Confessons, pour être absolus. It is of course in the

secret of the confessional that the Roman Catholic clergy exercise the most powerful sway over the conscience of those whom they advise and absolve of their sins.

1. 17. Henri quatre est mort, qu'on n'en parle plus. On Henri IV, who promulgated the Edict of Nantes, cf. note to La Cocarde Blanche, 1. 46.

I. 19. Ferdinand sept. The unprincipled and superstitious Ferdinand VII had been allowed by Napoleon to return to Spain in 18 13, and had immediately abolished the constitution established by the Cortes in 181 2. He restored the Inquisition in 1814, and this was the immediate cause of the years of insurrection and revolt which followed, and which lasted until order was restored by a French army under the Duc d'Angoulême in 1823 (cf. notes to Le Vieux Sergent).

L 23. le grand homme du jour. Elie Decazes (1 780-1 860), who had been a judge of the Court of Appeal under Napoleon, accepted the Bourbons in 1814, and in 18 15 became Minister of Police. He acquired a great ascendancy over Louis XVIII, using his influence against the ultra-Royalists, and brought about the dissolution of the 'Chambre Introuvable' in 1816. He carried a number of liberal measures in the teeth of the opposition of the ' ultras,' who retaliated by blaming him for the murder of the Duc de Berry in 1820. Decazes was obliged to resign, and was appointed ambassador in London with the title of Duke. He was recalled by Villèle in 1821, and sat among the 'libéraux modérés' until 1830. He was one of the most enlightened and universally respected statesmen of the time, did a great deal for art, agriculture, and industry, and founded the manufacturing town of Decazeville, in the centre of the Aveyron coalfields.

L 26. Voyez en nous les dragées. 'Dragées5 are almondshaped sweets of hard sugar, containing either almonds or a few drops of liqueur. It is customary for the godfather and godmother to scatter them among the crowd at the door as the baptism party leaves the church. The baptism referred to was that of the Due Decazes' son (1819-1886) who later assumed his father's title and was Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1873 to 1877.

II. 36-37. La Charte serait de feu, et le monarque de paille. The monarch is a ' man of straw ' destined finally to be consumed by the Charter.