This poem "Be- falls," is based upon Friedrich Schlegel's characterization of the French Revolution. Schlegel (1772--1829) was an important German literary critic and philosopher who lived in Paris for a brief period of time.Internet 2011: In the early 1800s the flame of Schlegel's early radicalism dimmed and his thought moved steadily in a conservative direction. He became disillusioned with the French Revolution, which seemed to end in anarchy, commercialism and military dictatorship. Increasingly, he saw the defence of the Catholic Church and the old social hierarchy as the only safeguards against these disturbing trends, and as the only pillars of spiritual and communal values. His growing conservatism culminated in his conversion to the Roman Catholic Church in 1808 and in his diplomatic and literary activity on behalf of Metternich between 1809 and 1818. In his later political writings, especially his Signatur des Zeitalters (Sign of the Age) (1820), Schlegel defended a virtually reactionary position: that the basis of all right is tradition, that society should be organized according to estates, and that social order depends upon the restoration of the Church. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner. https://aspace.lib.uiowa.edu/repositories/5/archival_objects/891727 Accessed February 10, 2025.