Emile Zola – Signed Autograph Poem

Autograph poem signed “Pajot et Zola”, titled “To her Majesty the Empress. The Students of the Lycée Saint-Louis”. S.l.n.d. (1858); 2 pages in-8°.
Extremely rare youth poem, in a romantic vein, by the young rhetoric student from the Lycée Saint-Louis, signed “Pajot et Zola”. Georges Pajot was a fellow student and close friend of Emile Zola at the Saint-Louis high school in Paris, when the latter moved there with his mother in 1858, the year of our poem. Unlike Cézanne, their friendship did not fail. He was one of those whom Zola considered his true friends and participated in Thursday evenings at the writer's house in Paris. These Thursday evenings began around 1865, when Zola was 25 years old, and continued until the end of the writer's life. The victory of the French troops in their fight for the unification of Italy gives Zola and his accomplice the opportunity to glorify the emperor, Napoleon III, whom they compare to his glorious elder.
“Madame forgive if my modest lyre,
To your august ear with the audacity to rustle
Forgive! A child comes here stuttering
But victory gives birth to our novice songs,
We who are placed under the valiant auspices
Of the holy king knight
To deliver oppressed Italy from the yoke
Towards the Alps we saw our army rushing;
With roses under his feet we sowed the paths
With many cheers welcoming him as he passed,
To his noble valor everyone paid homage
And we clapped our hands.
Come on French, go fight on these lands
Where once your fathers nobly fought,
Go and defeat those whom their heel crushed
Come on…Our Emperor leaves us for glory,
Like soldiers in the past, our hymn of victory
Will be Napoleon
They moved away, attentive France
Listened…well again! Everything was silent.
From noon suddenly a loud cry arose,
Montebello, Vercelli…already the cannon is thundering;
Victory at Palestro…almost immediately resonates
Victory in Magenta.
Magenta! Leap the bells of Notre Dame!
Let a garland, in the evening sparkle the flame,
Of the victors of Austerlitz our guard is the sister,
Joseph's troops fled to the army,
Victory at MacMahon! Victory to our armies!
Victory to the Emperor.
France, rejoice, it’s a beautiful day of celebration.
May we, we too, celebrate your conquest
We that the study holds in deep calm
We who to serve you work alone
Oh ! May we all cry out to our mothers
Long live France and Piedmont.
Pageot and Zola rhetoric class students

Poem appearing in the Complete Works, volume 15, editions Cercle du Livre Precious 1969

In 1859, Napoleon III committed himself to Victor-Emmanuel II for the unification of Italy, then divided into duchies, against the Austrian Empire. This military campaign allowed France to recover Savoy and the county of Nice but left it in a delicate diplomatic situation.