fascine, Italian z=. fascination

3. africaines, instead of "barbarian superstitions." Miss Ward wishes to avoid this word, so as not to hurt the feeling of the count: she therefore says "African."

4. je sais le latin, mais faites comme si je ne le savais pas, a remark of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme in Molière*s play by the same name. See Act II, Scène VI.

Page 43. — i. aux deux chambres comme Stendhal, the system of governing the country by two chambers (the Upper and Lower Ilouses of Parliament). Some maintain that the Upper House is

p. 44-49] NOTES 133

useless. Stendhal, a very celebrated Fiench writer, is better known under his pseudonym Beyle (i 783-1842).

2. je mange le macaroni avec une fourchette. The lower class eat it without fork or spoon.

3. à Pompéï, à Herculanum, à Stables, the three cities destroyed by the éruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. A city was rebuilt upon the ruins of Stables or Stabiae, and was called Castellamare. See page 26, note 5.

4. les signes préservatifs, i.e. the amulets supposed to ward off evil, especially the evil eye. See Introduction.

Pag^ 44. — I. Hésiode, the greatest lyric poet of Greece. — Homère, the greatest epic poet of Greece. — Arlstote, Platon, Socrate. Aristoteîes, Plato, Socrates, the three greatest philosophers of Greece (5-4th century B.C.). Esculape, y^sculapius, the god of medicine, the son of ApoUo. Socrates, when conversing with his friends just before his death, suddenly stopped and charged one of them to sacrifice a cock to i^sculapius, after he was dead, a rite he recollected having overlooked.

Pag^e 45. — i . qui fait Pesprit fort, who prétends to be a man without préjudices. The term esprit fort is applied in French to people who daim that their opinions are governed by reason only. It is however nearly always used ironically to designate people who prétend to hâve no préjudices, but who, nevertheless, allow superstition to influence their actions.