18 Brumaire

(On November 9, 1799 Napoleon Buonaparte launched his coup d'etat in Paris. It made him a dictator, and corrupted him beyond salvation. 18 Brumaire was the date of the coup, by the revolutionary calendar in use at the time.) As climbing greasy poles habitually goes, this wasn't (one must say) exactly polished. To be roughed-up – but by politicos! Can't blame them: no-one likes to be abolished (especially not these ego-bloated shysters!) What else? Oh, in a paroxysm of rage, in distant climes, eccentric Kapellmeisters were gouging (scoring?) through a music page. For all his smiling talk of ease and glee (tomorrow), his eloquent implorings, unfailingly, this moment always comes. The pipes are always drowned by the drums. and that sleek sloop named self-regard so sleazily slips free of all that nurtured it – its moorings.