Lyrics by Adam Roberts

Lyrics: 

On the first day of Thermidor my true love sent to me

A cap in a Liberty Tree.

On the second day of Thermidor my true love sent to me

Two Estates down, and a cap in a Liberty Tree.

On the third day of Thermidor my true love sent to me

Three French heads, two Estates down, and a cap in a Liberty Tree.

On the fourth day of Thermidor my true love sent to me

Four guillotines, three French heads, two Estates down, and a cap in a Liberty Tree.

On the fifth day of Thermidor my true love sent to me

FIVE JAC-O-BINS, four guillotines, three French heads, two Estates down, and a cap in a Liberty Tree.

On the sixth day of Thermidor my true love sent to me

Six priests dismaying, FIVE JAC-O-BINS, four guillotines, three French heads, two Estates down, and a cap
in a Liberty Tree.

On the seventh day of Thermidor my true love sent to me

Seven sans culotte-ing, six priests dismaying, FIVE JAC-O-BINS, four guillotines, three French heads, two Estates down, and a cap in a Liberty Tree.

On the eighth day of Thermidor my true love sent to me

Eight papers *Presse*-ing, seven sans culotte-ing, six priests dismaying, FIVE JAC-O-BINS, four guillotines, three French heads, two Estates down, and a cap in a Liberty Tree.

On the ninth day of Thermidor my true love sent to me

Nine Tricoteuses, eight papers *Presse*-ing, seven sans culotte-ing, six priests dismaying, FIVE JAC-O-BINS, four guillotines, three French heads, two Estates down, and a cap in a Liberty Tree.

On the tenth day of Thermidor my true love sent to me

Ten lords a-fleeing, nine Tricoteuses, eight papers *Presse*-ing, seven sans culotte-ing, six priests dismaying, FIVE JAC-O-BINS, four guillotines, three French heads, two Estates down, and a cap in a Liberty Tree.

On the eleventh day of Thermidor my true love sent to me

Eleven bonnets rouge-ing, ten lords a-fleeing, nine Tricoteuses, eight papers *Presse*-ing, seven sans culotte-ing, six priests dismaying, FIVE JAC-O-BINS, four guillotines, three French heads, two Estates down, and a cap in a Liberty Tree.

On the twelfth day of Thermidor my true love sent to me

Twelve months renaming, eleven bonnets rouge-ing, ten lords a-fleeing, nine Tricoteuses, eight papers *Presse*-ing, seven sans culotte-ing, six priests dismaying, FIVE JAC-O-BINS, four guillotines, three French heads, two Estates down, and a cap in a Liberty Tree.

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Adam Roberts is Professor of 19th-Century Literature at Royal Holloway University of London. He has published a variety of books, edited Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria, and written a couple dozen mostly science fiction novels.

Rachel Gillett is an Assistant Professor at Utrecht University, teaching Modern Europe and Empire. Recent courses she taught examined race and representation in France, youth protest in Europe in 1968, cultures of Empire, and fundamentalisms. Her research focuses on race in France, popular culture, and on the black Atlantic from a French perspective. She also works on the notion of cosmopolitanism in popular culture and on rugby and race relations in a post-colonial context. Her current book, under contract with OUP, is entitled Begin the Biguine: Race and Popular Music in Interwar Paris.

Title image: Refrains patriotiques : [estampe] / [non identifié], Paris, 1792-4.

Back-up Track: Instrumental version of “12 Days of Christmas”