Le féroce blagueur : the cruel joker, mocker

Page 50. — x . Dormant . . . mieux : outsleeping one another. a. Ânonnée : drawled out.

3. Le bout . . . Maurice. Faire un bout de conduite à quelqu'un : to go a little way with some one.

4. Mamette et son homme : Mamette and her husband. Son homme, for son mari, a familiar expression. See Les Lettres de mon Moulin.

Page 51. — x. Et • • • constants : preconceived notions in the exécution.

a. MM. de Goncourt. Edmond et Jules de Goncourt, born the one in 1822, the other in 1832, are perhaps the best représentatives of the Naturalisée school. They are the worthy successors of Balzac and Flaubert. Their influence on contemporary French prose has been and is still immense. They published together : Les Mémoires, Le Salon de 1852, La Société française pendant la Révolution, Idées et Sensations, Charles Demailly, Renée Mauperin, Germinie Lacerteux, etc. Jules de Goncourt died in 1870.

3. Leurs . . . yeux : their excesses . . . which are not slight and strike you at once.