îine cour galante, a luxurious court

1. 22. que du dégoïit. The fact tliat the style of Marot and of Théodore de Bèze was too archaic for the Frenchmen of the seventeenth century proves no more against the merit of thèse authors than the pruning down of Madame de Sévigné's correspondence, of Pascal's Pensées, and of La Rochefoucauld's niaxims does iu favour of the good taste of Madame de Pompadour's contemporaries.

Page 153.

1. 15. Les intendants, agents appointed directly by the king with extensive powers, for the purpose of keeping in check the governors of the various provinces.

1. 28. pleine d' abondance, copious, fluent. Parler d'abondance, to speak extempore.

1. 30. eut le bonheur d''être éclairé. Note the ironical meaning of this sentence. Voltaire says elsewhere : " Beaucoup plus courtisan que philosophe, Pellisson changea de religion, et fit fortune."