les pommettes saillantes, prominent cheek-bones

Page 110. 1. 27. Chabot. Cf. note, p. 160, 1. 24.

1. 38. Le procès-verbal, the minutes of an officiai examination.

Page 111. 1.32. Legendre, fier de son importance révdtitionnaire. Cf. note, p. 166, 1. 8.

Page 112. 1. 5. tout à Fheure si près du poignard de Bruius. The act of Charlotte Corday is hère compared to that of Brutus ; her dagger is therefore identifîed with his.

'/ Page 114. 1. 24. Alcide, i.e. Hercules.

1. 29. je rCimiterai point Paris {le meurtrier de Lepdletier de Saint-Fargeau). Paris was an old garde du corps, who, on the eve of the exécution of the ELing, murdered Michel Lepelletier, a former Président of the Parlement de Paris, and then committed suicide, The act seemed both unpremeditated and purposeless.

Page 115. 1. 20. ces vers sont de Voltaire. Cf. La Mort de César, Act III, Se. 2.

1, 35. Je vous observe, i.e. je vous fais observer.

1. 36. Vamie de Belzunce, . ..tuéà Caen. The connexion between Charlotte Corday and this officer is by no means historically established. He was killed in a street riot in August, 1789, before even the first number of Marat's Ami du Peuple had appeared. He was not the nephew of the Abbesse de la Sainte-Trinité, though he was distantly related to her, and it is at least possible that he knew neither Charlotte Corday nor Madame de Belzunce personally. Cf. Vattel, Charlotte de Corday.

It was probably Wimpfen who first committed the absurdity of linking the name of so staunch a Royalist as De Belzunce with that of Qiarlotte Corday. Cf. Michelet, Les Femmes de la Révo- Iviion.

Page 116. \.l. Fouquier-Tinville{\1'i&-\1^5). PubUc Prosecutor for the Criminal Tribunal under the Terror. It was he who sent ail the chief Girondins to the guillotine, later also the brothers Robespierre, Saint- Just, and Couthon. He shared the same fate in May, 1795. It was he, too, who interpreted the murder of Marat as an act of vengeance committed by Charlotte Corday in retaUation for the death of her reputed lover De Belzunce. (^ 1. 23. Comité de Sûreté Générale, Committee of General Security. A number of committees were formed by order of the Convention for the préparation and preliminary discussion of matters to be brought before the Convention, The most important of thèse were the two 'committees of govemment,' the Committee of PubUc Safety and the Committee of General Security. The former, the Comité de Salut Public, grew out of a Committee of General Defence first formed in January, 1793, to consider questions not dealt with by any of the other revolutionary

committees. The latter, the Comité de Surveillance, known afterwards as Comité de Sûreté Générale, was in command of the police of the whole country and of the management of the prisons. It also selected the prisoners who were to go for trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal. By the end of October, 1793, it had mastered Paris, and established the Reign of Terror there.

1. 33. V arrestation de Fauchet, mon complice. The constitutional Bishop of Calvados, member of the Législative, founder of the club known as the Cercle Social, the chief organ of which was the Bouche de Fer. In the debates on the treatment to be meted out to the prêtres insermentés he excited attention by his severity ; cf. his saying : En présence de ces prêtres, les athées sont des anges.

1. 34. Je ne Vai jamais vu. As a matter of fact she had seen him the day before.

Page 117. I. 16. une lettre tronquée, a letter that she never finished.

Page 119. 1. 24. Marat n'ira point au Panthéon. A pièce of irony at Marat's expense. As a matter of fact, his remains were taken to the Panthéon, one of the most famous public buildings of Paris, in the form of a Greek cross and not unhke St. Paul's in London, but smaller ; the burial-place of the great men of France. The inscription over the door runs : ' Aux grands hommes la patrie reconnaissante.'

Page 120. 1.9. Dotdcet de Pontécoulant. Her letter asking him to défend her did not reach him until four days later. Cf. p. 125.

1. 14. ce vers de Corneille. Not Pierre Corneille, the great tragic poet, but his brother Thomas. The line occurs in Le Comte d'Essex, Act IV, Scène 3. It is often quoted and as frequently ascribed to Pierre Corneille.

Page 121. 1. 29. Chauveau-Lagarde. One of the officiai defenders provided for the prisoners brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal. He defended at considérable personal risk a great number of persons during the Reign of Terror, and among them Madame Elisabeth and Marie-Antoinette. He narrowly escaped the guillotine. Died at an advanced âge in 1841.

Page 124. 1. 16. Adam Lux. A young deputy from Mayence, the Personal friend of many of the Girondins. He was a great admirer of Charlotte Corday, and three months later foUowed her to the scaffold.

Page 127. 1. 5. Robespierre. Cf. note, p. 134, 1. 36. 1. 5. Danton. Cf. note, p. 150, 1. 1.

1. 5. Camille Desmovlins. By profession a lawyer, and one of the most influential joumalists and pamphleteers of the day. He

172 CHARLOTTE COEDAY

became famous by communicating the news of the dismissal of Necker to the mob in the garden of the Palais-Royal, July 12, 1789. He died by the guillotine in April, 1794.

Page 129. 1. 17. L'héroïsme de Charlotte Corday fixt chanté par . . . André Giénier, bom in 1762, at Constantinople, died by the guillotine in 1794, three days before the fall of Robespierre. He had been an ardent Revolutionist, but, disgusted by the excesses of the Révolution, he had ventured to attack it in a séries of letters which he caused to be inserted in the Journal de Paris.

* L'hymne à Charlotte Corday ressemble à un chant de bravoure stoïcien, mais l'homme y trahit sa lassitude et ses découragements.' Cf. the last verse :

Un scélérat de moins rampe dans cette fange. La vertu t'applaudit de sa mâle louange. Entends, belle héroïne, entends l'auguste voix ! O vertu ! le poignard, seul espoir de la terre. Est ton arme sacrée, alors que le tonnerre Laisse régner le crime et te vend à ses lois. 1. 22. Klopstock (1724-1803). A celebrated German poet, author of an epic called the Messias. In his ode Die beiden Orâber he laments the futility of Charlotte Corday's sacrifice.