fait -= récit

Des Ouvrages de l'Esprit Page 2. — I. plus de sept mille ans, the âge of man as reckoned by Suidas, a Greek lexicographer, who flourished about 970.

2. et qui, for çui, an emphatic use of et favored by La Bruyère.

3. pratique, skilled. This magistrate is said to hâve been a certain Poncet de la Rivière, and the book which ruined his future, les Considérations sur les avantages de la vieillesse dans la vie chrétienne^ politique, civile, économique et solitaire (1677, under the pseudonym of Baron de Prelle).

4. l'ordre gothique, etc.; the Renaissance brought back the architecture of Greece and Rome, as it did their literature. The Middle Ages with their indigenous art and literature were then regarded as barbarous, and this opinion prevailed down to the time

of Chateaubriand (see his Génie du Christianisini)\ cf. page 41, line 20.

Page 3. — I. le simple et le naturel 1 the watchword of French literature from Malherbe to Rousseau; yet La Bruyère was the first noteworthy transgressor of the " simple and natural '* style.

2. Un auteur mpderne,^ etc.; allusion to the dispute over the comparative merits of ancient and modem writers, which lasted from 1670 to 1715. A direct hit at Fontenelle may be seen hère, who published his Poésies pastorales in 1688. Thèse were accompanied by an attack on the ancients, and a citation of his own poems as models of pastoral composition. This paragraph first appeared in 1689. See the portrait of Fontenelle (CycUas") : " De la Société et de la Conversation," no. 75, pages 36-38.

3. habiles, intelligent people^ ** compétent;" cf. page 2, line 5.

Pagre 4* — I. Ceux qui écrÎTent par humeur, in Caractère 63 of this chapter this same phrase occurs, and has been explained as those who draw on themselves for their material, but hère it would seem to be used in the sensé of writing on the spur of the moment.

2. un ouvrage parfait ou régulier ! a work made in accordance with the rules of the art. What relates particularly to le Cid seems to be a paraphrase of Boileau's well-known Unes :

** En vain contre le Cid un ministre se ligue : Tout Paris pour Chimène a les ye*ix de Rodrigue," etc.

Satire IX, 231 ff.