Byron’s epithet “buffoon” (line 5) may, perhaps, be traced to the following anecdote recorded by Tranchant de Laverne (p. 281):
“During the first war of Poland … he published, in the order of the day, that at the first crowing of the cock the troops would march to attack the enemy, and caused the spy to send word that the Russians would be upon them some time after midnight. But about eight o’clock Souvarof ran through the camp, imitating the crowing of a cock. … The enemy, completely surprised, lost a great number of men.”
For his “praying” (line 6), vide ibid., pp. 272, 273:
“He made a short prayer after each meal, and again when going to bed. He usually performed his devotions before an image of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of Russia.”
“Half-dirt” (line 5) is, however, a calumny (ibid. p. 272):
“It was his custom to rise at the earliest dawn; several buckets of cold water were thrown over his naked body.”
The same writer (p. 268) repudiates the charges of excessive barbarity and cruelty brought against Suvóroff by C. F. P. Masson, in his Mémoires Secrets sur la Russie (vide, e.g., ed. 1800, I 311):
“Souvorow ne scroit que le plus ridicule bouffon, s’il n’étoit pas montré le plus barbare guerrier. C’est un monstre, qui renferme dans le corps d’un singe l’âme d’un chien de boucher. Attila, son compatriote, et don’t il descend, peut-être ne fut ni si heureux, ni si féroce.”
Suvóroff did not regard himself as “half-demon.”
“Your pencil,” he reminded the artist Müller, “will delineate the features of my face. These are visible: but my inner man is hidden. I must tell you that I have shed rivers of blood. I tremble, but I love my neighbour. In my whole life I have made no one unhappy; not an insect hath perished by my hand. I was little; I was big. In fortune’s ebb and flow, relying on God, I stood immovable—even as now.”
(Suvóroff, 1890, p. 228, note)
—Editor ↩
See, for instance, “The Storm,” in “Souvarof’s Catechism,” Appendix (pp. 299–305) to the Life, etc., by Tranchant de Laverne, 1814:
“Break down the fence. … Fly over the walls! Stab them on the ramparts! … Fire down the streets! Fire briskly! … Kill every enemy in the streets! Let the cavalry hack them!” etc.
—Editor ↩
The “tusk” of the plough is the coulter or share. Compare “Dens vomeris” (Virg., Georg., I 22). —Editor ↩
Of thine imaginary deathless bough
—[MS. erased]
The unebbing sea of blood and tears must flow.
Entailed upon Humanity’s estate.
—[MS. erased]
As a brook’s stream to cope with Ocean’s flood shed
—[MS. erased]
But still we moderns equal you in bloodshed.
As in a General’s letter when well whacked
—[MS. erased]
Whatever deeds be done I will relate ’em,
With some small variations in the text
Of killed and wounded who will not be missed.
Whose leisure hours are wasted on an harlot.
—[MS. erased]
The desperate death-cry and the Battle’s roar.
—[MS. erased]
End of Canto 7. 1822. —[MS.] ↩
“La nuit était obscure; un brouillard épais ne nous permettait de distinguer autre chose que le feu de notre artillerie, dont l’horizon était embrasé de tous côtés: ce feu, partant du milieu du Danube, se réfléchissait sur les eaux, et offrait un coup d’oeil très-singulier.”
—Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie, II 209
—Editor ↩
“À peine eut-on parcouru l’espace de quelques toises au-delà des batteries, que les Turcs, qui n’avaient point tiré pendant toute la nuit s’apperçevant de nos mouvemens, commencèrent de leur côté un feu très-vif, qui embrasa le reste de l’horizon: mais ce fut bien autre chose lorsque, avancés davantage, le feu de la mousqueterie commença dans toute l’étendue du rempart que nous appercevions. Ce fut alors que la place parut à nos yeux comme un volcan dont le feu sortait de toutes parts.”
—Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie, II 209
—Editor ↩
“Un cri universel d’allah, qui se répétait tout autour de la ville, vint encore rendre plus extraordinaire cet instant, dont il est impossible de se faire une idée.”
—Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie, p. 209
—Editor ↩
Allah Hu! is properly the war-cry of the Mussulmans, and they dwell on the last syllable, which gives it a wild and peculiar effect.
[See The Giaour, line 734, Poetical Works, 1900, III 120, note 1; see, too, Siege of Corinth, line 713, Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie, p. 481.] ↩
“Toutes les colonnes étaient en mouvement; celles qui attaquaient par eau commandées par le général Arséniew, essuyèrent un feu épouvantable, et perdirent avant le jour un tiers de leurs officiers.”
—Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie, II 209
—Editor ↩
“But Thy1221 most dreaded instrument,
Wordsworth’s “Thanksgiving Ode” (January 18, 1816), stanza XII lines 20, 23
In working out a pure intent,
Is Man—arrayed for mutual slaughter—
Yea, Carnage is thy daughter!”
[Wordsworth omitted the lines in the last edition of his poems, which was revised by his own hand.] ↩
The Duc de Richelieu—.
—[MS. erased]
“Le Prince de Ligne fut blessé au genou; le Duc de Richelieu eut une balle entre le fond de son bonnet et sa tête.”
—Hist. de la Nouvelle Russie, II 210
For the gallantry of Prince Charles de Ligne (died September 14, 1792) eldest son of Prince Charles Joseph de Ligne (1735–1814), see The Prince de Ligne, 1899, II 46.
Armand Emanuel du Plessis, Duc de
