CHAPITRE I. (Part III. Chap. XVI. in the original work.) Page r

1. 6. la proscription de la Gironde. The 29 deputies, usually designated by the name of Girondists, because the most celebrated amongst them were members for the department of La Gironde, had protested against the reign of Terror ; they were condemned to death at the instigation of Robespierre.

// semble qu'on descende. Note the use of the subjunctive. The Académie Française and thebest grammarians hâve decided that il semble unaccompanied by another pronoun requires the subjunctive because the meaning is that of doubt, uncertainty. — Dante Alighieri (1265 — 1321). The nine circles of heil are severally appropriated to the punishment of crimes of a particular kind.

1. 10. " The enmity of the French Democrats against property did not spring from unavoidable necessity, but partly from idleness and love of pleasure, partly from theblind self-conceit of popular sovereignty, which made its possessors think themselves too good to earn their bread in the sweat of their brows. The scheme for the subjugation of the possessors of property, which was completed during the victorious progress of the French in Holland, was not adopted as a means of saving the country from foreign enemies. On the contrary, it was in the interest of the Democrats to perpetuate the foreign wars, which gave a larger military force to the government, light wages to the wprkmen, and afforded to both the prospect of booty of incalculable value." (Von Sybel, History of the French Révolution^ vol. m. p. 14.)

puis contre les talents. The celebrated Lavoisier, sent to the guillotine by the Jacobins, asked for a respite in order to finish some Chemical experiments on which he was engaged ; the reply given to him was la république n'a pas besoin de chimistes.

1. I r. ce qui pouvait rester de grand ; in expressions of this kind, de corresponds to the Latin préposition de. See Chevallet's Origine et Formation de la langice Française^ vol. m. p. 772.