humeur, caprice
3. Despréauz, Nicolas Boileau — (1636-17 11), the French critic
4. moi, the editors refer to a passage in Montaigne's Essais^
p. 12-19] NOTES 129
Book I, ch. 25 (Louandre's ed'n vol. I., p. 205), which expresses the same idea.
Du Mérite Personnel Page 13« — I. yale = vaille, an antiquated forxn.
Pagre 14« — I* aïeuls == aïeux, the distinction now made between the plurals of aïeul did not obtain in the seventeenth century.
2. V * * * est un peintre, Claude-P'rançois Vignon, the younger (1633-1703), historical painter.
3. C * * * un musicien, Pascal Colasse (?i 639-1 700), composer and orchestra leader.
4. l'auteur de Pjrrame, Nicolas Pradon (i 632-1 698), Racine's rival at the time of Phèdre, His Pyrame et Thisbé, a tragedy, was played in 1674.
S- Mignardy Pierre (i 608-1 695), the great portrait painter of the century.
6. LuUi, Jean-Baptiste (1633-1687), the creator of French opéra.
Page 15* — I. JBmilei the great Condë, into whose household La Bruyère had entered in 1684 as tutor to the Duc de Bourbon.
Page 16. — I. ayant que de, preferred in the seventeenth century to ayant de.
2. ennobli, La Bruyère wrote annobli, which is now limited in meaning.
3. au chef de sa famille, the King, Louis XIV, since Condë was of the blood royal.
4. Les enfants des Dieux. " Fils, petits-fils, issus de rois." (Note by La Bruyère.)
Page 17« — I. Hopse, supposed to be the Abbé de Saint- Pierre (Charles-Irënëe Castel, 165 8-1 743).
Page 18. — I. la rupture des deux minisires, probably an allusion to the disagreement between Louvois and de Seignelay in 1690, over the support to be given to James II of England by the French govemment.
Page 19* — I. modestie, a slur on the nobles who, well installed
at home, willingly endured discomfort in order to be near the king.
2. La fausse grandeur, etc. ; the remarks in this paragraph might
130 NOTES pp. 19-28
be plausibly attribnted to the example set by Condé himself, a prince of the blood royal. — Bossuet in his funeral oration on Coadé bears witness to his simplidty.
Des Femmes Pagre 20. — I. nielle, sleeping room where the ladies of the day received. So called because of the space between the bed and the wall, where visitors might be seated ; an alcôve.
2. habit gris, country dress assumed by magistrates who aspired to élégance. They would usually dress in black.
3. baudrier, the baldric would présume that the wearer carried a swordy a distinction which properly belonged to the nobility only.
4. une écharpe d'or, wom only by members of the king's household and privileged persons of the court
5. qui parle au roi, the editors recall the famous scène of U Bourgeois gentilhomme: — Dorante . . . Vous êtes l'homme du monde que j'estime le plus, et je parlais de vous encore ce matin dans la chambre du roi, etc. (Act III, se. IV.)
6. à quatre lieues de là, at Versailles, where the court was k>cated under Louis XIV.
7. savantes, probably suggested by the passage in Molière*» Femmes savantes, where Philaminte protests:
Et je veux nous venger, toutes tant que nous sommes,
De cette indigne classe où nous rangent les hommes,
De borner nos talents à des futilités,
Et nous fermer la porte aux sublimes clartés. (11. 853-^56.)
Pagre 21. — I. domestique, ^^«j^/i£^/âf.
2. endroits, /afiirVf/Azrj', fréquent in this sensé in the seventeenth century.
