Summer’s Longest Day

                                 Marion Parsons’ Songbook

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Up the streets of Montreal, a captive slave did ride

A woman bare of head and foot, a grim and silent pride

A flaming torch to mark the crime for which her neck must pay

And Marie-Joseph is gone to die on summer’s longest day.


The widow Francheville made it known if she would not obey

Then when the icy river broke, she must be sold away

She will not go to les Antilles, but neither will she stay

Marie-Joseph is gone to die on summer’s longest day.


Marie-Joseph she swore to burn the widow in her bed

The fire leapt from house to house and through the city spread

The merchant shops, the Hotel-Dieu in smoldering ashes lay

And Marie-Joseph is gone to die on summer’s longest day.


Voila ecrit sur sa chemise la crime de l’incendiare

Voila ses jambes, ses pieds cassées: la question extraordinaire!

Marie-Joseph, Marie-Joseph est allée au gibet

Devant les cendres de rue Saint-Paul, la jour plus long d’l’année.


The bells of Notre-Dame ring out an ancient, mournful song

The vengeful stare and curse the name of she who did them wrong

The tender sign a trembling cross and turn their eyes away

Marie-Joseph is gone to die on summer’s longest day.


Chords: (4/4)


G                              C        D        G

Up the streets of Montreal, a captive slave did ride


   G             C        G                Am      D

A woman bare of head and foot, a grim and silent pride


    G               C         G                 Am         D

A flaming torch to mark the crime for which her neck must pay


     G                              C        D       G

And Marie-Joseph is gone to die on summer’s longest day.


 

  1. •Lyrics © 2008, music traditional

  2. •True story of Marie-Joseph Angelique, a slave hanged for arson in Montreal on June 21, 1734

  3. •Set to the melody “Roddy McCorley”

  4. •See below for comments and chords

Hear the demo (MP3, 2:52):

Marie-Joseph Angelique was hanged in 1734 for setting her mistress' house on fire; the fire spread and destroyed most of old Montreal. After being hanged, Angelique's body was burned and the ashes thrown to the wind.


Notes:

  1. •les Antilles - the West Indies (I said it wrong in the demo; the Ls are silent, i.e., “laiz on-TEE”)

  2. •Hotel-Dieu - a convent/hospital (rebuilt in a different part of the city)

  3. •Notre-Dame - the Notre Dame basilica, a church in the heart of old Montreal


The fourth verse:

See the arsonist’s crime written on her shirt

See her legs and feet broken by torture

Marie-Joseph is gone to the gallows

Before the ashes of Saint Paul street, the longest day of the year.

(“la question extraordinaire” is an archaic legal term for torture)


I have written another song about Angelique: Angelique’s Farewell.  Both songs are based on Afua Cooper’s book The Hanging of Angelique; Wikipedia has an article about her as well.


The tune I used, Roddy McCorley, is an Irish rebel song about a hanging.