12 26 FALSE ECHOES OF MARENGO: General Desaix was shot through the heart at the battle of Marengo (June 14, 1800); he died without a word, and his body was found by Rovigo (cf. Memoirs of the Duke of Rovigo, London, 1835, Vol. I, p. 181), "stripped of his clothes, and surrounded by other naked bodies." Napoleon, however, published three different versions of an heroic and devoted message from Desaix to himself, the original version being: "Go, tell the First Consul that I die with this regret,—that I have not done enough for posterity." (Cf. Lanfrey, History of Napoleon the First, 2d ed., London, 1886, Vol. II, p. 39.) Napoleon himself was credited likewise with the words De Quincey adopts. "Why is it not permitted me to weep" is one version (Bussey, History of Napoleon, London, 1840, Vol. I, p. 302). Cf. Hazlitt, Life of Napoleon, 2d ed., London, 1852, Vol. II, p. 317, footnote.
12 (footnote) THE CRY OF THE FOUNDERING LINE-OF-BATTLE SHIP "VENGEUR": On the 1st of June, 1794, the English fleet under Lord Howe defeated the French under Villaret-Joyeuse, taking six ships and sinking a seventh, the Vengeur. This ship sank, as a matter of fact, with part of her crew on board, imploring kid which there was not time to give them. Some two hundred and fifty men had been taken off by the English; the rest were lost. On the 9th of July Barrere published a report setting forth "how the Vengeur, ... being entirely disabled, ... refused to strike, though sinking; how the enemies fired on her, but she returned their fire, shot aloft all her tricolor streamers, shouted Vive la République, ... and so, in this mad whirlwind of fire and shouting and invincible despair, went down into the ocean depths; Vive la République and a universal volley from the upper deck being the last sounds she made." Cf. Carlyle, Sinking of the Vengeur, and French Revolution, Book XVIII, Chap. VI.
12 (footnote) LA GARDE MEURT, ETC.: "This phrase, attributed to Cambronne, who was made prisoner at Waterloo, was vehemently denied by him. It was invented by Rougemont, a prolific author of mots, two days after the battle, in the Indépendant."—Fournier's L'Esprit dans l'Histoire, trans. Bartlett, Familiar Quotations, p. 661.
13 25 BRUMMAGEM: Birmingham became early the chief place of manufacture of cheap wares. Hence the name Brummagem, a vulgar pronunciation of the name of the city, has become in England a common name for cheap, tawdry jewelry. Cf. also Shakespeare, Richard III, Act I, sc. iv, 1. 55:
False, fleeting, perjured Clarence.
13 27 LUXOR occupies part of the site of ancient Thebes, capital of Egypt; its antiquities are famous.
14 9 BUT ON OUR SIDE... WAS A TOWER OF MORAL STRENGTH, ETC.: Cf. Shakespeare, Richard III, Act V, sc. in, 11. 12-13:
Besides, the king's name is a tower of strength,
Which they upon the adverse party want.
14 20 FELT MY HEART BURN WITHIN ME: Cf. Luke xxiv. 32.
14 32 A VERY FINE STORY FROM ONE OF OUR ELDER DRAMATISTS: The dramatist in question has not been identified. I am indebted indirectly to Professor W. Strunk, Jr., of Cornell University, for reference to Johann Caius' Of English Dogs, translated by A. Fleming, in Arber's English Garner, original edition, Vol. III, p. 253 (new edition, Social England Illustrated, pp. 28-29), where, after telling how Henry the Seventh, perceiving that four mastiffs could overcome a lion, ordered the dogs all hanged, the writer continues: "I read an history answerable to this, of the selfsame HENRY, who having a notable and an excellent fair falcon, it fortuned that the King's Falconers, in the presence and hearing of his Grace, highly commended his Majesty's Falcon, saying, that it feared not to intermeddle with an eagle, it was so venturous and so mighty a bird; which when the king heard, he charged that the falcon should be killed without delay: for the selfsame reason, as it may seem, which was rehearsed in the conclusion of the former history concerning the same king."