[69] M. de Lamartine before writing the History of the Restoration, did not even take the trouble to find out whether or not the Duke of Wellington led a cavalry charge at the Battle of Waterloo. The same author, in his History of the Girondist, gives an interesting picture of Charlotte Corday's house at Caen, considered as a ruin. Being at Caen some years ago, I had no trouble in finding Charlotte Corday's house, but looked in vain for the moss, the trickling water, &c., introduced by M. de Lamartine in his poetical, but somewhat too fanciful description. The house was "in good repair," as the auctioneers say, and persons who had lived a great many years in the same street assured me that they had never known it as a ruin.—S. E.
[70] There was a Marquis de Louvois, but he was employed as a scene-shifter.
[71] It was built chiefly with the money of Danton and Sébastian Lacroix.
[72] Twenty-eight thousand francs a year, to which Napoleon always added twelve thousand in presents, with an annual congé of four months.
[73] According to M. Thiers, the pretended copies of the secret articles, sold to the English Government, were not genuine, and the money paid for them was "mal gagné."
[74] Alexander II. gives Verdi an honorarium of 80,000 roubles for the opera he is now writing for St. Petersburg. The work, of course, remains Signor Verdi's property.
[75] Nouvelle Biographie de Mozart. Moscou, 1843.
[76] There are numerous analogies between the various Spanish legends of Don Juan, the Anglo-Saxon and German legends of Faust, and the Polish legend of Twardowski. It might be shown that they were all begotten by the legend of Theophilus of Syracuse, and that their latest descendant is Punch of London.
[77] Madame Alboni has appeared as Zerlina, and sings the music of this, as of every other part that she undertakes, to perfection; but she is not so intimately associated with the character as the other vocalists mentioned above.
[78] Waters appears to have spent nearly all the money he made during the seasons of 1814 and 1815, in improving the house.