Inutile de dire, ' It is needless to say

19. vous. This 'ethical' use of the personal pronoun is not prcserved in modem English. Shakespeare has it in Petmchio's saying to (Jrumio, 'Knock me hère at this door,' when he mcans 'Knock at this door on my order.' If the vous is to be represented in lîLnglish it must be by some such phrase as ' 1 can tell you,' but it is perhaps bctter to omit it.

22. Péclié... pardonné, *a crime confcsscd is a crime forgiven.'

23. Lise... princesse, 'Lise bore no malice.' Etre bon prince is ' to be a good fcllow,' but as English has no féminine form of fcUow, it secms nccessary to change the form of the sentence.

26-27. le verre... paresseux. A glass of some bittcr litiueur, such as absinth or vermouth, is oftcn takcn in France bcforc a mcal to give an appclite.

28. faire le quart, 'to keep his walch.' The word quart is used in its technical nautical sensé of division of time, ' watch ' ; it originally lasted 6 hours, a quarter, that is, of the full day of 24 hours.

Page 24.

I. en... convoitise, 'got nothing for his grcedincss.' En être pour ses frais means ' to get nothing for your pains,' ///. 'for your outlay,' Zéro 's grecd being in this case his outlay.

16. philosophie. This subject is regularly studicd in the higher classes of French schools; hence the use of the possessive adjective sa Miis,' as we say 'to leam his classics,' or *his catechism,' but not 'his philosophy' or *his logic,' thèse two last subjects not being parts of our school curriculum.

i8. prémisses... contiennent. Logic teaches what conclusions may be correctly drawn from certain preliminary statements or premises. Thus in thc following :

'AU men are mortal; Socrates is a man ; Therefore Socrates is mortal ' :

the conclusion {conséquence) that Socrates is mortal follows from, or is contained in (compare qt^ elles contiennent) the two premises {prémisses) (i) that ail men are mortal, and {i) that Socrates is a man.

23. pente du crime, ' downhill road,' lit. the slope of crime. To a person standing on a slope {pente) the least jar {choc) may send him to the bottom of the précipice {y) where is crime.

Page 25.

I, nous l'avons déjà dit, ' as we hâve said.'

10. Césax. In the year B.c. 49 after the decree of the Senate which placed ail the resources of the Roman state in the hands of Pompey, and was practically a déclaration of war against Julius Caesar, Caesar, who was at Ravenna, determined to march to Ariminum on the way to Rome. For a proconsul to pass beyond the boundaries of his province was treason to the state, and it is said that Caesar halted before crossing the little river Rubicon, which, flowing into the Adriatic just north of Ariminum, made the boundary between his province of Cisalpine Gaul and the province of Italy. Suetonius says that he tumed to his friends, saying that even at that moment retreat was still possible, but that if the little bridge were crossed war must décide the issue. It is probably of this that our author is thinking. After long hésitation, with the words ' The die is cast,' Caesar gave the order to cross the Rubicon.

13. si frais... chauds, 'so fresh that they were still warm,' ///. ' that they were warm from it,' i.e. from their freshness.

20. défenseur. It is not uncommon for a prisoner's counsel to urge in his defence that the accused, under the influence of drink or temporary insanity, was not responsible for his actions.

Page 27.

6. sage. Ecclesiasticus iii. 26 says : " He that loveth danger shall perish therein."

Page 28.

I. Harfleur. Ilarfleur in the Department of Seine Inférieure, on the nortli bank of the river's mouth, was formerly a port, but is now useless owing to the sand which has accumulated. It was from Harfleur that William the Conqueror sailed to England in 1066.

5. c'est, .à comprendre, 'it's really beyond ail understanding.'