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This woman - you've seen her somewhere.
Of course you have, like all of us
- she's "Marianne", symbol of the French Republic.
The trouble is, we've got it all wrong:
she comes from a picture painted at a time
when France was a kingdom, not a republic.
And the man who painted her was a staunch anti-republican,
with a sceptical view of democracy - Eugène Delacroix,
a typical Parisian dandy, with a dandy's horror of anything vulgar or plebeian.
Right, it's a big mistake, so how did we make it?
Was it Delacroix - did he botch the job of getting his message across?
Or is it us - are we afraid of the truth,
and the bloodshed and brutality that go with it?
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