[472] Chateaubriand, in a footnote to the Itinéraire, confesses his mistake in searching for the stone lion which, according to Herodotus, marks the tomb of Leonidas and his companions, at Sparta instead of at Thermopylæ.—B.
[473] Sir Charles Asgill (1760-1823), an English general serving under Cornwallis. He was taken prisoner by the insurgents and picked out by lot to be shot by way of reprisals. He was saved through the intervention of the French Government, and an act of the American Congress revoked the sentence of death. Asgill visited Versailles to thank Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, who had actively interceded on his behalf. The episode furnished a subject for a number of popular novels and plays.—B.
[474] Jean Baptiste Donatien de Viveur, Comte de Rochambeau (1725-1807), was sent to America with 6000 men to assist the insurgents and contributed towards effecting the capitulation of Cornwallis in 1781. He returned to France when peace was declared, became Governor of Picardy and Artois, and was created a Marshal of France in 1791, and given the command of the Northern Army. He vainly endeavoured to restore discipline and resigned his command in 1792. He was condemned to death by Robespierre, but made his escape.—T.
[475] JOB, XXXIX. 19-25.—T.
[476] The Abbé Paul François Velly (1709-1759) wrote the first seven or eight volumes of the History of France in thirty volumes known as the Histoire de Velly, Villaret et Garnier. These first eight volumes which cover the period to the reign of Philip the Fair, are the weakest of the whole compilation, especially the two first, which embrace the history of the Frankish kings.—T.
[477] Khilpérick or Chilperic I. (d. 584), King of Soissons, later King of the Franks, youngest son of Clotaire I., King of the Franks.—T.
[478] Cf. Plutarch's Life of Phocion.—B.
[479] Odyssey, VII.—B.
[480] Louis Joseph Marquis de Montcalm (1712-1759), entrusted with the defense of Canada against the English in 1756.—T.
[481] John Campbell, fourth Earl of Loudon (1705-1782), Governor-General of Virginia and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in America (1756), but recalled in 1757.—T.