I. 8. nos poltrons, the Government

vergogne, 'shame.' Hardly ever heard to-day except in the expression ' sans vergogne.'

II. 13-14. le beau dévouement des femmes. It is a fact that the women of Poland showed as much patriotism as the women of Germany had done in 18 13.

I. 20. aux braves Sarmates. Béranger is fond of airing his classical lore. As he frequently refers to the French as ' Gauls,' it is natural that he should call the Poles ' Sarmatians.'

II. 25-26. ne croit pas à la vertu sous des guenilles. The Polish army consisted partly of some of the best soldiers in Europe, who had been trained by Napoleon and by Grand Duke Constantine, and largely of inexperienced recruits clad in rags and armed with scythes.

1. 30. du Sund, the ' Sound,' or passage connecting the Cattegat with the Baltic.

I. 31. réveiller le Croissant, 'awaken anew the Turkish Crescent.' The short war between Russia and Turkey (cf. notes to Psara) had terminated with the Peace of Adrianople in September, 1829.

II. 51-52, la trompette qui doit réveiller du trépas, ' the trumpet of the Doomsday.'

Poniatowski. (Page 114.)

Written in July, 183 1, and sold in aid of the Franco-Polish Committee. Joseph Poniatowski, nephew of Stanislaus II, last king of Poland, was born at Warsaw in 1763. He commanded the Polish troops against the Russians in 1792, served under Kosciusko in 1794, and when the French appeared in Poland in 1806 was appointed Minister of War of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. In 1809, with 8,000 men, he defended Warsaw against 60,000 Austrians. He greatly distinguished himself also in 181 2 and 1813, and was made a field-marshal by Napoleon on the first day of the battle of Leipzig. Three days later, on October 19, he was at the rear-guard covering

the French retreat, and at his arrival on the Elster found the bridges already blown up. Dangerously wounded, he attempted to make his horse swim the river, but was carried away by the current and drowned, his body being found a few days later. He was buried beside Kosciusko at Cracow. The death of Poniatowski is the subject of one of Horace Vernet's best known pictures.

1. 29. P aigle blanc, l the white Eagle of Poland.' 1. 47. Au bord du gouffre, ' on the brink of ruin.'

A M. de Chateaubriand. (Page 116.)

Written in September, 1831.

The Vicomte François René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) occupies a prominent place in politics and in literature during the Empire and the Restoration. He entered the army in 1786, fled to America in 1791, returned in 1792 at the news of the king's peril, emigrated to Germany and served for a short time in the Royalist army, but soon proceeded to England, where he lived for several years in great poverty, teaching and writing to earn a livelihood. It was in England that he published in 1797 his sceptical Essai sur les Révolutions. He returned to France in 1800, and having been converted by his dying mother from Voltairianism to an ardent faith, published in 1802 a brilliant, if shallow, apology for Christianity entitled Le Génie du Christianisme. From this work he had detached and printed in the Mercure in 1801 the fragment entitled Atala, which had excited the utmost interest and admiration throughout Europe. He entered the diplomatic service in 1803, but retired the following year on learning the execution of the Due d'Enghien, and spent the following years travelling in the East and writing Les Martyrs and his Itinéraire de Paris a Jérusalem. In 18 14 he took an active part in the Restoration with his pamphlet Buonaparte et les Bourbons. His career under the Restoration was most erratic. With an inconsequence which always debarred him from being taken seriously as a statesman he described himself as ' Bourbonien par honneur, royaliste par raison et par conviction, républicain par goût et par caractère,' and he frequently aroused anger or incurred disgrace by his candid criticism of his party. In 1831, after an eloquent appeal in favour of the Duc de Bordeaux, he withdrew to Switzerland, only too eager, however, to be recalled, and awaiting anxiously the publication of the song which before his departure he knew that Béranger

was about tô address to him, for on September 14th he wrote to him, in a letter dated from Paris : ' Eh bien ! monsieur, ma chanson ? Je pars, et si vous voulez que je revienne, il faut bien que j'emporte vos ordres ' ; and he left for Geneva with a proof of the song in his pocket. Chateaubriand, as a matter of fact, suffered from a ' swelled head ' more than any other man in France, and all his life his immediate concern was to keep himself in the eye of the public. It is evident that on this occasion Béranger was made a tool of. The last years of Chateaubriand's life were spent in a retirement saddened by disappointment, infirmities, and financial difficulties.

1. 12. D'un nouveau monde étalant les trésors. In 1791 Chateaubriand spent six months among the Red Indians, and afterwards utilized his recollections and impressions of that journey in Atala, ou les Amours de deux Sauvages dans le Désert, a work which introduced into French literature a new prose and new aesthetic principles, consecrated the return to nature and to religion, and may be looked upon as the first production of what was soon to be known as the Romantic School.

1. 13. Le pèlerin de Grèce et d'Ionie. A reference to Chateaubriand's travels in the East, the outcome of which Mas his greatest and most carefully written work : Les Martyrs, a historical romance, the action of which takes place under the reign of Diocletian, towards the end of the third century.

1. 14. Chantant plus tard le Cirque et V Alhambra. In Les Martyrs, Chateaubriand gives a very fine description of ancient Rome, and naturally of the Circus Maximus. He had also travelled in Spain, and gives a description of the Alhambra in Le Dernier des Abencérages. The expression 'chantant le Cirque' is hardly correct, as Chateaubriand wrote all his works in prose.

1. 16. le Dieu que sa voix célébra, particularly in Le Génie du Christianisme.

1. 17. qui lui doit tant de lyres. Between 1820 and 1830 Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Alfred de Vigny, and many other poets had established their reputation, and they frankly acknowledged all that they owed to the influence of Chateaubriand.