[254] The first line of Gilbert's swan-song--the only song of his that is remembered. It sets Stello himself on the track which the "Black Doctor" has concealed up to the point. As the original rhythm could not be kept without altering the substance, I have substituted another--not so unconnected as it may seem.--By the way, Vigny has taken as much liberty with French dates in this story as with English facts in the Chatterton one. Gilbert died in 1780, and Louis XV. had passed from the arms of his last mistress, Scarlatina Maligna, six years before, to be actually made the subject of a funeral panegyric by the poet. In fact, the sufferings of the latter have been argued to be pure legend. But this of course affects _literature_ hardly at all; and Vigny had a perfect right to use the accepted version. [255] Why should a "basket" be specially silly? The answer is that the original comparison was to a "panier _perce_," a basket which won't hold anything. But the phrase got shortened. [256] He not only, in the face of generally known and public history, makes the man who was positively insolent to George III. a flunky of royalty, but assigns, as the immediate cause of the poet's suicide, the offer to him of a lucrative but menial office in the Mansion House! Now, if not history, biography tells us that Beckford's own death, and the consequent loss of hope from him, were at least among the causes, if not the sole cause, of the _subsequent_ catastrophe. [257] He has contrived, with the help of the gaoler's daughter Rose, to suppress an earlier inclusion of Chenier's name in the tumbril-list; and thus might have saved him altogether, but for the father's insane reminder to Robespierre. [258] But she had to go backwards through the circles between Thermidor and Brumaire, and can hardly be said to have "seen the stars" even then. Vigny has, as we shall see, touched on the less enormous and flagrant--but as individual things scarcely less atrocious--crimes of the Directory in the first story of his next book. [259] There might of course have been spy-subordinates (cf. the case of D'Artagnan and Belleisle), with secret commissions to meet and render futile his disobedience; but nothing of the sort is even hinted. [260] Vigny, with perfect probability, but whether with complete historical accuracy or not I do not know, represents this useless exposure as wanton bravado on Napoleon's part. [261] There may perhaps have been some private reasons for his enthusiasm. At any rate it is pleasant to compare it with the offensive manner in which this "heroic sailor-soul" and admirably good man has sometimes been treated by the more pedantic kind of naval historian. CHAPTER VII THE MINORS OF 1830