cercle, social gathering

Page 55« — i. yu, in ail the éditions but two, where it is vus,

2. république, state^ Latin res publica ; see below, page 68.

3. portent au vent, said of horses with nostrils raised and alert.

Page 56. — i. appartement, the king's suite of rooms.

Page 67.— I. chanceler, etc., the editors refer for this entire paragraph to a corresponding passage in Montaigne's Essais, Book III, ch. VIII (vol. IV, p. 33 of Louandre*s édition).

2. j'y ; the pronoun y in the seventeenth century frequently referred to persons.

3. n'ait, notice that the négative follows soupçonner, an unusual construction. Note also ^the employment of the subjunctive after a verb which implies uncertainty.

Page 68. — I. d'Arlequin, the Italian comedy, where Harlequin was the clown.

Page 59. — i. une épaisseur, etc; the tone of this paragraph suggests Montesquieu's Lettres Persanes.

Page 60. — I. Diseurs de bons mots, etc., a citation from Pascal's Pensées. (Article vi, pensée 19 of Havet's Edition.)

2. Pose dire, notice that the pronoun, object of the infinitive, is placed before the auxiliary, a use now restricted to a few verbs.

Page 61. — I. Straton, etc; this portrait is the Duc de Lauzun's (i 633-1 723), who after an adventurous youth had become secretly engaged to Mademoiselle d'Orléans, cousin of the king, and had been imprisoned for ten years in conséquence. Pardoned, he fought in Ireland for James II, at the Boyne, where he was among the first to flee.

Des Grands

In this section the author's bittemess is even greater than before, due evidently to his position in the Condé family, where he was brought intô close proximity with the nobles. Notice the second and third paragraphs quoted.

Page 02. — I. La prévention dn peuple, etc., cf. Pascal : Pensées^ Art. V, pensée 2 : ''Le peuple honore les personnes de grande naissance."

Page 68« — i. leurs nains, leurs fous, dwarfs and court fools

had passed out of gênerai favor, though some could still be found.