Sans vous commander. — If you please

19. Ai-je fait observer. — I observed. To observe, in French, is faire ebserver (to cause to be observed j, as to remark is faire remarquer (to cause to be remarked).

20. Pendant tout le tremblement. — During the whole war. Tremblement is thus very familiarly used in the sensé of fuss, mess, ado. In the next hue, comme qui dirait, meaning, as one might say, is also quite familiar.

21. Un ancien . . . des maréchaux. — A vétéran of Fontenoy, fixed up in my style, but a knowing one who could hâve taught marshals a thing or two. Remontrer a quelqu'un sa faute, son devoir, is to point out to any one lus fault, his duty ; hence, en remontrer is to teach another, to give him instructions of any kind, but especially on matters belonging to his profession, trade, or province.

22. Les gens de rien n'arrivaient pas a la vapeur. — Common people did not rise at railroad speed.

23. L'autre. — A common expression used to designate Napoléon I. It originated, under the Bourbons, among those who did not wish to call him the usurper, and scarcely dared to call him the emperor.

24. Mais fallait le voir. — But you ought to hâve seen him. For the omission of il, see note 15.

25. Croix de Saint-Louis. — The décoration of the chivalric order of Saint Louis, established by Louis XIV., in 1693, in favor of officers who distinguished themselves either in the army or navy. The national assembly abolished the orders of chivalry by the constitution of 1791, preserving only the cross of Saint Louis as a military décoration, but the convention suppressed it, and replaced the ancient distinctions by the arms of honor ; and in 1802, Bonaparte, then first consul, instituted the présent civil and military décoration of the Légion of Honor. — Cheruel, Dict. des Institutions de la France.

26. Que je lui réponds. — I reply. Other examples of the same construction occur in tins pièce. In the next sentence we find one : qu'il reprend, continues he ; and about a page further on there are two : que je repris, I answered ; and qu'il acheva, lie added. Que is hère a mère expletive, unless it be accounted for by some such phrase as was the thing. This use of que should not be imitated.

27. Ûa me jit quelque chose. — That moved me, produced an effect upon me.

28. Que je partais. — That I was about to start. Partir and arriver are thus idiomatically used : je pars, I am on the point of starting ; je partais, I was on the point of starting, &c. ; j'arrive, I hâve just corne ; j'arrivais, I had just come, &c.

29. Sa7is emphase. — With simplicity. Littré defines emphase as an exaggeration in expression, tone, voice, or gesture. Hence parler avec emphase is to speak in an unnatural, bombastic manner ; while parler avec force is to speak emphatically, with energy.