TABLEAU X

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We are, in this Talileau, made to witness a new scène, no longer a battle-field, but a meeting of the Conseil des Anciens held in one of the spacious lialls of the Tuileries. The members are in a state of feverish anxiety about the fate of the French army ; niurmurs of dissatisfaction are rife among them ; in the tliick of the uproar there arrives a despatch from Masséna announcing the victories won by his soldiers, and the total discomfiture of the Allies.

1. 3. Conseil des Anciens. The Constitution of the year III, generally known as the Directory.consisted of two ChambersorCouncils, one of 500 which proposed laws {Conseil t/es Cinq-Cents), the other called Conseil îles Anciens of 250 members of more than 40 years of âge, which could reject but not propose laws. Thèse two formed the Législative. The Executive was entrusted to 5 Direclors nominated by the 500 and approved by the 250.

1. 17. à la porte les muscadins, 'turn out the aristocrats '. The Royalists had among the members some secret friends ready to make poiitical ca])ital out of the reverses of the French armies. See Tableau I. Scène III. p. 5, 1. 34.

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1. 13. on nous cache la situation, 'the actual state of things is being concealed from us' ; nous is dat. with a verb of depriving.

1. 16. quelles que soient les circonstances, ' whatever liie circumslances may be' ; quel que (whatever) is always a predicate, quel bcing declined ; quelque, pi. quelques, is always an attribule ; quelque before an adj. is an advcrb.

1. 21. aux huissiers, ' to the ushers' ; huissier derived from huis (Lat. ostium) is properly a jiorter, one who keeps the gâte ; for A prefixed cp. huit (octo), huile (oleum), huitre (ostrea).

1.39. les puissances coalisées, 'the AUicd powcrs'. The second Coalition, between Englantl, Russia, Auslna, Turkey, and Naples, was niadc during the winler of iTyS— I7<jy. w''''^' the Congrcss of Rastadt was still silting. The reverses of Korsakoff and Suwarrolf kd Russia to willuhaw from the Coalition.

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1. 14. nous lui avons fait ; lui is hcre dat. willi vcrb of depriving = froin it (the Austriaii army).

1. 17. son général en clief ; General Ilotze, killed at Schanis ; see Introd. p. ix.

1. 25. nous V avons battue dans la vallée Je Muttcn ; the resuit of the fighting in the Muotta-Thal or Mutten-Thal is hère claimed by Masséna as a victory ; Rosenbei-g really gained his object. See Introd. p. xiv.

Pa(;e 139.

1. 1. du i>t'néral Nauendorf et par celui de Condé ; the Bavarian gênerai Nauendorf had 10,000 men under him; the Prince de Condé had a small army of émigrés whom lie had organised as early as 1789, on tiie French frontier.

1. 9. les citations à l'ordre du jour, 'extracts from the officiai retunis'.