y. fleuri, 'florid

1 II a l'oreillt rouge et le teint bien fleuri.'

(Molière, Tartufe, II, 3.)

1. 11. Au ventre toujours fidèle. As Béranger himself explains, there was in the Chamber a Centre of some 300 members who took a middle position between the ultra- Royalists of the late 'Chambre Introuvable' and the Republicans and 'doctri-

naires ' of the Opposition. The greater number of these men were honest partisans of a policy of conciliation, and hardly deserved the sarcasms which Béranger flings at them in this somewhat scurrilous, and consequently very popular, party gibe.

1. 13. à dix pas de Villéle. Joseph de Villèle (1773-1854) had sat at the extreme Right of the ' Chambre Introuvable,' and in 18 18 was the acknowledged leader of the ' opposition de droite ' or ultra- Royalist party. He was called to office at the fall of the Decazes Ministry in 1820, and became President of the Council in 1822 with the title of Count. Though an exceedingly capable statesman, he alienated public opinion by his measures against the Press, the disbanding of the ' Garde Nationale,' the ' milliard ' of indemnity voted for the ' émigrés ' (cf. Le Sacre de Charles le Simple, 1. 27), and several unpopular bills which were rejected by the Chamber (reestablishment of the ' droit d'aînesse,' &c.),and he was obliged to resign in 1828, in favour of the more Liberal Ministry of Martignac.

I.14. AquinzedetTArgenson. Marc René Marie d'Argenson (1771-1842), a descendant of a long line of distinguished men of that name, was a close friend of La Fayette, whose aide-decamp he had been in his youth. Throughout the Restoration he fought against the Royalist reaction, advocated the claims of the working classes, and was one of the leaders of the party of the extreme Left#/

1. 15. ce ventre étoffé. 'Étoffé' is equivalent to 'bien garni,' and corresponds almost exactly to the derived English word ' stuffed.'

I.16. tout truffé, ' ready truffled.' Alluding, of course, to the costly dinners he had been feasted with.

1. 31. Si la presse a des entraves. Cf. note to Monsieur Judas, 1. 16.

1. 41. J'ai repoussé les enquêtes. The Left had repeatedly asked in vain for an inquiry into the disorders of the ' Terreur Blanche.'

I.43. sur toutes les requêtes. 'Dans la session de 181 8, un grand nombre d'adresses, p-ésentées à la Chambre en faveur du rappel des proscrits, amena une discussion extrêmement vive, que termina l'ordre du jour.' (Xote by Béranger.)

1. 51. Des dépenses de police. The Left protested frequently against the large amount for which police expenses figured in the Budget.

1. 54. Pour les Suisses j'ai voté. Susane, in his Histoire dt V Infanterie française, says : ' It has been calculated that between 1477 and 1830 one million Swiss soldiers had served in France.'

These Swiss regiments were always models of bravery and discipline, and had never incurred any reproach but that of insisting on being regularly paid (' Point d'argent, point de Suisse'). It was the ' Dauphin de France,' later Louis XI, who first took Swiss troops into his service. At the Restoration Louis XVIII immediately formed two regiments of Swiss infantry and two of Swiss guards, who during the ' Hundred Days ' remained faithful to the king. They were maintained during the whole of the Restoration, but the Liberals never ceased to protest against these foreign troops, and they were finally disbanded in August, 1830.

1. 56. de la maison, ' of the king's household.' 1. 63. V étranger. Béranger refers to the indemnity to the Allies of 265 million francs, of which 100 millions were to be acquitted by inscriptions on the * Grand Livre ' of the public debt.

La Sainte Alliance des Peuples. (Page 50.)

' Lorsque les troupes étrangères évacuèrent le sol français, le vieux et respectable duc de la Rochefoucauld pria Béranger de lui faire une chanson pour célébrer leur départ, dans une fête donnée à cette occasion au château de Liancourt . . . Lorsque la chanson fut faite, il l'envoya, mais sans vouloir assister à la fête, Béranger s'étant presque toujours fait une loi de ne point fréquenter les grands seigneurs, de quelque régime qu'ils fussent, cela non par fierté mal entendue ou désobligeante pour eux, mais par un goût très vif pour une manière de vivre toute simple et toute bourgeoise. La chanson eut du succès, et la Minerve la publia ; mais sans le nom de M. de la Rochefoucauld peut-être cette publication eût-elle offert quelque danger.' (Note by Béranger.)

The title of this song is, of course, a set-off to the ' Sainte Alliance des Empereurs et des Rois ' (signed at Paris on the 20th of September, 1815). It was generally confused in the minds of the people with the ' Traité d'Alliance ■ of March 1st, 1814 (renewed on the 25th of March, 18 15).

The Duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt (1747-1827) held office in the household of Louis XV and Louis XVI ; he supported and defended the latter during the Revolution until he was obliged to take refuge in England, and later in the United States. He returned to France after the ' 18 brumaire,' and devoted himself to philanthropic enterprises, created factories and a technical school, and strove to encourage and popularize vaccination. He became a member of the ' Chambre de

Paris' in 1814, but gave offence by his leanings towards Liberalism, and was disgraced by Charles X.

By the terms of the Peace of Paris of November 20, 18 15, France was to pay the Allies an indemnity of 700 million francs, and a number of fortresses extending along the northern frontier were to be occupied at the expense of France by an allied army not exceeding 150,000 men for a maximum period of five years. The Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle of September, 181 8, decided that the occupation should terminate at once, and the sum payable by France was reduced to 265 million francs.

1. 30. D'un joug pesant sous un joug inhumain. 'From the yoke of Napoleon to that of your kings,' whose inhumanity and ingratitude (1. 36) Béranger invariably takes for granted.

1. 37. Des astres faux. Perhaps to be understood as 'qui brillent d;un faux éclat,1 a somewhat involved metaphor in which kings would be compared to heavenly bodies, and the latter to precious stones. Or perhaps kings are compared to those comets and other sudden apparitions in the starry realms which more than once in history terrified the people, but paled and disappeared in due course.

1. 50. plus d'un roi répétait ses discours. Every monarch in Europe was certainly desirous of peace at this time ; it is doubtful, however, whether they longed to bring about this • Sainte Alliance des Peuples,' the idea of which had originated with J. -J. Rousseau, which had been preached by all the utopists of the Revolution, and which it had been Napoleon's dream and constant endeavour to force upon Europe.

1. 52. L'automne en fleurs. 'L'automne de 18 18 fut d'une beauté remarquable : beaucoup d'arbres fruitiers refleurirent, même dans le nord de la France.' (Note by Béranger.)

Les Révérends Pères. (Page 52.)

Written in December, 1819.

'Qui pourrait croire qu'en 18 19 beaucoup de personnes doutaient des progrès que les jésuites faisaient sourdement en France ? A cette époque pourtant, sous des noms divers, on comptait plus de trente maisons régentées par eux. Us étaient protégés par le gouvernement occulte, à la tête duquel était le comte d'Artois.

'L'atroce gouvernement de Ferdinand VII, en Espagne, avait trouvé des gens pour le louer en France.

" Quant au grand homme du jour dont il est question au troisième couplet, c'est M. Decazes, qui acheta par ses com-

plaisances l'honneur d'avoir la duchesse d'Angoulême pour marraine de son fils. . . .

1 C'est particulièrement sous son ministère que les jésuites firent, en France, les plus rapides progrès et commencèrent à envahir l'instruction publique. Il serait injuste de croire qu'il les aimât ; mais il ne fit rien pour s'opposer à leur progrès ; il craignait trop de déplaire au frère du roi et à ses amis, qui ne lui ménageaient pas les menaces.' (Note by Béranger.)

11. 5-6. Nous sommes fils de Loyola ; vous savez pourquoi Von nous exila. The ' Société de Jésus' was founded in Paris in 1534 by Ignatius Loyola, and spread rapidly over Italy, Spain, and Portugal. They have reckoned among their ranks many eminent men, and were extremely successful as educators of youth and as missionaries. Early in the seventeenth century, however, their doctrines and casuistics were subjected to many attacks, the most famous of which was delivered by Pascal in his Lettres Provinciales. Soon their mercantile spirit, their persistent interference in mundane affairs and in politics, and their suspected participation in many plots and conspiracies, caused every country to rise against them. Their great downfall occurred in the middle of the eighteenth century, when they were banished from Portugal in 1759, from France in 1762, from Spain and Sicily in 1767, and saw their order suppressed by Pope Clement XIV in 1773.

I. 7. Nous rentrons. The Jesuits were re-established by Pope Pius VII, secretly at his accession in 1800, and publicly in 1 8 14. They reappeared in France at the Restoration, under the name of ' Pères de la Foi,' and founded a number of flourishing schools, particularly at Saint-Acheul and at Montrouge. The campaign which the Liberal party conducted against them culminated in the indictments of the Comte de Montlosier : Lettre a" Accusation contre les Jésuites (1826), Les Jésuites et les Congrégations (1827), which caused their schools to be closed in 1828. The Jesuits were expelled from France for the last time in 1880.

1. 1 1. Les jolis petits, les jolis garçons. The rosy-faced and 1 blue-blooded ' offspring of the aristocracy, who throughout the nineteenth century were entrusted for their education to the Jesuit and other religious orders.

1. 13. // mourut dans les coliques. Pope Clement XIV, after temporizing for several years, yielded in 1773 to the demands made by the courts of Europe for the suppression of the Jesuit order; he died the following year, and it was commonly asserted that he had been poisoned.