io. ses remparts, the armies and garrisons of Napoleon

1. 19. Nous ont crié: Venez, soyez nos maîtres. Béranger probably refers, not to Spain alone, but to France, where the people still remembered the 'note secrète.' (Cf. notes to Les Enfants de la France.)

1. 29. Du roi des Huns. Cf. note to LES GAULOIS ET LES Francs, 1. 6.

Les Hirondelles. (Page 80.)

This is the most popular, as it is also the most perfect, of Bérangers romances, and has a place in almost every school anthology.

1. i. au rivage du More. From the sixteenth century until 1830, when Algiers was taken by the French, the Mediterranean was infested and terrorized by Algerian privateers and pirates, immunity from the raids of whom was only purchased by the payment of a yearly tribute to the Dey. The captured Christians were held to ransom (cf. the amusing scene in Molière's Fourberies de Scapin, II, 11) or reduced to slavery. When Lord Exmouth bombarded Algiers in 18 16, and demanded the liberation of the captives, some 3,000 were handed over.

1. 28. La célébrer dans leurs chansons. The songs of the 1 garçons d'honneur ' and ' filles d'honneur ' are an important feature of the wedding festivities in many rural districts of France.

1. 36. Vhymen. This word is very seldom pronounced to rhyme with ' chemin ' at the present day.

1. 38. partout des fers. Whether I remain in captivity or return home.

Le Vieux Sergent. (Page 82.)

Written in 1823, during the campaign in Spain. The French crossed the Bidassoa on the 7th of April under the command of the Duc d'Angoulême, and Madrid was occupied without any fighting, the King and the Cortes fleeing to Cadiz, where they attempted to make a stand. On the 31st of August the Spanish batteries were stormed and carried with trifling loss, the Duc d'Angoulême greatly distinguishing himself by his coolness and gallantry. King Ferdinand was

replaced unconditionally on an absolute throne, and despotism and tyranny in their most odious shape were re-established throughout Spain.

The ' vieux sergent ' is an old soldier of the armies of the Republic.

1. 6. Son seul refuge. The Government had done nothing to provide for the old age of the disbanded soldiers, not even when, like the old sergeant, they had been disabled.

1. io. // 'voit au loin tasser un bataillon, i.e. on its way towards the South.

1. 1 8. A Jemmape. It was at Jemmapes in Belgium, three miles west of Mons, that the army of the Republic under Dumouriez won its first great victory over the Austrians, on November 6, 1792.

à Fleurus, fifteen miles west of Namur, where the Austrians were defeated by Jourdan on June 26, 1794.

It will be noticed that it is the armies of the Republic, and not of the Empire, which Béranger sings as a set-off to the unpopular campaign in Spain, where France was playing the same part as was done by the Austrians and the Allies during the Revolution.