8. en Alsace. Reference to the campaign of 1674-1675, conducted by Turenne against greatly superior forces. Louis was with the army from May to July, 1675.

Page 177.-1. Quoiqu'une heureuse naissance, etc. See La Bruyère," Du Mérite Personnel," No. 32, page 203.

3. Catalogne. Catalonia, the northeastern province of Spain.

4. postes, positions. Cesar relates these incidents in his De Bello Civili I, c. 38 to end. The two leaders were Petreius and Afranius, Pompey's generals.

5. Châtenoy. Town of Alsace, southwest of Strasburg (German Kestenholz).

6. Selestad, Schlettstadt, in Alsace, close to Châtenoy. Condé commanded the French here in August and September, 1675, after Turenne's death.

7. on lui verra =on le verra; quite frequent in the seventeenth century.

8. Saverne, Zabern, in Alsace, northwest of Strasburg.

9. Haguenau. Hagenau, in Alsace, north of Strasburg. The events related here took place the first ten days of September, 1675. Montecuculli (1608-1681) was the opposing Austrian general.

10. éclairé, with light from on high. See page 178, lines 23-24.

Page 178.

1. saillies. Of anger. Notice that the preceding verb

is in the singular. See page 167, note I.

2. cette terrible journée, etc. July 2, 1652, at Paris, when Condé, at the head of the Fronde troops, defeated by Turenne outside the walls at the St. Antoine gate, retired into the city under the protection of the cannon of the Bastille.

3. en tête, opposed to himself.

4. l'archiduc. See page 170, note 4. For Lens, see page 165,

1. d'un siège important. Of Cambrai, in 1657

2. trop = très. The root sense of the word.

3. Dunkerque, Dunkirk, on the Straits of Dover, captured in Octo

ber, 1646. ses barques. It was a famous port for privateers.

4. nos alliés. The Dutch, at this time.

5. Egressus est Israel, etc. I Samuel xi, 7.

Page 180.- - 1. la bataille la plus hasardeuse, etc. At Nördlingen, the village of Allerheim was repeatedly assaulted by the French, They were repulsed until Mercy's wound gave them the advantage. Still their right wing was routed.

2. Ç'a été dans notre siècle, etc. This comparison of Condé and Turenne greatly injured Bossuet's Oration in the eyes of his contemporaries, or at least of the higher classes. They could not endure the praise of a simple nobleman to encroach on the eulogy of a prince of the blood.

3. tantôt opposés, etc. From 1651 to 1659, while Condé was in the Fronde or was commander of the Spanish army.

4. la sagesse se joue dans l'univers. Possible allusion to I Cor. i and iii.

6. aux prodiges, etc. The Alsatian campaign of 1674-1675, in which Turenne was killed by a cannon-ball (July 27, 1675, at Salzbach).

Page 181. -1. Judas le Machabée. Judas Maccabeus, who freed Jerusalem from the Syrians in 163 B.C. Cf. page 167, note 5. Esprit Fléchier (1632-1710) had compared Turenne to Judas Maccabeus in his Funeral Oration on the former (January 10, 1676). He had taken his text from the book of the Maccabees (1 Mac. xi, 20–21).

2. ne se flétrit point. The reflexive for the passive.

3. les maladies de l'autre. After finishing the campaign of 1675, Condé retired to Chantilly on account of his bodily infirmities. Still the French armies continued to be successful for another decade.

4. glorieuses. Bossuet really felt what he says of Louis XIV. Cf. the Oration on Madame, page 136, lines 16-17, and below, pages 186-187.

Page 182.

-1. de ses doigts. Psalm viii, 3.

2. l'antique, antiquity. Condé had been thoroughly educated and was especially interested in theology.

3. spéculation, theoretical knowledge. Cf. page 65, line 1.

4. Mais pour confondre, etc. This idea is a favorite one with Bossuet and had been often expressed in his sermons and orations.

5. Marc-Aurèle. Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome from 161 to 180. He left a collection of meditations, published under the title of "Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius."

6. Scipion. Probably Scipio Africanus (234-183 B.C.).

Page 183.

v, 45.

1. Mais puisque Dieu, etc. Suggested by Matthew

2. ce grand théâtre du monde. See Descartes, page 25, lines 16–17, and La Bruyère, "De la Cour," No. 99, page 234.

Page 184.

I.

à leur idée. Our idea of them.

2. sans être pressé. Condé's conversion took place not more than three years before his death. Cf. page 192, lines 29-32.

3. Un sage religieux. The Jesuit, Étienne-Agard Deschamps (1613-1701).

Page 185.- 1. Ses conseils, in regard to his private matters and the management of his household, to which y must refer in line 2. 2. son petit-fils. Louis, duke of Bourbon (1668–1710), La Bruyère's pupil, present at the ceremony. See page 162, note 1.

3. domestiques. Applied at this time to all who were attached to a great family.

4. nourris dans l'erreur, etc. Bossuet refers to Protestantism, which was "tolerated" in France previous to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.

5. la maladie de la duchesse de Bourbon. This young princess, the daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, was married to Condé's grandson in 1685. Her illness was small-pox.

6. avancées, ripe, mature already and on the point of decay. Page 186. 1. S'il oublie toute sa faiblesse, etc. Louis wished to enter the sick-room, but Condé, who could scarcely move without assistance, ran to prevent him.

2. la duchesse d'Enghien. Condé's daughter-in-law since 1663. Her mother was Anne of Gonzague, on whom Bossuet had pronounced a funeral oration in 1685.

3. la maladie du roi. Allusion to a painful operation undergone by Louis, November 18, 1686. See lines 21-29.

4. ses jardins enchantés. The park at Versailles, which had been laid out by Le Nôtre. The works lasted twenty years and are said to have cost more than a milliard of francs. Bossuet is here relating facts regarding the courage of the king, who appeared in public but a few hours after the operation.

Page 188. forms.

1. sans formalité refers to formes in line 10; legal

2. cette louange. To compliment the chief mourner was a conventional thing in funeral orations. Bossuet has introduced his compliment most skillfully and naturally, though it can hardly be said that it was deserved by the recipient.

3. qu'il = que cela referring to Ce que. Cf. page 139, note 2.

Page 189.

.-I. pas encore = plus.

2. pour la conversion des hérétiques, etc. It would seem as though the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the forced conversion of the Protestants marked the turning-point of real piety among the more influential courtiers.

Page 190.-1. prières des agonisants. The prayers in the office of the Visitation of the Sick which are said for the dying.

2. il ne s'y laissa jamais vaincre. The y refers to tendresse and is to be translated "by it." In the seventeenth century se laisser was followed by à in those constructions where par is required to-day. 3. Jacob. See Gen. xlix, 1-27.

4. ô prince. François-Louis de Bourbon, prince of Conti (1664– 1709). He was Condé's orphaned nephew, a most excellent soldier and scholar, but had incurred the ill-will of the king (cf. page 191, line 3), by sundry witticisms and by enlisting without royal permission in a war against the Turks.

Page 191.

1. ce ferme rocher. 2 Samuel xxii, 2-3.

2. la dernière lettre, etc. Mme de Sévigné speaks of the noble tone of this letter, and of the king's emotion on hearing it read. (Cf. her Letter of December 13, 1686).

Page 192.

-1. O Dieu, créez, etc. Psalm li, 10.

2. Je n'ai jamais douté, etc. Condé had been looked upon by some as a free-thinker.

Page 193. 1. Sicuti est, etc. I John iii, 2, and 1 Cor. xiii, 12. 2. mais venez plutôt, etc. This address cites each class which was represented at the service: the nobles, the magistrates, the clergy and the princes of the blood.

3. venez voir le peu, etc. Bossuet returns to the idea developed in the Oration on Madame.

4. des fragiles images de fragiles images to-day. Both constructions are found in the seventeenth century.

Page 195.

2. ce sacrifice.

the sermon.

Matthew x, 42.

1. Et hæc est, etc. 1 John v, 4.

Symbolized by the mass, of which this Oration was

See page 158, note I.

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. Erasmus (1467-1536), the most celebrated of German humanists. The passage quoted is from one of his letters.

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.

--

Des Ouvrages de l'Esprit.

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).