IX. TEL J'ÉTAIS AUTREFOIS...

L. 1. et tel... See note to p. 40, l. 15.

L. 2. Quand ma main... A quaint periphrasis for 'When I am out of cash.'

L. 4. m'a fermé le seuil. Chénier had first written, 'Je vois qu'on m'a fermé la porte inexorable.' On reconsidering it, he must have thought fermer le seuil a more novel alliance of words, giving more force to the whole group fermer le seuil inexorable. Cf. élever sa langue for élever la voix, p. 14, l. 203.

L. 7. O soins... Persius, Sat. i. 'O curas hominum! O quantum est in rebus inane.'

Ll. 11-14. Persius, Sat. iii. 109-111; Horace, Od. i. 9. 21.

L. 15. les grands discours. Big words.

L. 16. Et le sage Lycée, et l'auguste Portique: the Lyceum, i.e. the Aristotelian philosophy; the Porticus, i.e. the Stoic school.

L. 17. Et reviennent... See note to p. 46, l. 17.

L. 17. et soupirs et billets... This departure from current usage in omitting the definite article, which gives more rapidity to an enumeration, cannot be imitated in English. It is a feature of the older syntax which has been most fortunately preserved. The use of the definite article in Old and Middle French was much the same as in modern English. It was often omitted (as also the indefinite article) before homme, chose, femme, before nouns taken in a general sense and abstract nouns. The English student knows that Old English said se mann for man (in general), tha godan menn for good men (in general), seo gesceadwisnes for wisdom (even when personified). Is it not likely that the present usage in English, established in the Middle English period, was much influenced by contemporary French usage?