Biron, He was better known as the Duc de Lauzun
After being notorious for dissipation, he went to America and served
NOTES. 17s
in the War of Independence. He was a friend of the Duke of Orléans and became a gênerai in the armies of the Republic However, he was guillotined in 1793*
Custine. Adam Philippe, Comte de Custine, was, like Biron, one of those nobles who held libéral opinions. He had served in America, and was appointed in 1792 to conmiand the French forces on the Rhine. He was unsuccessful both there and in the Netherlands, and was tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal and guillotined in August,
Page 111.
1. 2168. Brissot Jean-Pierre Brissot de Warville was bom in 1754. He was^ lawyer and writer on law, and an advocate of negro émancipation. He was one of the Girondin leaders, and the chief mover in the déclaration of war against Austria in 179a. He opposed the exécution of Louis XVI. He was arrested on June 2, 1793 and guillotined with the other Girondins on October 31.
1. 2176. par quel Dieu, alluding to the scène in the First Book of the Iliad) in which Athênê stops Achilles as he is about to draw his sword and attack Agamemnon.
Page 113.
L 2218. À ton gré, *as you prefer.'
L 2222. plus d'un bon apôtre^ * some saintly people that I know.* Plus {funy meaning several or many^ is hère used sarcastically, since it is obvious that Robespierre alone is meant. The epithet bon apôtre also has a shade of contempt, implying, as the term 'saint' once did in England, hypocrisy or slyness.
1. 2282. noblesse pire encor^ ' a nobility even worse (than the old one).*
L 2287. VerrèSf a Roman praetor in Sicily for three years, during which he plundered the island and committed ail sorts of atrocities. His crimes are known from Cicero's famous pleadings against him on his trial.
Catilinas. See notes on 11. 98, 1364.
Page 114.
L 2260. une façon de tuer^ pastorale j 'qnite an idyllic way of kîllmg.»
du couteau, the knife of the guillotine.
1. 82M. O justice demièrel 'O worst penalty of ail!' Damier \s often used to imply the worst.
Page 116.
L 2259. chimère emphatique^ *sounding nonsense.' L 2264. QuHmplcuahîe au superbe, a réminiscence of Vir(nrs line *Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.'
