À peine {fûmes-nous) arrivés

1. 8. ma fille, Albertine de Staël, afterwards married (1816) to the Duc de Broglie (Achille-Léonce-Victor; 1785 — 1870). She died in 1838, after a short illness. "Créature du premier rang dans l'ordre intellectuel comme dans l'ordre moral, et en qui le don de plaire était le moindre de ceux qu'elle avait reçus de Dieu." (Guizot.)

1. 10. ma belle amie, madame Récaniicr (Julie Bernard, 1777 — 1849), one of the most lemarkable persons of her timc. She united ail

the charms of beauty with the kindest disposition, exquîsite taste, and great conversational powers. Her salon held the first rank amongst the literary centres of Paris. On her see M. Sainte-Beuve's Causeries {Lundis, vol. I.; ib. voL XIV.); Madame Récamier's own correspondence has been published by her adopted daughter, Madame Lenormant, in three volumes entitled as foUows : Souvenirs et correspondance tirés des papiers de madame Récamier, 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1859; — Madame Récamier, les amis de sa jeunesse, et sa correspondance intime, I vol. Svo. Paris, 1872.

1. 17. Note the inversion founded on the fact that que {qii') cannot hère be in any other case than the accusative.

I. 18. la reine de Hollande. Hortense Eugénie de Beauharnais (1783 — 1837), married in 1802, almost by force, to Louis Bonaparte (king of HoUand in 1806); mother of the late emperor Napoléon III. She was extremely accomplished, and her musical talents were of no mean order.

II. i8j 19. Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra {la chose qui pourra arriver), do your duty, come what may. The second que seems to be hère the old féminine of the relative pronoun, and corresponds to qu(S res. (See Burguy, Gram. de la langtie d^oïl, VoL l, du pronom relatif.) M. Chassang [Nouvelle gram. Française, p. 290) considers it as équivalent to quidqtiid. Avenir and advenir are both obsolète as verbs ; but avenir \s found in Pascal's writings: "ce que les prophètes ont dit devoir avenir dans la nuit des temps." The pronoun tti is omitted before dois, as is fréquent in old or poetical French : cf. the motto of Wilkes' club at Medmenham Abbey, "Fais ce que voudras," Do what you will.