à tâtons, groping

69. 12. la mémoire en travail, memory endeavoring to bring forth some forgotten fact.

69. 15. à la dérobée, by stealth, as one says à la française, "in the French fashion," the word façon or mode being understood.

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Avant la guerre. The author means the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871.

les cotillons, a lively French dance which originated in the 18th century, consisting of a variety of steps and figures. Nowadays the cotillion is the dance that ends a bail and in which ail kinds of original and new figures are brought in according to the imaginative genius of the leader.

la Trombe, the Tornado.

le pied d'un gibier === le pied d'une pièce de gibier.

vient vous emprunter. In French : to borrow to someone, not front someone ; the vous is the dative, as in je vous donne, I give to you.

Peut-être s'était-il. When peut-être begins a sentence, the subject and verb are inverted: peut-être s'était-il; but if the adverb is second the regular construction is used: il s'était peut-être.

aux préliminaires, understand : du mariage.

J'eus l'air de... I pretended.

à ce propos, or à propos de cela, in connection with this.

pour satisfaire l'admiration de la galerie. The regular idiom is faire quelquechose pour la galerie (to play to the gallery). Translate: to become a subject of admiration for the people.

même lui donner tort à elle, even consider her in the wrong ; donner in the sensé of to attribute, to ascribe (the wrong to her).

la rampe de Saint Germain, i. e., the hill just before the station of Saint-Germain-en- Laye, a town on the left bank of the Seine, 8 miles west northwest of Paris,

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75. 15. la traverse... d'une béquille, the cross-piece of a crutch; i. e., the pièce that is inserted about mid-height between the two prongs of the fork and used as ? handle.

79. 1. On faisait cercle autour de.». They were ail surrounding.. .

79. 1. juge d'instruction, examining magistrate, an officer of the court of chancery before whom witnesses are examined.