[474] ["On égorgea indistinctement, on saccagea la place; et la rage du vainqueur ... se répandit comme un torrent furieux qui a renversé les digues qui le rétenaient: personne obtint de grâce, et trente huit mille huit cent soixante Turcs périrent dans cette journée de sang."—Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie, ii. 216.]
[IR]—— of my peroration.—[MS. erased.]
[IS] {369}
—— the cause I cannot guess—
I hardly think it was commiseration.—[MS. erased.]
[475] {370}In the original Russian—
"Slava bogu! slava vam!
Krépost vzata i ya tam;"
a kind of couplet; for he was a poet.
[J.H. Castéra (Vie de Catherine II., 1797, ii. 374) relates this incident in connection with the fall of Turtukey (or Tutrakaw) in Bulgaria, giving the words in French, "Gloire à Dieu! Louange à Catherine! Toutoukai est pris. Souwaroff y est entré." W. Tooke (Life of Catherine II., 1800, iii. 278). Castéra's translator, gives the original Russian with an English version. But according to Spalding (Suvóroff, 1890, pp. 42, 43), the words, which were written on a scrap of paper, and addressed to Soltikoff, ran thus: "Your Excellency, we have conquered. Glory to God! Glory to you! Alexander Suvóroff." When Ismail was taken he wrote to Potemkin, "The Russian standard floats above the walls of Ismail," and to the Empress, "Proud Ismail lies at your Majesty's feet." The tenour of the poetical message on the fall of Tutrakaw recalls the triumphant piety of the Emperor William I. of Germany. See, too, for "mad Suwarrow's rhymes," Canto IX. stanza lx. lines 1-4.]