Bercetises = qui bercent. Soothing

3. Couvre-feu, The ciirfew was originally the signal to cover o ver the fires and retire for the night, a custom said to hâve originated in England under William theConqueror (llthcentury) as a police measure, but found to hâve existed there before his time. This mediaBval usage of tolling the curfew bell bas descended to présent times in a number of small towns and villages of- France, aa in Brittany and Lorraine. But the stem paternalism of the original purpose bas long been lost. In some cases it is the signal — given usually by the church-bell at nine o'clock (winter) or ten (summer) — for the closing of the public drinking places; elsewhere, it is a time honored reminder to the bon bourgeois — and others — who happen to be a\vay f rom their firesides and bedsides that it is high time to repair thereto. This picturesque usage was much more prévalent before the Révolution (1789) than now. Various considérations, often of economy in the local budget, tend to suppress the custom as useless in the places where it is still observed.

8. Juvigny-en-Barrois, The editor is not acquainted with any place of this name and deems it fictitious. But the circumstantial évidence of site and appearance causes him to believe it is a fancif ul name of the author's to disguise Bar-le-Duc as the scène of our story. The latter is an old and important

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provincial town of France, o| some 20,000 inhabitants, situated in N. E. France on the river Omain. This is a tributary of the upper Marne — which in turn is a tributary of the Seine— leaving the Marne near Vitry-le-François and winding its way eastward through Lorraine amid a hilly country. The town was the chief city of the former Duchy of Bar, an ancient division of Lorraine from which it takes its name ; it is now the capital of the Département of the Meuse, in the southern part of which it lies, surrounded by a very picturesque country, Bar-le-Duc is divided into a ville haute and ville basse, as is the one in our text. Besides, the latter is clearly referred to in our story as a préfecture (i. e.. Chef-lieu de Département) j a circumstance tending f urther to support the theory of its identity with Bar-le-Duc.

It was hère, at Bar-le-Duc, that the author spent some years of his boyhood, and hence he would be expected to feel close ties of acquaintanoe with the neighborhood described in our story, and affeotionate remembrance for its associations.

7. 13. Lœiis XIV. King of France, 1643-1715, noted for his pride and ambition, the splendor of his court and his gênerons patronage of literature. The brilliancy of the first half of his reign was converted by long and costly wars into a gloomy and depressing close.

14. Lorraine, Relating to Lorraine (Gterman, Lothringen), a border territory between France and Germany, dating from the ninth century, and fluctuating greatly in extent during the course of its history. Af ter having been many times overrun by France, particularly during the cami)aigns of Louis XIV. (Cf. exp.: ce grand démanteleur de nos forteresses) , it was definitely annexed in 1766. In 1871, after the Franco-Prussian War, a part of German Lorraine was ceded to Germany.

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The chief city of French Lôitaîne is Nancy (Cf. p. 18, 1. 25).