]
[fu] {455}_Who makest and destroyest suns!
[fu] {455}_Who makest and destroyest suns!
Byron
.
Silent, unpitied, sits the
innocent old man. . . . The Guillotine is taken down . . . is carried to the
riverside; is there set up again, with slow numbness; pulse after pulse
still counting itself out in the old man's weary heart. For hours long;
amid curses and bitter frost-rain! 'Bailly, thou tremblest,' said one.
'_Mon ami_, it is for cold,' said Bailly, '_C'est de froid_. ' Crueller
end had no mortal. "--Carlyle's _French Revolution_, 1839, iii. 264.
]
[fu] {455}_Who makest and destroyest suns! _--[MS. M. Vide letter of
February 2, 1821. ]
[471] {456}[In his reply to the envoys of the Venetian Senate (April,
1797), Buonaparte threatened to "prove an Attila to Venice. If you
cannot," he added, "disarm your population, I will do it in your
stead--your government is antiquated--it must crumble to
pieces. "--Scott's _Life of Napoleon Bonaparte_, 1828, p. 230. Compare,
too, _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza xc. lines 1, 2--
"The fool of false dominion--and a kind
Of bastard Caesar," etc. ]
[472] Should the dramatic picture seem harsh, let the reader look to the
historical of the period prophesied, or rather of the few years
preceding that period. Voltaire calculated their "nostre bene merite
Meretrici" at 12,000 of regulars, without including volunteers and local
militia, on what authority I know not; but it is, perhaps, the only part
of the population not decreased. Venice once contained two hundred
thousand inhabitants: there are now about ninety thousand; and THESE! !
few individuals can conceive, and none could describe, the actual state
into which the more than infernal tyranny of Austria has plunged this
unhappy city.
innocent old man. . . . The Guillotine is taken down . . . is carried to the
riverside; is there set up again, with slow numbness; pulse after pulse
still counting itself out in the old man's weary heart. For hours long;
amid curses and bitter frost-rain! 'Bailly, thou tremblest,' said one.
'_Mon ami_, it is for cold,' said Bailly, '_C'est de froid_. ' Crueller
end had no mortal. "--Carlyle's _French Revolution_, 1839, iii. 264.
]
[fu] {455}_Who makest and destroyest suns! _--[MS. M. Vide letter of
February 2, 1821. ]
[471] {456}[In his reply to the envoys of the Venetian Senate (April,
1797), Buonaparte threatened to "prove an Attila to Venice. If you
cannot," he added, "disarm your population, I will do it in your
stead--your government is antiquated--it must crumble to
pieces. "--Scott's _Life of Napoleon Bonaparte_, 1828, p. 230. Compare,
too, _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza xc. lines 1, 2--
"The fool of false dominion--and a kind
Of bastard Caesar," etc. ]
[472] Should the dramatic picture seem harsh, let the reader look to the
historical of the period prophesied, or rather of the few years
preceding that period. Voltaire calculated their "nostre bene merite
Meretrici" at 12,000 of regulars, without including volunteers and local
militia, on what authority I know not; but it is, perhaps, the only part
of the population not decreased. Venice once contained two hundred
thousand inhabitants: there are now about ninety thousand; and THESE! !
few individuals can conceive, and none could describe, the actual state
into which the more than infernal tyranny of Austria has plunged this
unhappy city.
