[Mazarinades[ - Le Babillard du Temps 1649 - 1649

The Babbler of Time in Verse Burlesques, 1649.
For sale: rare journal of the Fronde Le Babillard du Temps, 1649, six issues of 8 pages each. Complete publication from during the siege of Paris.
No 1: “Since Babillard they name me/ I will spare no one/ I am under and full of wine/ I want to speak of Tabarin/ Tabarin this Marinique/ This man is perfidious and unworthy/ Who has no God nor Faith nor Law/ Who has seized our King/ And made our City sit/ Like a bad and unskilled man/ By great Prince of Condé/ Whom he has enchanted without delay/…
It is Condé who will not listen/ This day to rhyme nor reason/ And who inside some houses/ Has had fire and flames set/ Is it not a great blasphemy for him/ To permit that his soldiers/ Like thieves and plunderers/ Strip men in their shirts/ And steal the Church’s Goods/ Violent women and young girls/ Acting uncivilly/ Like the Turks and Barbarians…
Mazarin has come by post/ But the door has been shut in his face/ By telling him frankly/ That they did not want his chatter/…
No 2: I want to speak of Gratelard/ The valiant champion La Rivière/ Who understands well the proper way/ To deal with Mazarin/ Making him blush the snout/ With punches more than four/…
Everyone runs to the Halles/ The millers-and-winders of a cabal/ Do not show much bread/ To cry of hunger/ To have some, one keeps quarrelling, killing one another…
No 3: I will speak of a great change/ That arrived recently/ Friday the world swears/ Some cry out, others murmur/ Say they want bread/ But the Boulanger, too clever/ Says he has no flour/ Thus the people look sadly/ And say they will strike down/ Those who do not give them any/…
We do not want Mazarin/ Especially since he is cunning/… Others fearing too much the siege/ Say that he will stay in Liège/ In Modena or Piombino/ Wherever he wears his domino/ His bonnet and his bag/ Not too lightly, having through his unheard-of deeds/ A full supply of Louis/…
No 5: God will grant us grace/ To vanquish those who mean harm/ In Paris and the Cardinal may boast and say/ He must die as a martyr/ Thus it is said Nostradamus/ And the great Poluphémus/ In three or four centuries..
Let us speak of the Prince of Conty/ Who is matched in valor/ By beauty and good grace/ … Every day he goes to works/ With the other generals/ Keeps working hard and fast/ On the lines and the ramparts/ To prevent our enemies/ From doing what they promised/ To that devil Cardinal/ Who is worse than a horse/…
For true, the Duke of Longueville/ Has a very fine army/ That is lodged today/ In Rouen in the faubourg/ And they set out to march/ To go as far as Pont de l’Arche/… ”
** At the end of No 2, the author indicates that the Reader should buy only the Babillard printed at La Vigne. There are probably counterfeit copies.
*** If disturbances break out in the provinces at Rouen, Bordeaux, and Aix-en-Provence, if the Parliament of Paris has managed to neutralize the municipality and the prévôt of merchants, the siege of the city is nonetheless effective. The bread granaries around Paris no longer feed the city and the price of bread quadruples in two months. The Charenton battle won by the royal army on February 8, 1649 against small groups of Frondeurs prevents any relief. The king’s soldiers ravage the south of Paris. La Rochefoucauld is wounded in the throat by a gunshot during a engagement at Brie-Comte-Robert…
* Port with declared value at the Post.