| | One
day I told you, in epic form,
Of this combat where blood did not stain the sword;
Where
the calm enclosed field had for its champions
Two knights, two rooks, two bishops, and eight pawns:
An ivory general staff, surrounding upon the field
A feeble king, guarded by his mighty queen;
And while, above all, in these
verses, I gave
The palm
of chess to de La Bourdonnais,
Perfidious Albion, to punish me for my crime,
Stripping my verses of their sense
and the rhyme,
Translated this
poem, finished in Paris,
Into
old Norman French stuffed with double V's.
The Englishman
does not understand, this calm diplomat,
That a frivolous Frenchman,
in fifteen moves, mates him;
So the chancellor of the British chessboard,
Since our victory has quite lowered his tone.
If Calais today, from atop its cliff,
Can give a signal to
the English lookout,
I entrust to its wing a new bulletin
That
will overturn the distant islander. Thursday,
amateurs of every rank, of every age,
Invaded that
evening the sumptuous hermitage
Where were composed, for an immortal
song,
The melodies of la Vestale and Guillaume Tell. Jay,
the thoughtful writer, de Jouy, the poet,
Had bent their heads
over a double chessboard,
And beneath them one could see the pieces move.
La Bourdonnais played against both without seeing; Seated
in an armchair, at the corner of the room,
Bowing over his hands his
colossal head,
Over a double enclosed field, full of stormy strokes,
With the eye of thought, studying the
games. I stop
for a moment, and in this interlude
Come write for me, muse of
Palamède,
You who knew Homer, and who created the check
In the horse of Ulysses, with a Greek prince! Lend
me some of these words concise and pure of emphasis
That depict
each phase. of this long combat.
Before starting make yourself
clear, and retell
The way of this game, for the less erudite. The
enclosed field has crossed sixty-four squares.
At the two extremities
the towers take their bases;
Those formidable towers that a firm and
skillful finger
As in the Roman sieges makes march forward, On
horses without bit, faithful knights,
Nimble and threatening take their
place beside them;
To clear two squares bounds their leaps,
And they fall sideways upon the black squares or the white. These pieces
go thus: friendship has joined them
To the bishops, wise warriors who everywhere
make thrusts.
Then, the queen takes her place and keeps her color,
No combatant
in the game equals her in valor;
She flies in a single bound from one to
the other zone;
She is Camilla of the swift foot; invincible amazon,
She
watches, and defends the pieces around her
By the strength of the bishop
joined to the rook:
Near her the king sits; alas! he holds a throne
Undermined by plots, surrounded by cunning!
This monarch, ever menaced by death,
To deceive the enemy
can move but one square. Yet,
when his strength is finally beaten down,
Out of respect for his name no one kills him
;
He is checkmate; his last day has dawned,
And all
his servants lie dead beside him. Eight
modest pawns, soldiers of equal stature,
Guard the general staff on a
battle front;
One step is allowed them; one or two, never three
;
A vile troop, sacrificed to the whims of kings! They
capture only diagonally; and yet it happens
That one of them, a fortunate soldier,
reaches the far shore;
Then, he grows in stature: this soldier risen
Clothes
in the spoils of a chief his bare body;
He transforms into a rook; he becomes
queen;
He chooses among the dead stretched upon the field
A
chief of his color, cited for his strength;
The happy pawn touches him, he
has brought him back to life. So,
let us close our ears to the world's uproar;
Let us take up an echiquier,
theater of war,
And follow this combat that has delighted us. La
Bourdonnais yielding the move to de Jouy,
The pawn of the black king,
the hermit's pawn,
Advances two squares; the adversary, at the same instant imitates him. That of the bishop of the
king, of the black king, advances two squares,
And meets its death beneath the white pawn.
It is the gambit, a soldier of adventurous mien
That Cochrane invented in the land of the Brahmin. — The knight
of the black king, going I know not where,
Lands, after two bounds,
before his own bishop.
— The pawn of the white king's knight takes offense,
And boldly advances two squares ahead of its line. —
The black prince's bishop turns to the right, and running,
Before his brother
bishop holds the fourth rank.
— The bold white pawn takes a step,
and places itself
Beneath the black knight, striking and threatening it. —
The black knight takes fright, and with a trembling leg
Leaps four squares
before the white prince.
— The white queen then, avid for victory,
Gives check to the black king — who, into the empty square
Deserted
by his bishop, moves at the same instant. —
The doubled white pawn, the second one advancing
Has but a single square,
still separating it
From the borrowed square where the Moorish king
trembles.
— But the black knight takes, moving three squares,
The
pawn of the white bishop, which did not fear him. —
The agile knight who follows the white queen
Holds the field three squares
ahead of his bishop.
— The black queen calls upon a humble champion,
And makes her modest pawn advance two squares. —
The white king's bishop behaves like a sage;
And, seeing near
him a passage open,
Before his knight has boldly squared himself. —
The black pawn of the queen's bishop, one square.
— The white knight of the
king to the third square
Of his bishop. — The white rook has trembled
on its base,
For the black knight threatens and takes it. —
The white pawn of the queen strides a double rank
In two bounds, as it does
in moments of crisis.
— The black king's pawn takes the pawn en prise. —
The white king's knight, seized by a noble dread,
Settles five relays
from his king's square.
— The black queen takes her place in her husband's camp. —
The white knight's pawn changes its stall.
— The black king's bishop
falls back a single square,
Its point aimed at the knight menaced with death. —
The white king's pawn, that soldier of humble stature,
Who knew how to
open the battle in the gambit,
Reappears upon the scene, takes the black pawn,
And gives check to the king, calm in his manor. —
This indignant monarch punishes such insolence
And strikes this soldier
with the shadow of his lance.
— The white bishop rushes from the edge of the horizon,
Giving check to the prince, at the threshold of his house. —
This unfortunate prince has but one good square
To carry his throne,
shaken upon its base;
There he finds for a moment a hospitable ground:
It is the deserted square where his knight once stood. —
The white knight, joyful, seizes the opportunity,
And eats the pawn
of the ebony queen.
—This noble amazon, with swift bounds,
Takes the knight and gives check to the white king. — This is the
decisive moment: unfortunate queens,
Here your great destinies must end
!
— The white queen has taken the black; — The black bishop
Takes the pale amazon and is reborn to hope. —
Alas! the black prince, wretched as Oreste,
Is mated, on the
spot, by the remaining knight;
And blessed by the hermit, he descends
to the tomb,
Consoled to die, beneath so fine a check. This
combat is over, but the other still goes on;
Jay long delays the mate of
his Moorish king;
Left alone, and already half succumbing,
He would
gladly avenge the hermit his friend. All
eyes are fixed upon the lists; one shudders
At the slightest breath;
at the sound of the clock striking,
Of the door that opens creaking,
of the heel
That absent-mindedly strikes
the floor of the parlor. Nothing
moves the player, the willing blind man;
He probes the mystery of
the absent chessboard;
Upon the vast register open within his mind,
He notes the soldiers taken from him, and those he took;
He follows, with
equal care, the splendid monarch,
And the pawn, insect buried beneath the grass;
The chessboard has become covered in fog; but in vain;
All shines
to the closed eyes of the magical seer.
Midnight gaily rings a double
victory. And
since then, I have searched in vain throughout history
A wonder like it, even in the
fabled days
When Asia invented its thousand fanciful tales;
When Katib, the Persian, lost, upon a square,
His fair favorite, slave
of the Caucasus,
The lovely Dilaram, serenity of the heart,
Whom a misfortune surrendered, submissive, to the seraglio of the victor;
When
the Brahmin Séhim, admired by Jagrenat,
Played
with Namik, the king of Kashmir,
Upon a wide chessboard, all of amber
and aloes,
Which the Brahmin received from the hands of Cosroes. In
more recent ages, of an easier reach,
I have followed the player, child of Sicily,
Boy the Syracusan, good Christian, who, I believe,
Respectfully defeated two
popes and two kings;
And then
the Calabrian, whose skillful ruses
Revealed a talent sprung up in the Abruzzi;
A thinker born
beneath a sky of vivid azure and gold,
Who bequeathed his scepter into the
hands of Philidor. Yes,
in this Orient, this gentle cradle of sages,
In centuries past,
or the modern ages,
Since we have watched the chessboard grow,
Going back from Europe to the time of the great Nadir;
What is lacking
from the exploits of the Christian or the bonze,
I have seen in Paris, rue aux Trois-Frères,
eleven;
In a mansion, full of dazzling
successes,
On Thursday the twenty-second of March, at the dawn of spring.
| One
day, I told you, in terms of epic,
This combat, where
blood did not stain the sword,
Where the calm enclosed field
had for its champions
Two knights, two bishops, two rooks, and eight pawns,
An ivory general staff, surrounding upon the field
A feeble king, guarded
by his mighty queen;
And while, for all, in my verses, I gave
The palm of chess to de La Bourdonnais,
Perfidious Albion,
to punish me for my crime,
Stripped my verses of the sense of my rhyme,
Translated my poem in a rather commonplace style,
Into
an English prose, at the back of a newspaper
1. The Englishman
does not understand, this calm diplomat,
That a fickle Frenchman,
in fifteen moves, mates him;
So the chancellor of the British chessboard
Since this victory has quite lowered his tone;
If Calais today,
from atop its cliff,
Can give a signal to the English lookout,
I
confide to its wing a fresh bulletin
That will overturn the distant islander. One
evening, amateurs of every rank, of every age
Flooded into the sumptuous
ermitage,
Where were composed, for an immortal song,
The melodies of la
Vestale and Guillaume
Tell. Jay,
the thoughtful writer, de
Jouy, the poet,
Had bent their heads over a double chessboard,
And beneath them one could see the pieces moving;
La Bourdonnais played
against both without seeing: Seated
in an armchair, in the corner of the room,
Bowing over his hands his
colossal head
Over a double enclosed field, full of stormy strokes
With the eye of thought, he followed both games! I
stop for a moment, and in this interlude,
Come write for me,
muse of Palamède,
You who knew Homer, and who created the check
In the wooden horse, with a Greek prince! Lend
me some of these words, concise, and free of bombast,
That describe
each sentence of this long combat;
Before beginning, make yourself clear,
and retell
The way this game is played for the less learned! The
enclosed field has crossed sixty-four squares;
At its two ends,
the rooks take their bases;
Those formidable towers that a firm and
skillful finger
As in the Roman sieges makes march forward; On
horses without bit, faithful knights,
Nimble and threatening take their
place beside them;
To clear two squares bounds their leaps,
And they fall sideways upon the black squares or the white. These
pieces go thus: friendship has joined them
To the bishops, wise warriors who everywhere
make thrusts.
Then, the queen takes her place and keeps her color,
No combatant in the game equals her in valor;
She flies in a single bound
from one to the other zone,
She is Camilla of the swift foot, invincible amazon
She watches, and defends the pieces around her,
By the strength of the bishop,
joined to the rook;
Near her the king sits; alas! he holds a throne
Undermined by plots, surrounded by cunning!
This monarch, ever menaced by death,
To deceive the enemy
can move but one square. Yet,
when his strength is finally beaten down,
Out of respect for his name no one kills him
;
He is checkmate; his last day has dawned,
And all
his servants lie dead beside him. Eight
modest pawns, soldiers of equal stature,
Guard the general staff on a
battle front;
One step is allowed them; one or two, never three
;
A vile troop, sacrificed to the whims of kings! They
capture only diagonally; and yet it happens
That one of them, a fortunate soldier,
reaches the far shore:
Then, he grows in stature, this soldier risen
Clothes in the spoils of a chief his bare body;
He transforms into a rook; he becomes
queen;
He chooses among the dead stretched upon the field
A
chief of his color, cited for his strength;
The happy pawn touches him, he
has brought him back to life. So,
let us close our ears to the world's uproar;
Let us take up a chessboard,
theater of war,
And follow this combat that has delighted us. La
Bourdonnais yielding the move to de Jouy,
The pawn of the black king,
the hermit's pawn
Advances two squares; the adversary, at the same instant, imitates him. That
of the bishop of the king, of the black king, advances two squares,
And meets
its death beneath the white pawn.
It is the gambit, a soldier of adventurous mien
That Cochrane invented in the land of the Brahmin. —
The knight of the black king, going I know not where,
Lands, after
two bounds, before his own bishop.
— The pawn of the white king's knight
takes offense,
And boldly advances two squares ahead of its line. —
The black prince's bishop turns to the right, and running
Before
his brother bishop, holds the fourth rank.
— The bold white pawn takes
a step, and places itself
Beneath the black knight, striking and threatening it. —
The black knight takes fright, and with a trembling leg
Leaps four squares
before the white prince.
— The white queen, then, avid for victory,
Gives check to the black king — who, into the empty square
Deserted
by his bishop, moves at the same instant. —
The doubled white pawn, the second one advancing,
Has but a single
square, still separating it
From the borrowed square, where the Moorish
king trembles.
— But the black knight takes, moving three squares
The pawn of the white bishop, which did not fear him. —
The agile knight who follows the white queen
Holds the field three squares,
ahead of his bishop.
— The black queen calls upon a humble champion,
And makes her modest pawn advance two squares. —
The white king's bishop behaves like a sage,
And seeing near
him a passage open,
Before his knight, has boldly squared himself. —
The black pawn of the queen's bishop, one square.
— The white knight of the
king on the third square
Of his bishop. — The white rook has trembled
on its base,
For the black knight threatens and takes it. —
The white pawn of the queen strides a double rank
In two bounds, as it does
in moments of crisis.
— The black king's pawn takes the pawn en prise. —
The white king's knight, seized by a noble dread,
Settles five relays
from his king's square.
— The black queen takes her place in her husband's camp. —
The white knight's pawn changes its stall.
— The black king's bishop
falls back a single square,
Its point aimed at the knight menaced with death. —
The white king's pawn, that soldier of humble stature,
Who knew how to
open the battle in the gambit,
Reappears upon the scene, takes the black pawn,
And gives check to the king, calm in his manor. —
This indignant monarch punishes such insolence
And strikes this soldier
with the shadow of his lance.
— The white bishop rushes from the edge of the horizon,
Giving check to the prince, at the threshold of his house. —
This unfortunate prince has but one good square
To carry his throne,
shaken upon its base;
There he finds for a moment a hospitable ground:
It is the deserted square where his knight once stood. —
The white knight, joyful, seizes the opportunity,
And eats the pawn
of the ebony queen.
—This noble amazon, with swift bounds,
Takes this knight and gives check to the white king. —
This is the decisive moment: unfortunate queens,
Here your great destinies must
end!
— The white queen has taken the black, —
The black bishop
Takes the pale amazon, and is reborn to hope. —
Alas! the black prince, wretched as Oreste,
Is mated, on the
spot, by the remaining knight;
And blessed by the hermit, he descends
to the tomb
Consoled to die, beneath so fine a check. This
combat is over, but the other still goes on;
Jay long delays the mate of
his Moorish king;
Left alone, and already half succumbing,
He would
gladly avenge the hermit, his friend. All
eyes are fixed upon the lists; one shudders
At the slightest breath,
at the sound of the clock striking,
Of the door that opens creaking,
of a heel
That absent-mindedly strikes the floor of the parlor. Nothing
moves the player, the willing blind man;
He probes the mystery of
the absent chessboard;
Upon the vast register open within his mind,
He notes the soldiers taken from him, and those he took;
He follows, with
equal care, the splendid monarch
And the pawn, insect buried beneath the grass;
The chessboard has become covered in fog; but in vain;
All shines
to the closed eyes of the magical seer.
Midnight gaily rings a double
victory. And since then, I have
searched in vain throughout history
A wonder like it, even in the
fabled days
Where Asia invented its thousand fanciful tales;
Where
Katib, the Persian, lost, upon a square,
His fair favorite, slave of the Caucasus,
The lovely Dilaram, serenity of the heart,
Whom a misfortune surrendered, submissive,
to the seraglio of the victor;
Where the Brahmin Sélim, admired by Jagrenat,
Played with Namik, the king of Kashmir,
Upon a wide chessboard, all of amber
and aloes,
Which the Brahmin received from the hands of Cosroes. In
more recent ages, of easier access,
I have followed the player, a child of Sicily,
Boy
the Syracusan, good Christian, who, I believe,
Respectfully defeated two
popes and two kings;
Followed the
Calabrian, whose skillful ruses
Revealed a talent born
in the Abruzzi;
A thinker born beneath a sky of vivid azure and gold,
Who bequeathed his scepter into the hands of Philidor: Yes,
in this Orient, this gentle cradle of sages,
In centuries past,
or the modern ages,
Since we have watched the chessboard grow,
Going back from Europe to the time of the great Nadir,
What is lacking from the exploits of the Christian or the bonze,
I have
seen in Paris, rue aux Trois-Frères, eleven;
And before this marvel,
cited at Procope,
I believed that Philidor had come back to life.
Note
by Joseph Méry [1]
An allusion to my poem on chess, concerning the
famous game contested between La Bourdonnais and Mac-Donnel ; the first edition
of which appeared in the first issue of Palamède.
(back to text)
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This page is a translated archive of the original Académie des jeux oubliés, created on July 1, 2026, from the French original at salondesjeux.fr.
