Page 194.

1. un verre d'eau, etc.

Matthew x, 42.

Page 195.—1. Et hæc est, etc. I John v, 4.

2. ce sacrifice. Symbolized by the mass, of which this Oration was the sermon. See page 158, note 1.

3. Vous mettrez fin, etc. This was in fact Bossuet's last Oration. In 1690 he delivered an address at the Val-de-Grâce convent on the Dauphiness, whose heart had been brought there (April 26). It was not age which led him to renounce formal panegyrics. He had never favored such discourses, thinking them essentially worldly and unworthy the effort of a priest.

LA BRUYÈRE.

LES CARACTÈRES.

The portions selected from the preface comprise the original preface of the first three editions. The quotation from Erasmus appeared at the head of the fourth edition. Consult for the complete preface the Hachette edition, which is the ninth (1696), the last reviewed by the author.

Page 196. -1. Érasme. brated of German humanists. letters.

2. de lui

=

à lui to-day.

Erasmus (1467-1536), the most celeThe passage quoted is from one of his

3. s'en corriger. Depends on peut, line 5. The complete preface now proceeds to insist on the necessity of a moral purpose in literature,

and disclaims any personal allusions in les Caractères.

4. l'usage des maximes. Cf. La Rochefoucauld's.

Page 197. 1. plus de sept mille ans. The age of man as reckoned by Suidas, a Greek lexicographer, who flourished about 970. 2. et qui, for qui. An emphatic use of et favored by La Bruyère. Cf. Descartes, page 5, line 18, etc.

3. pratique, skilled. This magistrate is said to have been a certain Poncet de la Rivière, and the book which ruined his future, the 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 its indigenous art and literature were then regarded as barbarous, and this opinion prevailed down to the time of Chateaubriand (cf. his Génie du Christianisme). Cf. page 222, line 12.

Page 198. 1. le simple et le naturel. 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 moderne, etc. Allusion to the dispute over the comparative merits of ancient and modern writers, which lasted from 1670. to 1715. A direct hit at Fontenelle may be seen here, who published his Poésies pastorales in 1688. These 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 (Cydias): "De la Société et de la Conversation," No. 75, pages 218-219.

3. Quelques habiles. Cf. page 107, note 1. petent" judges.

Page 199.

Habiles is here "com

1. Ceux qui écrivent par humeur. Near the end of this chapter this same phrase occurs, and is explained as those who draw on themselves for their material. But here it would seem to be in the sense 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 lines:

"En vain contre le Cid un ministre se ligue:

Tout Paris pour Chimène a les yeux de Rodrigue," etc.
Satire IX, 231 ff.

3. l'autorité et la politique. The Academy and Richelieu. 4. et l'une des meilleures critiques. The Academy's Sentiments (1638).

5. fait de main d'ouvrier

Page 200.

1. Balzac, Jean-Louis Guez de (1597-1655). Letter-writer and the most influential critic of his day.

2. Voiture, Vincent (1598–1648). A follower of Balzac in the art of letter-writing and the favorite poet of the Hôtel de Rambouillet. 3. Ce sexe, etc. Mme de Sévigné had begun her incomparable

correspondence twenty years before this Caractère. Mme de Maintenon, Mme de La Fayette and many others had also shown great talent in the same line.

4. Térence (194-158 B.C.). Author of Latin comedies.

5. le jargon et le babarisme, et d'écrire purement. Molière's language is not so uniformly correct as the language of the other great writers of the age. Jargon and barbarisme probably have reference to the expressions of his soubrettes and the dialect of his peasants.

6. Ce n'est point assez, etc. The keys of the day would have this paragraph refer to the comedies of the actor Baron (Michel Boyron, 1653-1729), and the last few lines to his Homme à bonnes fortunes (1686) particularly. But Molière may also have been in mind (“d'un malade dans sa garde-robe "), while the question is the general one of realism versus theatrical conventions.

Page 201. 1. L'on écrit régulièrement, etc. This review of French literature might well have gone back ten years farther and started with les Lettres provinciales.

2. Malherbe, François (1555-1628). Critic and court poet under Henry IV and Louis XIII. The reformer of French versification. Notice the pre-eminent qualities of French style, "ordre" and "netteté." Cf. Introduction, page vii.

Page 202. 2. aïeuls

=

Du Mérite Personnel.

— 1. vale = vaille. Antiquated form.

aïeux. The distinction now made between the plurals of aïeul did not obtain in the seventeenth century.

3. V✶✶✶ est un peintre. Claude-François Vignon, the younger (1633-1703), historical painter.

4. C * * * un musicien. Pascal Colasse (?1639–1709), composer and orchestra leader.

5. l'auteur de Pyrame. rival at the time of Phèdre. played in 1674.

Nicolas Pradon (1632-1698), Racine's

His Pyrame et Thisbé, a tragedy, was

6. Mignard, Pierre (1608-1695), the great portrait-painter of the century.

7. Lulli, Jean-Baptiste (1633-1687), the creator of French opera. Page 203. 1. Emile. The great Condé, into whose household La Bruyère had entered in 1683 as tutor to the Duke of Bourbon.

Compare this paragraph, which dates from 1692, with Bossuet's Funeral Oration on Condé.

Page 204.

1. ennobli. La Bruyère wrote annobli, which is now

limited in meaning.

2. au chef de sa famille. The King, Louis XIV, since Condé was of the blood royal.

3. Mopse. Supposed to be the Abbé de Saint-Pierre (CharlesIrénée Castel (1658–1743).

Page 205.

1. La fausse grandeur. A lesson learned from Condé perhaps. Cf. Bossuet's Oration, pages 172-175.

Des Femmes.

La Bruyère is even less favorably disposed towards woman than La Rochefoucauld, though his study of the sex is perhaps broader and his conclusions based on a greater number of facts.

Du Cœur.

Much of this chapter is on friendship and love. The tone is like La Rochefoucauld's.

De la Société et de la Conversation.

2. se hasarde de, now se hasarde à.

3. mots aventuriers. Words which pass speedily out of use.

Page 210. 1. Théodecte. Most of the names used in these portraits are of Greek origin. This particular-person is supposed to be D'Aubigné, the brother of Mme de Maintenon.

2. Il faut laisser parler, etc. La Bruyère found some of the traits of this character in his Greek predecessor, Theophrastus.

Page 212.

II, page 94.

Page 213.

Page 214.

- 1. La politesse. Cf. Pascal: Pensées, Art. V, pensée

-1. la fuite, the desire to escape.

1. J'approche d'une petite ville, etc. One of the author's celebrated sketches. It was written for the fifth edition, while the paragraph that follows, and which seems to explain this passage, had already appeared in the fourth.

2. les élus et les assesseurs.

The former were minor magistrates
The latter were adjuncts to

who gave decisions in the matter of taxes. the regular judge, his counsellors.

Page 215. - 1. dispute

discussion.

2. L'on a vu, etc. This may be an allusion to Mlle de Scudéry's Saturdays, which among other things produced the novel of Clélie (cf. Bossuet, Oration on Madame, page 137, note 3). See the next paragraph.

Page 216. - 1. l'imagination. This opposition of the "imagination" to 66 bon sens," and "jugement" occurs more than once in La Bruyère. His was a realistic epoch.

3. les plus honnêtes gens, the best-bred people. The final absurdity of this style of conversation in the lower social circles is the subject of Molière's satire in les Précieuses ridicules.

4. Cette manière basse de plaisanter, etc. See Molière's Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes, Sc. 1.

5. Lucain. The Latin poet Lucan (39–65), author of the Pharsalia. 6. Claudien. Latin poet of the fourth century, who celebrated Stilicon's victories over the Goths.

8. Sénèque. The Roman philosopher, Seneca (2–65).

Page 217. — 1. Hongrie... Bohême. Bohemia had passed under the direct control of Austria in 1547, while Hungary had maintained some show of independence till 1688, two years before this paragraph was published. See Descartes, page 6, lines 9-11.

3. guerres de Flandre et de Hollande. Those carried on by Louis XIV, especially the one begun in 1688 and in progress at this time (1690).

4. la guerre des Géants. The mythological wars of the Giants Iwith Hercules and the Gods.

5. Henri IV fils de Henri III. Henry III (1574-1589) was childless. Henry IV (1589-1610) was the son of Antoine de Bourbon, brother of Louis de Bourbon, Condé's ancestor.

6. Apronal, etc. These names were taken from a Histoire du Monde (1686), by Urbain Chevreau (1615–1701). Mardokempad is Mardokempados, a king of the seventh Babylonian dynasty.