THE END OF LOUIS XVI. receives no insult after my death. I charge you to look to this matter!”—an injunction to which no reply was at first vouchsafed, but, seeing that the King was about to repeat his words, an ironic assurance was roughly given that Edgeworth would be duly attended to. The executioners next surrounded the King with intent to undress him; but he proudly forestalled their efforts by undoing his collar and opening his shirt. They then cut his hair. Their proposal to tie his hands naturally made him indignant, and he protested, and would even have resisted, but, at the persuasion of Edgeworth, he submitted. His hands being tied behind his back-Edgeworth helped him up the steep steps to the scaffold; and from the difficulty experienced in mounting, began to fear that his courage was failing. But no sooner had the King reached the topmost step than he, as it were, escaped from his companion. Traversing the entire breadth of the scaffold with a firm tread, he silenced by a single glance the noisy drummers in front of him; and, in a voice loud enough to be plainly audible at the neighbouring Pont Tournant, began to declare that he died innocent of the crimes imputed to him; that he forgave the authors of his death, and that he prayed God the blood they were about to shed might never fall on France. He would have added more, but a mounted officer (Santerre), brandishing his sabre, rode furiously forward, and commanded the drummers to strike up again. Then, after a moment of hesitation, Sanson and his four commis closed relentlessly upon their pinioned victim and thrust him under the axe. (Later Essays, 1917–1920.) A FAMOUS FRENCH NAVAL OFFICER A FAMOUS FRENCH NAVAL OFFICER OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: THE BAILLI DE SUFFREN IN action Suffren's habitual head-dress was a widebrimmed felt hat, which had been given to him by his brother, the Bishop of Nevers and Sisteron, and which was regarded by the common seamen with as much superstitious veneration as the historical grey coat of Napoleon inspired in the veterans of the Grande Armée. Like Nelson, negligent of his costume, which in India his excessive corpulence obliged him to reduce as much as possible, he generally appeared in his shirt and a light cotton vest or jacket. He resembled Robinson Crusoe in being frequently accompanied by a favourite parrot; and, as may, perhaps, be inferred from his obesity, was an excellent trencherman, fully recognizing the sanctity of the dinner-hour. His tastes, nevertheless, were simple. He was warmly attached to his family and friends; and in all his campaigns seems to have sighed for the quiet of his Provençal home. But once on shipboard his energy was indefatigable, and he never yielded to the enervating influence of an Eastern atmosphere. "Je sers," he wrote to his friend, the Countess d'Alais, " pour faire la guerre, non ma cour aux femmes de l'Isle de France.” By the able seaman, who knew his work, the Bailli was idolized; by the officier à talons rouges," who did not, he was naturally disliked. A rigorous disciplinarian, he was inexorable to cases of insubordination or imputed 44 THE SONG OF THE SEA WIND cowardice; and his concise and uncompromising censure, conveyed in a constitutionally nasal tone, must have been an additional terror to delinquents. "Je persiste," he said, receiving the excuses of a defaulter," je persiste à dire que vous avez entaché le pavillon." Some of his letters to the Countess d'Alais, published by Captain Ortolan in the 17 Moniteur for 1859, give an intimate idea of his individuality. 44 (At Prior Park and Other Papers.) THE SONG OF THE SEA WIND How it sings, sings, sings, Blowing sharply from the sea-line, How it shrieks, shrieks, shrieks, In the crannies of the headland, In the gashes of the creeks; How it shrieks once more, and catches How it whirls it out and over To the corn-field and the clover- GARRICK'S LAST APPEARANCE How it roars, roars, roars, In the iron under-caverns, How it wails, wails, wails, In the tangle of the wreckage, And across the ground-swell rolling, DAVID GARRICK'S LAST APPEARANCE BUT the ineluctabile tempus was at hand, and on Monday, June 10, 1776, came what, in modern theatrical parlance, would be "positively the last appearance." That Garrick would have chosen some important character on this occasion might perhaps have been expected. The renewed representation of Richard, however, and the demands made upon his strength in Lear, taken in connection with the sufficiently pathetic aspects of this abandonment of his profession, decided him to make his farewell bow in a less arduous part. He chose Don Felix in The Wonder" of 44 GARRICK'S LAST APPEARANCE 44 44 Mrs. Centlivre-an impersonation having certain affinities with that of Johnson's Kitely. From floor to ceiling the theatre was crowded by admirers of all ranks, and of almost all nationalities. The proceedings opened with a prologue (memorable for the line, "A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind ") in aid of the Theatrical Fund. This, to which the profits of the night were to be devoted, had been set on foot by himself. Then came the piece. Never," says the Morning Post, were the passions of love, jealousy, rage, etc., so highly coloured or admirably set off in short, he finished his comic course with as high a theatrical climax as he did on Saturday evening his tragic one." Replying to the already quoted letter of Madame Necker, he himself supplies some account of his feelings. "Though I performed my part," he says, "with as much, if not more, spirit than I ever did, yet when I came to take the last farewell, I not only lost almost the use of my voice, but of my limbs too; it was, indeed, as I said, a most awful moment." He here refers to the brief and unaffected address which he gave at the close. There was no attempt at an epilogue; "the jingle of rhyme, and the language of fiction," he told his audience, would be unsuited to the occasion. In a few faltering and almost conventional words, which were interrupted by a burst of genuine tears, he confined himself to assuring them of the sincerity of his past efforts on their behalf, and of his unalterable gratitude for their long kindness to himself. The Country Dance customary at the end of Act V. had been already omitted; and it was now felt by spectators and performers alike that Dibdin's "Musical Entertainment" of "The Waterman,' |