pensée, the idea came to him

Although the action is taking place in Granada, the church, described hère, is the celebrated cathedral of Cordova. (See Préface, p. v, 1. 14).

53, 18. Recouvrait des cercueils. Dignitaries and peo ple of high repute were f ormerly buried in churches.

8ervait...petits. Was used by high and low.

Langage. The Arabie language is fiowery and especially metaphoric.

Cen est fait, it is ail over.

Nous ne savons pas peindre. The other editors explain that thèse words are an allusion to

Page. Line.

a well-known fable of La Fontaine. A lion, seeing a picture whîch représentée! a large lion as slain by one man, said :

'* Avec plus de raison nous aurions le dessus, Si mes confrères savaient peindre.' 1

They are probably right, but they fail to call their readers' attention to the ludicrous anachronism commit ted by Chateaubriand, sinoe La Fontaine lived in the 17th century and the action of the story is supposed to hâve taken place in the early part of the 16th. However, as the author was a good Latin scholar, we may suppose he had ia mind the fable : "Homo et Léo," attributs to Phaedrus (GaiFs édition), which contains> the folio w in g Unes :

** Léo respondit : humana hoc pictum manu.

Videres hominein dejectum, si pingere Leones scirent." » /

"The lion answered: this has been painted by a k u man hand. You would see the man knocked down if lions knew how to paint."

57. 22. On perd...épée, the loss of a sword is a daily occurrence.