Renewal

We are all rested and recovered from the traumatic onslaught of the nuns of Notre Dame. The results of such an inauspicious demoralization have been bittersweet, for though we are at a indisputable disadvantage, given our impecuniosity, our deplorable esurience, and our increasingly nidorous body odour, we have managed to retain our inimitable winsomeness and charming good looks.

In spite of this immediate impasse, our crushing defeat has only determined our resolve to rid the French nation of the malignant brume that cripples and corrupts the quixotic and doe-eyed shavelings of our youth.

We have camped outside of Rocamadour by the banks of L'Alzou, a few miles short of its grand meeting with L'Ouysse. Here we are cradled by sky, witnessed by clouds, and slowly cosseted to sleep by the balmy lullabies of stars. In spite of Monsieur Ives' perpetual swearing our surroundings are somewhat serene and gentle, though I don't trust that bower of trees over there.

Monsieur Rameau's foot has been rendered almost entirely useless, but he insists the pain has subsided. What remains (and this is certainly not for the weak of constitution) is a stub of a foot, as all of his toes have been emancipated from thralldom to the inexorable ordinances of his base appendage. He sleeps now, dreaming of sailing away on the Dordogne or consuming goat cheese with impetuous voracity.

Monsieur Riesling has been nursing his head in the placid waters of L'Alzou, as he comments that there are over a hundred new visitors to his crown, displaying quite proudly the bruises and bumps that now rest upon his flesh, exacted by the cruel lambaste of the Mother Superior.

Monsieur Ives in between intermittent bouts of crude vituperations has been singing La Marseillaise, the sui generis of revolution, la chant de guerre de l'Armee du Rhin. How we long for the day when we march past the Theatre Marigny and the Grand Palais echoing these words in celestial chorus, knowing that our lives are free from the bondage of these gentlemen of malfeasance, excremental maharajas of venality.

Monsieur D'Alsace has composed a poem, he scrawled these fine words upon the bark of a tree with his French legion issued camping knife:

Perhaps my name isn't Gautier at all
It is in fact, dot dot dot
Because noone said happy birthday to me this year
And that's just awful

I'm so tired and hungry
That someone had better feed me soon
Because though I'm sure there are fish in this river
I'm not very good at anything, especially not fishing

Where is the end of this long struggle?
Maybe over there, by that tree with the odd branch
Slightly resembling a rather rude extremity
But probably not as that would be silly

I think I'll go to sleep now
Because I'm bored, and there's nothing else to do
I wish I hadn't fainted in the church
Because I'm not scared

- Gautier D'Alsace, 10th of April, in the year of our Lord, 1913
Rocamadour, by the banks of L'Alzou
- -

Perhaps we are the cullions of the world, but we'll die with honour at the expense of that opinion, and dine on olives and caviar on the divans of empyrean, bathed in celestial light by the gracious effulgence of crystal azure.

Tomorrow we exact our revenge.