L’AUBE

Title. — • L’Aube, symbolical of the belief at the time that the Revolution of 1789 heralded the dawn of an age of gold, not only for France but for the world. The story skilfully emphasizes throughout the belief in reason, and the seemingly contradictory sentimentality, that marked the epoch.

Page 101. — I. Cours-la-Reine, a park-line avenue along the right bank of the Seine, down-stream from what is now the Place de la Concorde (then Place Louis XV); a fashionable promenade- in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

6. TuUeries, a royal palace on the right bank of the Seine; also the gardens of the palace.

9. bourgeois . . .venu. It soon proved to be the reign of the rabble, rather than of the middle classes, that the Revolution ushered in.

18-20. tout ce que . . . sublime. In this construction, tout ce que is always separated from its complement, the phrase beginning with de, by the verb and its subject; all the stupid ferocity and sublime enthusiasm.

NOTES

23. la Bastille. The Bastille, a fortress and state prison, the symbol of despotism in the eyes of the public, was stormed by the mob July 14, 1789, the date that marks the beginning of the Revolution. The governor, de Launay, and the garrison of retired soldiers (invalides) were massacred.

24. prévôt des marchands, formerly an officer of great power. The last one, Jacques de Flesselles, was slain by the mob the day the Bastille fell.

Page 102. — 2. Grève, the Place de la Grève, long the site of public executions, in front of the Hôtel de Ville.

4-5. triomphateur, apparently J.-J. Élie, a soldier of fortune, known as the “vainqueur de la Bastille.” The first person to enter the fortress, he received the capitulation from the hands of the governor.

9. La Fayette, of American fame, who played a minor part in the French Revolution. — Bailly, acclaimed mayor of Paris July 15. An able and honest man, his moderation caused him to be ’guillotined by the radicals in 1793, the year of the Terror.