en affectant des fonds, drawing on the public revenue

1. II. le second lieutenant de police. The first had been La Reynie.

1. 17. le ministère gêné et passager. D'Argenson was appointed keeper ot the seals, and did his best to prevent the disastrous effect of Law's financial spéculations, but he was thwarted [gêné) in his good intentions by his colleagues. Saint-Simon represents him as having "une figure eftrayante qui retraçait celle des trois juges des enfers, et s'égayant de tout avec supériorité d'esprit." The éloge of d'Argenson, by Fontenelle, is a master-piece of its kind.

1. 22. oîi V ancienne noblesse ait pris souvent le parti de la robe, where the old nobility has often held law appointments.

1. 23. Presque tous àr^c. This was not true of England, where lawyers had held the highest places in the government since the I2th or i3th century, but was to some extent true of other countries.

Page 71.

1. 1 o. n'en sont pas plus justes = ne sont pas plus justes pour cela.

1. 31. Les beaiix-arts adoucissent les mœurs: comp. the Latin : *' ...ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes emoUit mores, nec sinit esse feros."

(Ovid ex Ponio, il. 9.)

Page 72.

1. i r . Des équipages hci furent fournis, he was supplied with carriages and horses. Équipage always meaning not only the vehicle, but the horses, the expression montez dans mon équipage cannot be used in the sensé of montez dans ma voiture.