[427] Jomini, tom. iv., p. 319. Beauchamp, tom. ii., p. 102.
[428] Some derived it from Chat-huant, as if the insurgents, like owls, appeared chiefly at night; others traced it to Chouin, the name of two brothers, sons of a blacksmith, said to have been the earliest leaders of the Breton insurgents.—S.
[429] Canclaux was born at Paris in 1740. After the revolution of the 18th Brumaire, Napoleon gave him the command of the 14th military division, and made him a senator. At the restoration he was created a peer. He died in 1817.
[430] We can and ought to make great allowances for national feeling; yet it is a little hard to find a well-informed historian, like M. Lacretelle, [tom. xi., p. 146,] gravely insinuate, that England threw the unfortunate Royalists on the coast of Quiberon to escape the future burden of maintaining them. Her liberality towards the emigrants, honourable and meritorious to the country, was entirely gratuitous. She might have withdrawn when she pleased a bounty conferred by her benevolence; and it is rather too hard to be supposed capable of meditating their murder, merely to save the expense of supporting them. The expedition was a blunder; but one in which the unfortunate sufferers contributed to mislead the British Government.—S.
[431] "This man, originally a painter, had become an adjutant in the Parisian corps; he was afterwards employed in the army; and, having been successful against the Marseillois, the deputies of the Mountain had, in the same day, obtained him the appointments of brigadier-general and general of division. He was extremely ignorant, and had nothing military about him, otherwise he was not ill-disposed."—Napoleon, Memoirs, vol. i., p. 19.
[432] Stanislaus Fréron was son of the well-known victim of Voltaire, and godson of the unfortunate King of Poland. He accompanied the French expedition to St. Domingo in 1802, and being appointed sub-prefect at the Cayes, soon sunk under the influence of the climate. His portfolio falling into the hands of the black government, some of its contents were published by the authority of Dessaline, and subjoined to a work entitled "Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de Hayti." Among them are several amatory epistles from Napoleon's second sister Pauline, by which it appears that Fréron was the earliest object of her choice, but that Napoleon and Josephine would not hear of an alliance with the friend of Robespierre, and ready instrument of his atrocities.
[433] Jomini, tom. iv., p. 208; Toulongeon, tom. iv., p. 63.
[434] Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 98; Thiers, tom. iv., p. 161.
[435] Before the arrival of Collot d'Herbois, Fouché (afterwards Duke of Otranto) issued a decree, directing that all religious emblems should be destroyed, and that the words "Death is an eternal sleep!" should be placed over the entrance of every burial ground.—See Moniteur, Nos. 57, 64.
[436] An ass formed a conspicuous part of the procession, having a mitre fastened between his ears, and dragging in the dirt a Bible tied to its tail; which Bible was afterwards burnt, and its ashes scattered to the winds. Fouché wrote to the Convention—"The shade of Châlier is satisfied. Yes, we swear that the people shall be avenged. Our severe courage shall keep pace with their just impatience."—Moniteur; Montgaillard, tom. iv., pp. 113, 138.