Anthony's Analysis of the song Tempête

[garçoncanadien]

Intro:

This song is incontestably a reference to Napoléon Bonaparte, otherwise known as “Napoléon I”, emperor of the French, born in Ajaccio (just like Alizée) in 1769 and died on the island of Saint Helena in 1815. This emblematic figure of French history is an ideal theme for one of Alizée’s songs. First of all he died from unknown circumstances (we speak of poisoning) which doesn’t displease Mylène Farmer. Also, he is Corsican, and what more, from Ajaccio. And then the “storms” that he experienced at sea during his crusades don’t allow us to forget the gust of “Alizée”!

The 1st couplet:

“Fog, the day rises
Shadow and storm,
He sits in sadness,”: The song starts as a statement of the last days in the life of Napoleon on the island of Saint Helena.

“She, the St Helen who knows his fever,
Tells him:
Dream of another dream, of an island of Elba, your girlfriend…”: Only St Helen, a little island (just like Napoleon, pretty small for his height), saddened by the rain and the storms (just like Napoleon is sad about his imprisonment on St Helena), only this island can understand and invite Napoleon to dream of his victories and by default his pathetic rule of the Island of Elba that he had received following his defeat against German forces.

“Its your energy, rush towards what
Is faithful to you, and then forget !”: This passage is quite vague, one can get several meanings out of it. On first glance, one can see there a personification of battle (war), its your energy, he won several battles but he forgot them when he experienced defeats (Leipzig, Waterloo).
This may also be Joséphine de Beauharnais (his first wife) who was unfaithful to him when he left for war.
Or also this may be France that was faithful to him when he governed it but unfaithful during his two abdications.

Refrain

In the refrain of “Tempête” we see two ways to read it, the first being:

“In love, (…) No more love, (…) Poor love(…), Oh! Love”:
When you are in love, when you are no longer in love, when you have no more love, when you become my love. Alizée begs Napoleon’s soul and invites him to become her spiritual lover.

The second reading is:

“Count that battles that made you feel bad…”: It talks about his defeats.

“All the teams have set sail,”: This talks about his isolation, of all his male and female friends that have left him.

“I gather your pride that has been injured…”: Alizée tells him “Put your pride and ego aside” and invites him again to become her spiritual lover.

“Does your mourning have to last for years,
To love me”: Alizée asks herself how long she must wait so that Napoleon’s soul be at peace, that she is no longer tormented by his defeats and that finally they can love each other.

The second couplet:

“Eagle, the day rises
Who celebrates you
It is so.”: The eagle is Napoleon I’s emblem, she names him as such. Now he is dead, the day rises, and celebrates the departure of the emperor.

“She, the beautiful Helen, joins the land of the ‘damned’”: the land of the island of St Helena becomes damned because it is its bosom that is there, that welcomes death and preserves the body of the deceased.

“The ogre lies under the bark, but in its pocket, a…
heavy secret”: The ogre (from the latin Orcus, god of the dead) talks of a dead Napoleon. He lies under the bark of his coffin and keeps in his pocket (hand in his pocket of his vest like he does in several old paintings) the secret of his death.

“Its him, the man, who mixes
Into the rain of ash, that I used to love.”: Its him, Napoleon, who I love. The mixing into the rains of ashes is hard to explain because these ashes were not thrown to sea, they were brought back to the Invalides of Paris.

[Luc]

I see you have been very busy today garço Thanks for this and all other translations of Anthony's analyses
Although I know some French myself I couldn't fully understand all his analyses without your translations.