Scene 4 "France in Disarray" RINGMASTER The winger of eight-eight and nine Was aching cold, it chilled the very soul They came from the country in twos and threes A trickle, a river, a torrent, a sea, Driven by hunger, driven by pain SERGEANT Company...Halt!... RINGMASTER A hundred thousand reached the barricade SERGEANT Present... Fire!... RINGMASTER Three hundred dead, shot down like rats Three hundred lives, snuffed out like that Have a care if you treat your people like vermin You could end up with bloodstained ermine But soft As ever in the ebb and flow Sweet reason, deft and incorrupt Adoring of the human kind illuminates man's plight Should be embrace The brute and base Tilt blindly at the carousel Or note, at least, the other voice And entertain the choice Between the darkness and the light?
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