rapine : exaction que commet un fonctionnaire

1. 16. empoisonné. Accusations of poisoning were comnion in Itahan and French society during the seventeenth centur}\

1. 17. Saint-Pierre : the great cathedi'al church of Rome. It was being completed at the time from which Voltaire dates his story.

1. 19. Louis le Juste : Louis XIII (reigned 1610-43) was so ealled because he was born under the zodiacal sign Libra.

1. 21. maréchal d'Ancre. Concino Concini, an ignorant and rapacious Italiaii adventmer who was minister during the carly years of Louis XIII's reign, was hated by the people, and when he was shot in 1617 by the captain of the king's guard on the diawbridge of the Louvre his body is said to hâve been horribly treated by the mob.

1. 24. guerres civiles. ' Deux pages de controverse ' is Voltaire's contemptuous description of the cause of the religions wars which lasted with intervais {tantôt couvert) from 1562 till the settlement made by Richelieu in 1629. The most famous incident was the massacre of the Huguenots, begun on St. Bartholomew's day, 1572 (cf. p. 113, 1. 2). The religions strife was comphcated by the rivahy between the great houses of Condé, Coligny, and Guise for political power {une place au conseil).

Page 113. 1. 10. plus de cinq cents is an exaggeration. Historians give 277 as the number for the whole of England.

1. 20. la Haye : ' the Hague,' the Beat of the Government in Holland.

1. 21. Bameveldt : Jan van Olden Barneveldt. the Great Pensionary or Primo Minister of Holland, who obtained from Spain a recognition of its independence. Holland being at that time divided between two Protestant sects, Barneveldt's religious beliefs were used by his political enemies as a rea.'ion for bringing

about his downfall, and he was executed as a traitor in 1019, at the âge of seventy.

1. 27. par les bonnes œuvres. Barnoveldt was an Ariuinian, an opponent of the doctrine of absolute prédestination.

Page 114. 1. 1. galions, ' galleons,' tho groat treasui-e-ships which brought to Spain the gold and silver uf tho mines of Mexico and Peru.

I. 6. les infants, les infantes, ' the infantes and infantas,' the children of the king of Spain, with the exception of the heir apparent.

1. 13. carrousel : an entertainment consisting of évolutions of companies of horsemen called quadrilles, of tilting at rings and of similar sports, which took the place of the tournament when the latter fell into disuse.

1. 14. Grand Inquisiteur : the ecclesiastic presiding over the Council of the Inquisition, the tribunal for the punishment of heretics. It exercised its powers most freely in Spain.