sert de. Distinguish from servir à
17-18. n’ .. .longtemps, had long ceased to exist. The negative imperfect tense indicates that the subject was not existing at the time; depuis indicates the point at which it had ceased to exist.
Page 4. — 2-3. n’ . . . pas, n’ . . . point. Do not get in the habit of understanding ne . . . point always as ‘not at all,’ which it rarely means. Ne . . . pas = not; ne . . . point = not-, ne . . . pas du tout = not at all.
4-6. veulent, wish; veulent bien, are willing. The underlying idea of vouloir is will-power, strong or weak; hence it means ‘to will’ as well as ‘to wish,’ according to the context. — Bien strengthens most verbs but usually, not always, weakens vouloir and aimer.
NOTES
25. cordelières des veuves. In heraldry, a knotted cord surrounding the escutcheon signifies widowhood.
Page 6. — 2. un géant d’Irlande. Giants were common in Celtic mythology. (Cf. Jack the Giant-Killer.) There were two real Irish giants, over eight feet tall, in the late eighteenth century.
6. doit, is to, is destined to. This common meaning (not quite so strong as ‘must’) of devoir is one that students frequently fail to recognize. Always with an underlying idea of obligation or of duty, devoir has many shades of meaning, which can be mastered only by careful observation of usage and frequent consultation of vocabulary or dictionary. The lazy habit of always understanding devoir as ‘ought’ is fatal to any real comprehension of this difficult verb.
13. En le voyant. Except in a few idioms, the gerund with en must refer to the subject of the main verb. En may be rendered by in, on, while, if, or left untranslated.
21. Ce disant, survival of an old grammatical usage, = en disant cela.
27. eussent-ils supporté = auraient-ils supporté. The pluperfect subjunctive, in an independent clause, always equals the conditional anterior.
Page 6. — 7. je l’étais, I had been one. Le may always stand for a previous unmodified noun (here mère) or an adjective. For the tense of étais see note on page 3, lines 17-18.
17-20. sans que . . . eût, sans ouvrir. Why the subjunctive in the one case and the infinitive in the other?
27-28. Esprit . . . foyer. From remote antiquity, the hearth has been associated with household divinities.
30. s’étant fait oindre. Owing to the position of the pronoun s’, fait is apparently reflexive; hence the auxiliary étant instead of ayant. The verb is really s’oindre.
Page 7. — 6. pour, on account of. With the perfect infinitive, pour usually denotes cause or concession, not purpose.
