se dégroBsir, ' to be (become) polished

7. Lord Chesterfield (1694r-1778), Englîsh statesman and author, distinguished by brilliancy of wit and élégance of manners.

19. €hi8tave m, King of Sweden (1771-92), was a great admirer and imitator of French manners. — His fleet was temporarily defeated by the Russians 1788.

15. — 15, etc. The quoted lines are from George Sand's RécUs de ma grarid^mère, The grandmother is speaking of her own husband, whom she had married at thirty, when he was sixty-two.

17.— 15. " une espèce," 'a spécimen' = * an ill-bred person, a boor.'