The
Guillotine
is taken down .
Byron
]
[470] This was the actual reply of Bailli, maire of Paris, to a
Frenchman who made him the same reproach on his way to execution, in the
earliest part of their revolution. I find in reading over (since the
completion of this tragedy), for the first time these six years, "Venice
Preserved," a similar reply on a different occasion by Renault, and
other coincidences arising from the subject. I need hardly remind the
gentlest reader, that such coincidences must be accidental, from the
very facility of their detection by reference to so popular a play on
the stage and in the closet as Otway's chef-d'oeuvre.
["Still crueller was the fate of poor Bailly [Jean Sylvani, born
September 17, 1736], First National President, First Mayor of Paris. . . .
It is the 10th of November, 1793, a cold bitter drizzling rain, as poor
Bailly is led through the streets. . . . 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.
[470] This was the actual reply of Bailli, maire of Paris, to a
Frenchman who made him the same reproach on his way to execution, in the
earliest part of their revolution. I find in reading over (since the
completion of this tragedy), for the first time these six years, "Venice
Preserved," a similar reply on a different occasion by Renault, and
other coincidences arising from the subject. I need hardly remind the
gentlest reader, that such coincidences must be accidental, from the
very facility of their detection by reference to so popular a play on
the stage and in the closet as Otway's chef-d'oeuvre.
["Still crueller was the fate of poor Bailly [Jean Sylvani, born
September 17, 1736], First National President, First Mayor of Paris. . . .
It is the 10th of November, 1793, a cold bitter drizzling rain, as poor
Bailly is led through the streets. . . . 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.
