Note 85 — Chapter XI

Well may Reverdil say about this indictment that it is impossible to read anything more flat, more clumsy, or more disgusting. It is the style of a lackey amusing himself in a tavern at the expense of a man who is about to be hung. He adds: "Ought not an unhappy man who is pining in fetters to be spared insults useless to the cause? Ought not Wiwet to have reflected that he could not insult the prisoner without failing in respect to the king, who so long honoured him with his confidence, and who signed most of the orders alleged as a crime against Struensee?"