j'ai pensé — ar failli, I came near
28. Vertubleu, an obsolete oath, corruption of the words Vertu de Dieu. Translate by: ‘ Goodness{ bless me! zounds.’
60. — r. Elle l’alla cacher. It would be better to-day to place the pronoun / before the infinitive. Note here as above J'ai pensé m'évanouir an imitation of the 17th century style.
2. Meudon, a small town between Paris and Versailles, on the Seine. It has one of the most attractive parks in the suburbs of Paris.
23. Chanoinesse, canoness: a member of a community of women living under a rule but not obliged to make any vows to renounce the world. chapitre séculier de l’Argentière: The chapter was called secular because the members were allowed to keep their property and to go back to the world to get married. L'Argentière was a chapter near Lyon.
24. établissement dans le monde — »arriage. This was a common expression during the old régime when daughters of noble families would become members of a chapter while waiting for some one to marry them.
61.—10. Çaïira. These words are the title and enter in the refrain of a famous and violent revolutionary song composed in 1790. We give the most famous part of it which has been adopted to-day by socialists in changing arrstocrates into
bourgeois.
Ah! Ççaira,Çaira, Ça ira, Ça ira,
Les aristocrates à la lanterne, Ah! Ççaira, ça ira, Çaira, Ça ira, Les aristocrates on les pendra,
20. Robespierre, (1758-1794) was the most prominent membér of the comité de salut public and was responsible for many of the excesses of the reign of terror. His very name symbolizes all the crimes of that period. He was executed in his turn on the oth thermidor.
23. 9 and 10 thermidor, 27th to 28th of July, 1794, in the Revolutionary calendar. The oth thermidor marks the end of the reign of terror.
28. Luxembourg, a palace of Paris now occupied by the French Senate, It was erected between 1615 and 1626 for Marie
de Medicis, the widow of Henri IV. After being inhabited,by different princes it was turned into a prison by the Convention.
30. quai des Orfèvres, quay of the Seine; the pa/ais de jus. tice, on one of its sides, opens on it. Commune, a revolutionary committee that originated on August 10, 1792 and took the place of the municipality. It lasted until Thermidor (July, 1794).
62. — 4. Hanriot was at the head of the military forces of the Commune. He tried to save Robespierre but was executed with him.
22. esprit fort, expression applied to people who think freely on all matters of religion and do not accept all the dogmas and beliefs of the majority of their fellows. The word is used in a sarcastic and hostile sense.
26. Pour ... était: Note this use of pour in the sense of “quelque . .. que,” “quoique.” — However much of a sceptic she was. See page 32, 12.
27. Loup-garou, werewolf. It was thought to be a human being turned into a wolf that wardered at night through the country. |
29. almanach: #rediction; old meaning used only in this idiom. | ; L
Il ne faut pas faire d'almanachs.
(Mme. de Sévigné.)
6%. — 10. bleue. The supporters of the revolution were called /es bleus while the royalists were Zes #ancs. These distinctions still obtain in the country sections of France, especially in Britanny.
11. comme a dit l’autre, as some one said. ‘L'autre’ in this meaning and in this phrase is a common idiom.
17. Abensberg is a little town of Bavaria where Napoleon defeated the Austrians, April 20, 1809, and not 1808, as the author has it.
31. lunes: Avoir des lunes is an old expression, meaning # have whims, caprices.
64. —3. Momus: in Greek mythology the son of night, an evil spirit of blame and mockery.
5. Grand’guerre: as the graxd” of this combination and a few others (grand° rue, grand’ mère, grand? messe, etc.), represents not an abbreviation of the modern feminine grande, but an older feminine grand, identical with the masculine, the apostrophe with which they are customarily written is really incorrect.
65.— 14. Cheval-Blanc. In France where inns have signs, the sign of the white horse is one of the most common in coun-
try places.
