Allen Ginsberg’s notes on William Blake’s “The French Revolution” continue
AG: Anyway, we had that Duke hanging “over the council; around him croud, weeping in his burning robe,/A bright cloud of infant souls.” And then he’s got this great rhetorical call for war – “The King lean’d on his mountains..” – (leaned on his nobles – “leaned on” his mountains” (line one hundred-and-ten, page two-eight-seven) -“… lifted his head and look’d on his armies that shone/Through heaven, tinging morning with beams of blood…” – (And, so he turns to (the Duke of) Burgundy, and he dismisses Necker, who had advised compromise) – “..Necker rise, leave the kingdom, thy life is surrounded with snares” – (So, he tells Necker to leave) – “Depart, answer not, for the tempest must fall, as in years that are passed away.” – (And Necker leaves. They are going to Geneva (on line one- hundred-two-two))
Then, the next (personage who) rises, as in Milton’s council in Hell, (is).. the privileged clergy gets up, The Archbishop of Paris, (on line a-hundred-and-twenty-six). And so the Holy Ghost of religion is invoked in line a-hundred-thirty-one. He had a dream.. The Archbishop of Paris had a dream – “”An aged form, white as snow, hov’ring in mist, weeping in the uncertain light,/ Dim the form almost faded…”
So he has this dream that the bars of chaos are burst, and then this kind of a great rhetorical speech about”‘… the Nobles and Clergy shall fail from before me, and my cloud and vision be no more;/ ‘The mitre become black, the crown vanish, and the scepter and ivory staff/ Of the ruler wither among bones of death; they shall consume from the thistly field,/ And the sound of the bell, and voice of the sabbath, and singing of the holy choir,/ ‘Is turn’d into songs of the harlot in day, and cries of the virgin in night.'” And so forth.
So it’ll be… his dream ends, on line one-fifty.
“‘The King, frowning in purple, beside the grey plowman, and their worms embrace together.'” – (So he’s warning the King, like, I guess, on behalf.., (in) a prophetic religious prophecy) – ‘The voice ceas’d, a groan shook my chamber; I slept,….” – (So it’s the end of his dream. Then, he finishes his speech) – “These rebellious seditious; seal them up, O Anointed, in everlasting chains.” – (line a-hundred-and-fifty-eight) – “He sat down, a damp cold pervaded the Nobles, and monsters of worlds unknown/Swam round them..” – (that’s pretty good) – “..watching to be delivered.”
Then King Henry IV’, Aumont, in line one-hundred-sixty, enters the cabinet. And I think we spoke of that before. Who Henry IV was? – a king that wanted pacification and wanted a council of Europe so there’d be no more wars. So he comes in to advise… his ghost comes in to advise, a compromise. He comes in with the Abbe de Sieyes, in line one-sixty-four, and the Abbe….
tape ends here. – to be continued
{Audio for the above can be heard here, beginning at approximately forty-four minutes in and concluding at approximately forty-eight minutes in]