Page Line CHAPTER XIX. 34, 3. On a bien des grâces à rendre, one has inuch cause to be thankful. Cf. actions de grâces thanksgiving. Note, also, that "grace" before meals is in French le Benedicité, and after meals only les grâces, always plural. 7. Charles Nodier (see note on p. 35, 1. 23, vol. I.). 7. Jean Sbogar, a novel published by Nodier in 1818. 18. A manier, to wield (literally, to handle). 28. Affectées, pretended, exaggerated. 35, 1. N'empêchait pas de sentir peser partout le doigt de l'effrayant parvenu, let the weight of the hand of the tremendous minister be felt everywhere. Parvenu=upstart, is an absurd epithet applied to Richelieu, for besides affirming a low birth (which is untrue in his case), it implies unfitness for his position, whereas no man ever was more emphatically equal to the duties and exigencies of his position than Richelieu. II. Qu'ils ne voient dans leur avenir que, that the future has for them no other horizon than. 19. Il the castle of Chambord. 20. Elle the person of the king. 30. De pensée, his mind. Note this phrase, changer d'avis, say changer d'esprit nor changer son esprit. Never 34. Charles Quint (see note p. 138, line 1, vol. I.) 36, 1. De la mort (more correctly, des morts), for the dead. 30. Il attisait, par cette contrainte, le feu secret de son cœur, he increased, by this self-constraint, his heart-burning. 37, 4. Si chancelante et si douloureuse, so insecure and so painful. 8. Un ressort d'acier caché, a small watch-spring made into a file or saw, which he has kept hidden. 9. D'en finir avec, to precipitate the issue of. 11. Creusée, laid, sunk (literally, dug). 17. Lui fit dire, sent him word. 21. A une heure, an hour's walk or march. 66 27. Mille nuits, Arabian Nights." 32. Flèches, spires (literally, arrows). 38, 1. Leur tapis de mousse et de lierre, their covering of moss and ivy. Page Line 38, 5. Le Primatice, Francesco Primaticcio, a famous painter, architect, and sculptor; born at Bologna, about 1490; died in 1570. He gave a great impulse to the fine arts in France, where he was loaded with royal favours by Francis I. and his two successors. 6. François I., king of France (1494-1547), was the son of Charles d'Orléans, comte d'Angoulême [second son of Charles d'Orléans, the hero of Agincourt, and a most distinguished poet, whose works. composed during a captivity of twenty-five years in England, made some enthusiastic admirer call him "Le père de la poésie française"], and great-grandson of Valentine Visconti. He succeeded in 1515 Louis XII., who had left no son, and whose daughter he had married, and immediately set forth, at the head of an army, to enforce his claim to the duchy of Milan, which was secured to him by his victory at Marignano (1515); but he was repeatedly defeated by Charles V., who made him prisoner at Pavia (1525), and his reign was a succession of reverses, ending, however, by the investiture of his second son as Duke of Milan. Noble and chivalrous, Francis I. deserved the title of "Père des Lettres," but he was licentious. He persecuted the Protestants and Valdenses, and exhausted the finances of the State by his prodigality. 7. La Salamandre, an amphibious reptile resembling a lizard, which secretes a sort of glue, protecting it for a short time against the fire, if thrown into it. In antiquity the salamander was the emblem of fire, and poets made of it the symbol of valour and love. Translate : François Ier avait dans ses armoiries une salamandre avec cette devise: "J'y vis et je l'éteins." 13. Cette Diane de Poitiers, Diane, daughter of Jean de Poitiers (1499-1566), became, after the death of her husband, Louis de Brézé, comte de Maulévrier, the favourite of Henri II., and was soon all-powerful at court. She was created Duchesse de Valentinois, and one of the finest architectural works of that period, the Castle of Anet, near Dreux (destroyed in 1792), was built for her. She lived and died there after Henri II.'s death. 18. Qui s'élève en deux spirales entrelacées depuis les fondements les plus lointains de l'édifice jusqu'au-dessus des plus hauts clochers, forming two spiral-shaped staircases intertwined, rising from the lowest foundations of the building to a height exceeding that of the highest church spires. 21. Cabinet à jour, small room open on all sides. 23. Sans se voir, without seeing each other. 25. Les arcades de ces ailes minces, its light, wing-like arches. Page Line 38, 27. Brodées à jour, of stone lace-work. 29. Pétrie, kneaded. A scarcely apropriate term, pétrir supposing always a soft or malleable substance. Note the familiar phrase être dans le pétrin to be in great difficulties (familiarly, in a mess). Pétrin literally means a kneading-trough. 39, 3. Marche = degré, step. 7. Chéri, favourite. 16. Ce cœur glacé qui croit désirer quelque chose, thy frozen heart, imagining that it longs for something. 18. Cabinet, apartment, chamber. 19. Sur une chaise longue, on an invalid's chair. 24. D'un ton larmoyant et un peu emphatique, in a whining and 32. Ne put se défendre d'un moment de trouble, could not help feeling confused for a moment. Note that se défendre de is here synonymous with s'empêcher d'éprouver, but idiomatically it means to deny a charge (to justify oneself), to resist an advance or a request. Translate: "Vous n'aurez plus qu'à vous défendre de la vanité" (Mdme. de Sévigné.) "Jusqu'ici je me suis défendu de m'expliquer.' (Molière Les Amants Magnifiques, ii. 4.) "Il se défend fort de se mêler de l'affaire." (Bossuet.) "Si mes livres ne savent pas se défendre, je ne les défendrai pas mieux." (Bossuet.) 40, 4. Frissons, chill, shiver, excitement. 8. Lèse-majesté, high treason. II. Coucy, an unworthy descendant of Enguerrand le Grand, 11. Croquants (see note p. 182, 1. 30, vol. i.). word, which really means a very small bird of prey Page Line que pour le profit." (Buffon.) The word is not given with this sense by Cotgrave (1660), who only gives it the meaning of a sparrow-hawk. Richelet (1728) gives hobreau (pauperculus nobilis), "mot burlesque et satirique pour dire un gentilhomme de campagne," and derives it from hautber=grand seigneur. 23. Que pourquoi. 26. N'y tiendrait pas, could not bear it. 27. Faites-moi juger, let me be tried. 34. Connétable (see note on p. 34, l. 2, vol. i.). 41, 2. Dressé (see note on p. 52, l. 14, vol. i.). 4. Vos vieilles têtes à collerettes, your antiquated advisers. 42, 3. Au salut ou à l'angelus, at the evening prayer. 8. Des esprits forts-free-thinkers. Translate: "Les esprits forts savent-ils qu'on les appelle ainsi par ironie? Quelle plus grande faiblesse que d'être incertain quel est le principe de son être, de sa vie, de ses sens, de ses connaissances, et quelle en doit être la fin?" (La Bruyère, xvi.) 17. Des lectures, readings. Note that a lecture is in French une conférence; a lecturer, un conférencier. 32. Des galants et des damerets, fops; one that spends his whole time in the entertaining, or courting, of women. (Cotgrave.) Translate : Gardez donc de donner ainsi, que dans Clélie, -BOILEAU: Art Poétique, 3. 43, 1. René Descartes (see note on p. 2, 1. 9. vol. ii.). 6. Des Barreaux (Jacques Vallée, seigneur) 1599-1673. His epicurean songs are forgotten, and the famous sonnet, Grand Dieu, tes jugements sont remplis d'équité, &c., in which he was represented as penitent, is said by Voltaire to have been written, not by Des Barreaux, but by the Abbé de Lavau. 14. Grotius (see note on p. 2, 1. 9, vol. ii.). 15. Barneveldt, Jean Olden-Barneveldt, Great Pensionary of Holland (1549-1619), an able negotiator, an upright administrator, and a zealous patriot, had the glory of concluding with Spain in 1609 the treaty which secured the independence of Holland. Maurice of Nassau, whose ambition he had resisted, obtained his condem Page Line nation as an Arminian from the Calvinistic Synod of Dordrecht (1618), and had him sentenced to death by a commission on a trumpery charge of treason. Barneveldt suffered death with heroic courage. He left two sons, René and William: the latter organised a plot to avenge their father's death by the assassination of Maurice of Nassau; the plot having been discovered, William escaped by flight, but Maurice put the innocent Kené to death for not having denounced his brother in whose plot he had had no part. 43, 17. Religionnaire exalié, a fanatic Calvinist. Translate: "On ne dit plus religionnaire pour Calviniste, sinon parfois en langage historique." (Littré.) 18. John Milton. The author is here guilty of a double ana- 44, 2. Bouillon, etc., see Index. The names not found there are too insignificant to be further noticed. 6. Cyropédie, Xenophon's master-piece, translated by Charpentier, but nearly twenty years after the date of the events related by our author, whose mention of it here is another anachronism. 34. Du vol de l'émerillon, of falconry. 45, 1. Vénerie, hunting. 3. Veneur, huntsman, sportsman. 5. Qu'il ne faut ni le tancer, ni le frapper, pour qu'il donne bien dans le trait, that it must be neither beaten, nor sharply spoken to, in order to make it follow well the track. 6. Se rabattre, to beat up, to fall back. 7. Ni couler de faux-fuyants ni nulles sentes, nor run through false scents nor any tracks. |