line of text (without loss of sense).
An apparently unrecorded slip song lamenting the fate of Napoleon. The ballad casts the emperor as a flawed and tragic hero, betrayed by those whom he trusted and ultimately abandoned, yet ever gallant despite defeat. The final verse rejoices in the return of his remains from St. Helena to Paris in 1840:
'The bones of brave Napoleon that lay mouldering in the grave / In that great city of Paris a tomb has been erected / So splendidly, to contain his ashes and his heart, / Rich and poor who go that way, do joyfully tribute pay, / To the immortal memory of Napoleon Bonaparte'.
The Bodleian Libraries Broadside Ballads Online records an entirely different setting of the song (Bod21485, Roud Number: V497).
£ 150.00
Antiquates Ref: 24620
'The bones of brave Napoleon that lay mouldering in the grave / In that great city of Paris a tomb has been erected / So splendidly, to contain his ashes and his heart, / Rich and poor who go that way, do joyfully tribute pay, / To the immortal memory of Napoleon Bonaparte'.
The Bodleian Libraries Broadside Ballads Online records an entirely different setting of the song (Bod21485, Roud Number: V497).
