I. 38. On Régnier, see note to p

Page 73. 1. i. Prusias, king of Bithynia, replies to Araspe, acaptain of his guards, who advises him to act cautiously because of the secret reasons for Nicomedes's impatience :

Je ne les vois que trop, et sa témérité

N'est qu'un pur attentat sur mon autorité :

Il n'en veut plus dépendre, et croit que ses conquêtes

Au-dessus de son bras ne laissent point de têtes,

Qu'il est lui seul sa règle, et que, sans se trahir,

Des héros tels que lui ne sauraient obéir.

(Nicomède, Acte II, Scène i.)

1. 6. // serait certes piquant de lire quelques pages de Saint- Simon qu'aurait commentées Voltaire. The style of Saint-Simon, (see note to p. 21, 1. 7) is very often grammatically incorrect, his sentences are intricate, and his vocabulary is full of unusual or unexpectedly connected terms. He is, as Chateaubriand rightly wrote, a noble man, who 'écrit à la diable pour l'immortalité.' But, if irregular, his style is powerfui, passionate, and, in one word, living. Voltaire, had he judged the style of Saint-Simon from the same standpoint as he judged that of Corneille, could not but hâve condemned it as full of solecisms from beginning to end.

1. 19. The abstract, rational, and almost mathematical character of the style of Corneille has been often dealt with by French critics. See in particular the chapter devoted to

this subject in Lanson's Corneille {Collection des Grands

Ecrivains, Hachette).