Maître, apparently the form-master

1. 23. As bûches usually means logs ready eut up for fîre-wood, it does not seem very appropriate, even in a countr)' where logs, not coal, are burnt, for pièces big enough to foiin a battering-ram. But Quinet may bave used it of logs not yet eut.

P. 7, 1. 7. Trousseau, the stock of belongings which each boy brought to school.

1. 26. Espèce de traité. Other accounts of the affair tell us that the revolt was accompanied by cries of ' No more omelettes,' ' No more haricots.' It is not known whether the treaty banished the obnoxious viands.

P. 8, 1. 32. Violon. Quinet was very fond of this instrument, and as he used it in the choir, his masters allowed him the unusual favour of an out-house ail to himself wherein to practise.

P. 9, 1. II. Quinet's father had not the réputation of amiability.

1. 13. Distribution. ' Of prizes ' being in French, as often in English, understôod.

1. 18. Bolivar, a kind of hat named after the Peni\nan leader, Simon Bolivar (i 783-1 842). He was at this time in the fuU course of his successes over the Spaniards.

IIO QUI net' s LETTERS TO HIS MOTHER.

1. 21. Trévoux. A town on the Saône between Lyons and Maçon. It gave name to a famous Jesuit periodical of Ihe eighteenth century.

1. 29. Certines, the countr)- estale of the Quinets, near Bourg.

1. 31. Canidie, the witch in Horace who brews philtres and spells of horrible ingrédients.

P. 10, 1. 2. Nantua is a town of the Jura on the road from Bourg to Geneva. Observe that Quinet, afterwards an ardent devotee of scenery, talks of ' l'horreur des montagnes,' somewhat in the style of the earlier eighteenth century, but still with an appréciation of their beauty.

P. 11, 1. 18. It is fair to Quinet to remember that ' bon,' in French, does not, at least hère, mean exactly 'good,' but * good-natured.' ' Sensible ' of course does not mean * sensible,' but ' impressionable,'

* possessed of a feeling heart.' Still the passage is both priggish and gushing — defects which, as has been noticed, occur too often in the writer.

P. 12, I. 6. Aux Muses. Like most boys of talent, Quinet was much given to verse-wTiting. He once sent his mother 180 lines at once.

1, 17. Pataches, barges.

P. 13, 1. 33. Colbeau for corbeau. Alcibiades lisped, and (at least if we may believe Aristophanes) said kolax (fîatterer) instead of korax (crow).

P. 14, 1. 2. Réclusion. At Lyons Quinet had had a good deal of liberty. In Paris, at the École Polytechnique, where his father wished that he should study for the army, he would hâve been under more constraint.

1. 23. Tiroir de commode. This is not a joke, but a literal fact. The lady in question not only shut up her children in drawers, but is accused of having them whipped once a week on principle, whether they had committed faults or not.

1. 31. We cannot put this quite so briefly in English; we must say

* As if I were good for nothing zinless I am bound hand and foot.'