ACT III

65, 1. palais du gouvernement, the former palace of the Dukes of Brabant, built about the year 1300, scene of the abdication of Charles V in 1555. It was completely destroyed by fire in 1731.

65, 9. aux écussons d’Autriche. Beginning with the marriage of Maximilian and Mary, the heiress of Burgundy, the Netherlands had been closely associated with the imperial Austrian house of Hapsburg.

65, 15. maître Charles. The official executioner under Alva was called Master Karl (Charles).

66, 33. qui tiennent partout la campagne, ‘who are everywhere active.”

67, 16. Seigneur Vargas. This letter, and the one following addressed to Delrio, bring out clearly the policy of duplicity and espionage practised by Philip II.

68, 2. mon fils, don Carlos, est mort. The death of Don Carlos, the unfortunate son of Philip II, has, strictly speaking, nothing to do with the action of Patrie! However, the tragic story was so well known, through the romantic versions of Schiller and others, that Sardou, ever on the alert for interesting material for his dramas, must have felt almost in duty bound to introduce somewhere in his play some allusion, however slight, to Don Carlos. Sardou had also another reason for touching upon the story of Don Carlos. Motley, his evident source for most of his historical material, discusses Don Carlos at considerable length (II, 226ff.) though he admits that the tragedy of Don Carlos “ does not strictly belong to our subject.”

Don Carlos (1545-1568), prince of Asturias, early revealed signs of insanity. He conceived a morbid antipathy to his father, and in 1568 made preparations for flight from Spain. Philip II had him imprisoned, and on July 24, 1568, he died, not without suspicions of having been put to death by his father’s order. (Note that Sardou puts back the date of the prince’s death to Christmas, 1567, in order to fit it into the chronology of the play.)

The peculiar cireumstances of Don Carlos’ death have given rise to all sorts of legends, though it is quite possible that the unfortunate prince died from purely natural causes. The poets have especially developed the idea that Don Carlos was in love with his stepmother, Elizabeth of France, to whom he had been betrothed before her marriage with Philip II. Modern historical research, however, has shown quite conclusively that this story is without foundation. Nevertheless it has formed the subject of many romantic plays, the best known being the Don Carlos of Schiller.

68, 21. L'empereur Charles Quint, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1519-1555). Charles’ reign is of the utmost importance in European history, including, as it does, the organization of the Span-

| ish colonies in America, the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, |} and the opening of the long struggle for supremacy between the | Bourbons of France and the Hapsburgs of Austria.

| 68, 23. Vos Français en savent quelque chose. This gibe of | Alva’s is an allusion to the struggle for dominance in Italy between Charles V and Francis I, which ended in the defeat and capture of the French King at Pavia (1525) and the humiliating peace of Madrid (1526).

68, 26. au couvent de Saint-Just. In 1555, Charles V, broken in health and depressed by the series of reverses which overtook him in his last years, abdicated as emperor in favor of his brother, Ferdinand, and retired to the monastery of Yuste (Saint-Just) in Estramadura, or rather to a house attached to the monastery. Here he spent his last years in far from monastic seclusion, for his house was always filled with guests. He had by no means renounced his interest in politics. Regarding himself still, in spite of his retirement, as the head of his family, he did not hesitate to seek to impose his will upon the policies of those whom he had officially designated as his successors.

68, 28. un appétit. Charles v was famous for his gastronomical exploits. He could not restrain his appetite, even if his over-eating was ruinous to his health.

68, 32. capacité, a play on the two meanings of the word.

69, 4. C’est pour rien, ‘‘ I{’s a mere trifle.”?

69, 6. en fait d’esprit . . . riches. Note the construction, two conditionals joined by que.

70, 24. s’amusait-ill ‘‘wasn't he having a good time?” This omission of the negative is frequently found in exclamatory sentences.

70, 28. l’eau qui dort. An allusion to the proverb, ü n’y a pire eau que l’eau qui dort.

71, 19. ce malheureux dixième denier, the famous sales tax explained below (71, 21), the attempt to enforce which brought Alva into sharp conflict with the merchants of the Netherlands, Catholics as well as Protestants. (Cf. 15, 8.)

71, 28. il ne l’est pas assez de la gorge, ‘they are not enough concerned about their necks,”? a variant of the expression il est chatouilleux de la gorge, used of a person in danger of being hanged.

71, 29. vous allez préparer . . . cordes neuves. In 1572 Alva did proceed to the hanging of eighteen tradesmen of Brussels over their own doors for the crime of protesting against the Duke’s op-

pressive taxation by refusing to open their shops. Fortunately their lives were saved by the timely arrival of news of the capture of Brill by the Gueux or Sea-Beggars, which presented Alva with a more pressing problem.

72, 12. tout le pays plat inondé. This may refer either to the great flood of 1570, which caused wide-spread devastation, or to the deliberate cutting of the dikes by the patriots, as at Leyden (1574). Either event would fall after the supposed date of Patrie! (1568).

72, 25. Nos espions trahissent. To appreciate fully Alva’s anger over the discrepancy in the reports of his spies, it must be recalled that Mons and Leyden are far apart, separated by all of Belgium and a large part of Holland. Mons is in south-western Belgium near the French frontier, while Leyden is a Dutch university town between Amsterdam and the Hague. The University of Leyden, it may be noted, was founded in 1575 by William of Orange as a reward for the heroic defence of the city against the Spaniards in the previous year.

72, 30. le comte de Nassau. John, brother of William of Orange, who gave up to him his inheritance in Nassau when he became prince of Orange.

72, 31. Par la mort Dieu! the ’sdeath of Elizabethan literature.

73, 12. voilà des nouvelles! ‘“{hat’s something like news! ”

75, 29. d’avoir à ramasser. The avoir à is unnecessary after commander.

77, 8 Groenendaal, a priory, now in ruins, in the forest of Soignes, a few miles south-west of Brussels.

77, 27. porte-étendard. Earlier in the play (17, 22) Karloo is described as Egmont’s cornette. The cornette was the porte-étendard of his squadron or company. The rank corresponded roughly to that of the modern second lieutenant.

77, 28. enfin soit! “well, all right! ”

81, 11. qui vous amène. Qui=ce qui, though perhaps Alva deliberately uses qui because he suspects a love motive behind Dolorès’ action.

81, 24. que j'aie la tête à moi, “that l’m in my right mind.” 82, 7. plein les rues. Plein is one of several adjectives invariable before and variable after the noun. (Cf. demi, nu.)

k 82, 12. me le tuer. The so-called ethical dative, or dative of interest, is not to be translated.

84, 22. à cause de la neige. The figures stand out clearly against the white snow.

92, 20. l'hôtel de Nassau, the Brussels palace of the house of Orange.

92, 25. Laloo, secretary of Admiral Horn, executed at the same time as Galèna and Bakkerzeel.

103, 10. il n’y a que nous de perdu, ‘“ we are the only ones lost.”