[334] The sack of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois and the pillage of the Archbishop's Palace took place on the 14th and 15th of February 1831.—B.
The Duc de Berry was murdered on the 13th of February 1820—T.
[335] Félix Cadet de Gassicourt the Younger (1789-1861), chemist and druggist and Mayor of the 4th Ward of Paris.—B.
[336] "Mayeux," the hunchbacked type of the political versatility of the French nation, was an invention of the caricaturists and the comic papers of the year 1831. According to them, Messidor Napoleon Louis Charles Philippe Mayeux, born on the 14th of July 1789, while his father was engaged in taking the Bastille, had taken various Christian names according to the different forms of government which he had in turn espoused or repudiated. He had not been much heard of before 1830, but the sun of July had at last brought him into the light of day. For twelve months, Paris saw, talked, thought, swore, above all, by none save Mayeux. He was in turns a Republican, a Bonapartist, a juste-milieu man: everything, in short, except a Carlist; for he was faithful to his resentment against a mounted Grenadier of the Royal Guard who had failed to see him behind a curb-post and had laughed at him when he said:
"Take care, soldier; there's a man in front of you."
Mayeux was a National Guard: that caused his death. One day he was struck off the roll for being guilty of making his brother bisets laugh while under arms. He died of grief and shame a few weeks later: on the 23rd of December 1821, to be exact (Cf. the chapter on Mayeux in Bazin: L'Époque sans nom).—B.
[337] Chateaubriand's pamphlet appeared on the 24th of March 1831.—B.
[338] Études et discours historiques sur la chute de l'Empire romain, la naissance et le progrès du Christianisme et l'invasion des Barbares; suivis d'une Analyse raisonnée de l'histoire de France (Paris: 4 vols. 8vo). The Études historiques were published on the 4th of April 1831.—B.
[339] The fall of the Roman Empire.—Author's Note.
[340] Chateaubriand left for Switzerland on the 16th of May 1831; he arrived at Geneva on the 23rd of May.—B.