ICttieede'lCédieiB^ bom in Florence, wife of Henry IV

17. IC'amie. Up to the fourteenth centurj tn*, t\ 8* were used before féminine nouns beginning with a vowel or an h mute, instead of mon^ ton, son. A misunderstanding of this construction made later ma mie frorn m'amie,

19. oonrre une bordée: make a ran. Oaurre^ an old infinitive of the verb courir, is now only used in hunting terms. Ohasse à courre, courre un cerf, etc.

20. TOUS ne m'anries rien su mander, etc. You could not hâve let me know anything that would please me better than this news of the pleasure you are taking in reading.

28. encore que je ne fasse à peine, etc. : when I was scarcely more than a babe.

7* — 1. de bonnes honnêtetés : worthy sentiments.

4. Calais. Seaport town in the north of France, taken hj the English during the Hundred Years' War and only recaptured by the French in 1558.

6. Amyot (1513-1593), Grand Almoner of Charles IX. and bishop of Auxerre. His translation of Platarch is one of the finest spécimens of French at that period.

12. Florent Chrétien, a celebrated Hellenist, author of Qreek and Latin verses and coUaborator on the "Satire Ménippée/' written in support of his former pupil. — les Commentaires de César. Cœsar's well-known Oommentaries on the Gallic War.

23. Contras, town in the department of Gironde, celebrated for the victory of Henry IV. over the duc de Joyeuse in 1587 during the '* War of the Three Henrys," Henry III. (of Valois), Henri de Guise, and Henri de Navarre.

24. Bonaparte en Italie. Napoléon Bonaparte, then gênerai, was appointed by the Directory in 1796 to the command of the French army in Italy. He achieved a séries of brilliant vietories, and the campaign closed with the Peace of Campo- Formio, which gave Belgium to France.

8. — 8. le Prince de Condé, Henry I., a Protestant, who had abjured to save his life at the massacré of St. Bartholomew, August 24, 1572. He died a year after Contras in 1588.