on agite, they discuss

1. 4. en désespoir de cause, not knowing what to do ; literally, despairing to know the cause.

1. 7. on se met en cai7ipag7ie, they begin their inquiries ; liter., they take the field.

1. 13. de bon appétit rayant bon appétit ; elliptical for {pourvu, or Joîdssant) de, bon appétit,

1. 19. quand on en vient au fait et au prendre, when they came to pounce upon him, at the moment of action.

1. 22. Les gueux, les gueicx... this is the first line of one of Béranger's songs.

1. 26. Fr. Guillaume Andrieux (1759 — 1833) ; his taies in verse are models of élégance and wit ; the one entitled Le Meunier sans souci is well known.

P. 25, 1. 4. un séminariste, a divinity student. The substantive séminaire is exclusively applied, in French, to theological schools.

1. 9. Jacques Delille (1738 — 1813), a didactic poet of some réputation ; enjoyed a church living and was accordingly styled abbé, although he never took orders.

1. 17. Louise Germaine Necker, baroness de Staël- Holstein (1766 — 181 7). An intense love of freedom, the deepest sympathy with the victims of arbitrary power, wheresoever they might be ; and, lastly, a thorough conviction that French literature needed to be revived by the study of the forms of intellectual greatness in other lands — such are the principal ideas which pervade the works of Madame de Staël.

1. 18. Coppet, a village in Switzerland (canton de Vaud) on the banks of the Lake of Geneva. Madame de Staël had an estate there.

1. 22. Sophie Arnould (1740 — 1803), ^.n opéra singer, celebrated for her wit.

1. 32. P. Joseph Bernard (17 10 — 1775), surnamed gentil Bernard by Voltaire. A very indiffèrent poet. His best work is the opéra of Castor and Pollux.

P. 26, 1. 5. Ponce-Denis- Écouchard Lebrun (1729 — 1807), a kind of secular Vicar of Bray ; despicable as a politician, second-rate as a writer. His poetry is generally brilliant and harmonious.

au Louvre, The building of the Louvre was begun under Francis I. by Pierre Lescot on the spot previously occupied by a fortress.

1. 8. se casait ensuite à sa gtcise, settled down (as in a small compartment, case) according to his fancy.

pratiquait^ made. ^

1. 9. au Garde-Meuble^ the state furniture warehouse. 1. II. accusaient, betrayed.

1. 13. au chiffre galant de Diane ^ with the gallant monogram of Diana de Poitiers (1479 — 15^6)> duchess de Valentinois, and mistress of Henry II. king of France (1518 — 1547).

1. 15. pris dans son cadre, painted in its appropriatè setting.

1. 16. il y a du bon Boileau, there is a réminiscence ofiBoileau's best style. — Nicolas Boileau- Despréaux (1656 — 17 n) has proved himself in his varions poems the champion of good taste but also of a somewhat artificial style of literature.