The following desponding lines were written by Chénier just before
undertaking a journey to Switzerland and Italy. His friends, finding him
in a very bad state of health, prevailed upon him to accompany them.
His spirits seem to have been very low at that time, as appears from the
thoughts of death he gives expression to, and numerous are the passages
in which the melancholy mind of Chénier gloats upon death.
L. 1. _je suis prêt à descendre._ Grammarians have long distinguished
between _près de_ and _prêt à_, but writers never did, until lately,
when _prêt à_ was restricted to expressing 'ready to' and _près de_ 'on
the point of.'
L. 3. _linceul._ In the _Dictionnaire des rimes françaises_, by Jean Le
Febvre, Paris, 1587, _linceuil_ and _linceul_ are given. Littré observes
that both pronunciations are heard.
L. 13. _reliques._ The English student is likely to overlook this word,
as English 'relics' means both (1) what remains as a memorial of a
departed saint, martyr, or other holy person, and (2) the remains of a
person, the body of one deceased. But this latter sense is of very rare
occurrence in French, and Chénier uses it because, being seldom used, it
is still all but novel. He thinks it 'fine and sonorous,' and proceeds
to observe that Racine has it twice. Alfred de Musset, after him,
employed _reliques_ figuratively in; 'Les morts dorment en paix dans
le sein de la terre; Ainsi doivent dormir nos sentiments éteints; Ces
_reliques_ du coeur ont aussi leur poussière; Sur leurs restes sacrés ne
portons pas les mains.' Yet it is easy to see that in this instance both
senses are implied.
L. 24. _qu'il dut vivre longtemps._ All editions, and our present
selection after them, print _dut_ without a circumflex accent. _Dût_ is
in fact the imperfect of the subjunctive used, as was usual in the older
language and is still occasional in seventeenth-century French, for the
pluperfect of the subjunctive, as in: 'Mais puisque son dédain, au lieu
de le guérir, Ranime ton amour qu'il _dût_ faire mourir. Sers-toi de mon
pouvoir,' Corneille, _Clit._ II. iv. 484. So here _dût_ stands for _eût
dû = aurait dû_. See Haase, § 66 B.
L. 25. _le meurtre jamais n'a souillé mon courage._ Tibullus, iii. 5. 5
ff. When Chénier speaks of murder he has duelling in his mind, which
he deprecated in his prose works. He also takes _courage_ in its older
sense, frequent in the great French classics, and the oldest sense,
recorded in English, of 'the heart as the seat of feeling, thought, &c.;
spirit, mind, disposition, nature.'--_N.E.D._