voulait la coction, lequired to be heated

1. 35. auxquels on rend par ricochet les mortifications ... on whom the moi-tifications . . . are made to rebound.

1. 38. au grand complet de guerre, in a state of war with ail that this involves.

Page 50. 1. 8. quittances (de loyer), receipts for rent.

1. 9. le jour de l'échéance, on the day when they were due. Le contribuable en retard recevait un commandement à heure fixe, the tenant, who was behindhand, received an order to pay by a certain appointed hour. Contribuable is not really the proper term to use in this case, as it means a ratepayer. Balzac should hâve said le locataire.

1. 10. Puis la saisie, les frais, toute la cavalerie judiciaire allait aussitôt, avec la rapidité de ce que l'exécuteur des hautes œuvres appelle 'la mécanique,' then the distress (seizure of goods and chattels) and costs,and the whole machinery of judicial procédure

was set working with what an executioner would call guillotinelike rapidity. La mécanique really ineans, in this instance, la guillothie.

1. 13. son cœur avait tin caliis à Vendroit du loyer, his heart was stone when rent due was in question.

1. 21. d'avoir été soutenu mal à propos, of having been backed at the wrong moment.

1. 25. des héroïques dix-sept députés de la gauche. The members of the Left, i. e. Libéral, or Opposition, side of the Chambre des Députés, who energetically opposed the sending of an army into Spain by the French Government in order to check the progress of the révolu tionary movement in that country, provoked by the misgovemment of King Ferdinand VIL

Page 51. 1. 3. A vos souhaits : about équivalent to ' God bless you ' ; the expression is used in French when some one bas sneezed, as the Germans say Gesundheit ; there is no exact équivalent in English, as the custom does not exist hère.