pié : optional spelling in poetry for pied

1. 51. voyou, a popular vvord rejected by the Dictionary of the Academy, but admitted by Littré. It means an ill-bred and untidy boy or lad among the lovver classes. Voie seems to be the most likely etymology. In 1831 the word used in serions poetry must hâve made quite a sensation.

1. 62. il mange de la poudre. Cf. La Curée, 1. 15 ; because he tears the cartridge open with his teeth.

1. 65. Mais que f Émeute. Cf. the poem bearing this title. As he does in that poem, Barbier hère by émeute means a destructive, aimless riot, whereas in the four preceding lines he supposes his young ruffian to be climbing on barricades in a noble struggle for liberty. To détermine which impulse moves

Il8 ÏAMBES ET POÈMES

him may be easy to an historian or philosopher, but is certainly less so to the boy in the street on the morning of a riot. l 67. Var. :

Et le voilà courant en bandes de vauriens. (MS.)

Page 25. 1. 72. mouvoir du Jer ou du pavé: to build up barricades with paving-stones and arm them.

1. 74. Ainsi que des fiévreux, tous les porte-couronnes : owing to thèse two oldish words the Une rings like one coined by Agrippa d'Aubigné.

Desperatio. (MS.; ïambe xiv.)

Page 26. 11. 8-10. mes plaines . . . mon sein : i.e. of Heaven and of the sky at the same time, the two aspects being joined in ciel.

1. 33. vidant là son cœur : like a purse. liberté, ciel, amour are clearer if joined to the object which sums them up : tout, next Une.