The man who lets the contest fall is wise.
Euripides: Fragment 656. Protesilaus.
[807:3] On the authority of Madame de Hausset ("Mémoires," p. 19), this phrase is ascribed to Madame de Pompadour. Larouse ("Fleurs Historiques") attributes it to Louis XV.
[807:4] It was from the imperial camp near Pavia that Francis I., before leaving for Pizzighettone, wrote to his mother the memorable letter which, thanks to tradition, has become altered to the form of this sublime laconism: "Madame, tout est perdu fors l'honneur."
The true expression is, "Madame, pour vous faire savoir comme se porte le reste de mon infortune, de toutes choses ne m'est demeuré que l'honneur et la vie qui est sauvé."—Martin: Histoire de France, tome viii.
The correction of this expression was first made by Sismondi, vol. xvi. pp. 241, 242. The letter itself is printed entire in Dulaure's "Histoire de Paris": "Pour vous avertir comment se porte le ressort de mon infortune, de toutes choses ne m'est demeuré que l'honneur et la vie,—qui est sauvé."
[807:5] Inserit se tantis viris mulier alienigeni sanguinis: quæ a Philippo rege temulento immerenter damnata, Provocarem ad Philippum, inquit, sed sobrium.—Valerius Maximus: Lib. vi. c. 2.
[807:6] Since it [architecture] is music in space, as it were a frozen music. . . . If architecture in general is frozen music.—Schelling: Philosophie der Kunst, pp. 576, 593.
La vue d'un tel monument est comme une musique continuelle et fixée.—Madame de Staël: Corinne, livre iv. chap. 3.
[808:1] Fournier asserts, on the written authority of Talleyrand's brother, that the only breviary used by the ex-bishop was "L'Improvisateur Français," a compilation of anecdotes and bon-mots, in twenty-one duo-decimo volumes. Whenever a good thing was wandering about in search of a parent, he adopted it; amongst others, "C'est le commencement de la fin."