claires-voies, 'openpalings

Page 152. L 26. clairsemés, ' thinly scattered.' Clair does not take the sign of the plural, because it modifies the second adjective semés.

Page 154. 1. 9. Cincinnatus is the type of the primitive Roman virtues. The Roman army having been surrounded by the Volscians in 458 b.c., Cincinnatus was appointed Dictator for the purpose of raising a relieving force. The messengers of the Senate sent to inf orm him of his appointaient f ound hini working the plough on his farm. Having defeated the Volscians and rescued the Roman army, he resigned his dictatorship in sixteen days, and returned to his humble pursuits.

1. 16. le palais du président. Washington was elected Président of the United States for four years in 1789. He was re-elected in 1793, and resigned in 1797.

Page 155. 1. 9. Je n'eus garde de manquer, ' I took care to put in an appearance.'

1. 14. Les expéditionnaires en serrurerie, ' the exportera of ironraongery.'

1. 21. la révocation de VEdit de Nantes. The Edict of Nantes was the charter in which Henry IV of France in 1598 granted

freedom of worship and immunity of person to the French Protestants. Louis XIV, in 1685, published the famous re vocation of this Edict, which rendered the position of Protestants in France almost untenable, and deprived the country of many of its best citizens.

1. 38. Bonaparte achève à peine de mourir. Chateaubriand wrote this part of his Mémoires in 1822, a year after the death of Napoléon.

Page 156. 1. 5. Ercilla (1533-1595) was a Spanish poet. He joined the expédition sent out in 1553 to quell the revolt of the Araucans against the Spanish rule in Chili. It was thus that he obtained the subject of his chief poem, La Araucana.

1. 18. Castelnau (1520-1592) was five times French ambassador in London, during the reigns of Charles IX and Henry III of France. He wrote Mémoires dating from 1559 to 1570.

1. 29. d'Arbelle et de Pharsale. The first, usually spelt Arbelles in French, was the scène of Alexander the Great's victory over Darius in 331 b.c. At Pharsala, Caesar defeated Pompey in 48 b.c.

1. 33. Qu'ils se font trop attendre. This line is taken from Act I, Scène 1 of Corneille's play of Attila.

Page 159. 1. 11. par les 71 degrés 15 minutes. Thèse figures are not quite accurate. They are about 4 degrees in excess.

1. 21. Vancouver (1750-1798) accompanied Cook in his second and third voyage round the world, and afterwards explored the west coast of North America with the view of discovering a passage between the Northern Atlantic and the Northern Pacific. The Island of Vancouver still bears his name.

Page 160. 1. 18. L'Essai historique was Chateaubriand's first published work. See Introduction.

Page 161. 1. 1. comme depuis à Sparte. During his travels in Greece, Chateaubriand had sought in vain at Sparta for the tomb of Leonidas, the Greek hero who defended the Pass of Thermopylae against the Persians in 480 b.c. Chateaubriand, however, without books of référence, is at fault in his topography. There is no proof that Leonidas and his companions were ever buried at Sparta, and Herodotus speaks of their tomb being at Thermopylae.

1. 4. un bïll de finances, ' the Stamp Act.' It placed a tax on ail officiai or stamped paper used in the American colonies. It aroused such violent opposition that it was afterwards repealed.

1. 19. Asgill was an English gênerai serving under Cornwallis during the American War of Independence. He was captured

by the Americans and sentenced to death. The French Government intervened, and largely through the influence of Marie Antoinette his life was saved. The incident gave rise to several poems and other literary productions.

1. 26. laissa tomber de courageuses paroles. Fontanes, the French poet, in a funeral oration pronounced on Washington in 1800, made référence to the intervention of Marie Antoinette in the Asgill case. At this time hatred of tho unfortunate queen was still strong in Paris, and the mention of her name drew down on the poet the anger of Bonaparte, then First Consul.

Page 162. 1. 19. coureurs de bois, ' traders.' It is a name given by the French Canadians to travellers who deal in furs with the Indian tribes.

Page 163. 1. 12. nïénaser contre, 'to run into.' 1. 25. du général Rochambeau. Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, was sent to America in 1780 by the French Government with 8,000 men to assist the insurgent Americans. He contributed to the defeat of Cornwallis at Yorktown. He was afterwards made a marshal of France, but as commander of the Army of the North during the Révolution he failed to restore order in the régiments and resigned his appointment.

1. 38. un disciple de Rousseau. In the Contrat Social and other of his works Rousseau attacks civilization and proclaims a return to the life of Nature. More than any writer of the eighteenth century, he contributed to those visionary notions in philosophv and politics which found their ultimate expression in the French Révolution.

Page 164. 1. 5. demi -toge, 'cloak.'

1. 6. la calotte de drap rouge à côtes, ' a cap of striped red cloth.'

Page 165. 1. 30. (TAntar. Antar was an Arab poet and warrior of the sixth century. He was notable for the adventures he undertook in order to win the hand of his cousin Abla.