faire de l'herbe, make hay

Pagr^ 49. — I. Partant pour la Syrie, a national air' composed in 1798 at the time of the Egyptian expédition of Bonaparte and therefore a favorite of the Bonapartists ever since.

Page 56* — i. boite, ammunition wagon or possibly ''bomb shell " hère.

L'Auberge Ronge, 7^e Red Inn, is dated May, 1831, and first appeared in that year. It was reprinted in 1832 among the "Contes philosophiques," and later in the " Études philosophiques." Full bibliographical détails for this and the other stories in this volume may be found in LouvenjouPs "Histoire des œuvres de Honoré de Balzac," Nos. 78, 5, 57 and 66.

Page 60. — I. homme de pipe surtout, above ail else a smoker,

2. sept invasions. Thèse would be hard to identify. There were more invasions of Germany from France alone during the First Republic and Empire. Victory has somewhat modified German character in this regard.

3. paillets, pale y a term applied to reddish Rhine wine of which the Johannisberg vineyards furnish the most costly.

4. Grand Carême, Lent^ a period of fasting and abstinence preceding Easter, distinguished from Petit Carême, a similar season preceding Christmas.

Page 61« — I. Hoffmann (i 776-1822), a German writer of fantastic taies greatly in vogue among the romanticists of that period in France, as were also the novels of Walter ScotL

2. Gymnase, a fashionable Parisian théâtre, then devoted to the romantic drama. It is on the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle.

Page 62. — i. Brillât -Savarin (i 755-1826), an authority on gastronomy and author of "la Physiologie du goût" (1825).

Page 68. — i. une faillite en fleur, "a bankruptcy in fuII blossom," i.e. the face of an utter bankrupL

p. 64-e»] NOTES 197

2. je Pirai dire à Pékin, may be said of any event regarded as impossible.

Page 64. — i. in anima vili (Latin), on the insignificant brains. Our corresponding phrase for testing one's art on a relatively unimportant person or thing is in corpore vili.

2. traduit de l'allemand. This alludes to the fact that the young romantic writers of the thirties got more of their inspiration and materials from Germany than they were wont to avow.

3. vendémiaire an Vn. The " Revolutionary Era" began Sept 22nd, 1792. It gradually passed into gênerai disuse and was officially abolished in 1804. Its months did not correspond to ours and had other names. An Vil, or 1 799, was the beginning of the war of the Second Coalition against France. On November 9 (the i8th Brumaire) of this year, Napoléon, who had retumed from Egypt in August, made his first coup (TEtat

Pa|^ 65. — I. Augereau (1757-1816), afterward duc de Castiglione and a noted gênerai of Napoléon, was at this time (Oct. 1799) in Paris.