18. J'aime mieux comme César, etc. "It is said that when he came to a little town, in passing the Alps, his friends by way of mirth took occasion to say, 'Can there be any disputes for offices, any contentions for precedency, or such envy and ambition as we see among the great?' To which Caesar answered with great seriousness, 'I assure you, I had rather be the first man here than the second man in Rome.'" Plutarch, J. Caesar.

Page 146. 19. Hic jacet lepus. Littré, under the word lièvre quotes the expression, "C'est là que gît le lièvre," which, he says: = c'est là le secret, le nœud de l'affaire. Cf. Pailleron, "Tu avais bien besoin de lever ce lièvre-la," Le Monde où l'on s'ennuie, ii, 7, and Musset, "Voilà le lièvre," L'Ane et le Ruisseau, sc. 4.

Page 147. 20. Scène V. This scene resembles Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée. In both we have a woman doubting, and a man defending, love. Camille's friend Louise is thirty years old, and love and youth for her have gone forever. So La Marquise says in Il faut: Tu as quinze ans, je suppose; eh bien! mon enfant, cela ira ainsi jusqu'à trente, et ce sera toujours la même chose."

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Page 152. 21. Comme elle était assise, etc. Cf. Hogarth's famous picture of Mariage à la Mode, Plate ii.

Page 154. 22. Missel. The book containing the service of the mass for the whole year.

23. Locanda. Italian for inn.

Page 158. 24. Hostie. The consecrated wafer believed to be the body of Christ, which in the mass is offered as a sacrifice.

Page 159.

25. On est souvent trompé en amour, etc.

I hold it true whate'er befall,

I feel it when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lost,

Than never to have loved at all.

Tennyson, In Memoriam.

26. J'ai souffert souvent, etc. A German song the original text of which I cannot find runs as follows:

Yesterday I loved,

To-day I suffer,
To-morrow I die;

But I shall gladly

To-day and to-morrow
Think on yesterday.

The whole philosophy of this paragraph can be expressed in a paraphrase of Tennyson's well-known lines :

'Tis better to have loved and been deceived,

Than never to have loved at all.

Page 169. 27. Mais tu comprends bien que tu pries, etc. In L'Espoir en Dieu Musset says that prayer is a cry of hope. 28. Dans la sève du monde. See note 15, page 63.

ee

Page 173. 29. Agneau sans tache. Usually applied to the Saviour. On page 140, Dame Pluche calls Camille a colombe sans tache."

Page 174. 30. Le plaisir des disputes, c'est de faire la paix. Cf.:

And blessings on the fallings out

That all the more endears,

When we fall out with those we love

And kiss again with tears!

Tennyson, Princess, Canto i, song.

Terence (And. iii, 3, 23) has:

Amantium irae amoris integratio,

of which a well-known English translation runs as follows:

The falling out of faithful friends,

But the renewal is of love.

Page 175. 31. Êtes-vous sûr de leur inconstance. The fickleness of woman forms the subject of many famous remarks. Francis I. wrote with a diamond on a window of his palace:

Page 177. 32. Carnaval. A festival observed in most RomanCatholic countries, during a few days before Lent, ending with Shrove Tuesday.

Page 180. 33. C'est trois mille écus de perdus. Le Baron says, p. 122, that the education of Perdican and Camille has cost him 6000 écus.

34. Ils me donneront en échange le royaume des cieux, car il est à eux. Cf. Matthew v:3. Balzac in the Curé de Tours has a similar play on this passage: "Quoique le vicaire fût un de ceux auxquels le paradis doit un jour appartenir en vertu de l'arrêt: Bienheureux les pauvres d'esprit."

Page 183. 35. Le bonheur est une perle, etc. Cf. Shakspere: of one whose hand,

Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away

Richer than all his tribe.

Othello, v, 2.

36. Pêcheur céleste. The Saviour (?). He himself calls his disciples fishers of men. Dante (Purg. xxii, 63,) calls S. Peter, Pescatore.

UN CAPRICE.

"Parmi les témoignages de sympathie qu'il recevait souvent, se trouva une bourse anonyme en filet, dont il ne put deviner l'auteur. Après avoir soupçonné toutes les femmes de sa connaissance, il puisa dans ses conjectures le sujet d'une peinture de la vie parisienne: C'est ainsi que lui vint l'idée du Caprice." P. de Musset, Biog. p. 188. The hero of the Fils du Titien likewise receives a purse from some unknown person.

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This comedy was published in the Revue des Deux Mondes, June 15, 1837, but was not put on the stage until ten years later. For the circumstances under which it was introduced to Parisian audiences, see p. xxvi of the Introduction. The day after its first representation, Théophile Gautier wrote in his Feuilleton dramatique : 'Depuis Marivaux . . . il ne s'est rien produit à la Comédie-Française de si fin, de si délicat, de si doucement enjoué que ce chef-d'œuvre mignon." Up to 1883 it had been played 326 times. The posthumous L'Âne et le Ruisseau is a rifacimento of Un Caprice.

Page 186. 1. Janisset.

Evidently the name of a well-known jeweler. Cf. Fossin at the end of Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée.

Page 189. 2. Corvée. Feudal term. Day's work which vassals owed their lords. Later, personal work in keeping the public roads in repair. Here means simply "a bore."

Page 190. 3. Valses de Strauss. Johann Strauss, born at Vienna, March 14, 1804, was a composer of dance-music of world-wide celebrity. He introduced the habit of giving names to waltzes. His sons Johann and Eduard are also well-known composers, the former having composed 400 waltzes and the latter 200 pieces of dance music. Page 191. 4. Comment dit-elle donc ? How does it go? Elle refers to valse.

Page 193. 5. J'ai défendu ma porte en bas. I have told the porter to say I am not at home.

Page 196. 6. Au coin du feu. The meaning here is equivalent to the German vertraulich or gemütlich.

Page 197. 7. Une perse et une puce. color of a flea, — brown.

Perse is bluish, puce the

8. Je ne fais qu'une apparition. Cf. À quoi rêvent les jeunes filles, sc. iv, "il faut leur apparaître," where apparaître means to make a sudden appearance.

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Page 203. 9. Rebonsoir. An unusual form in literature, but frequent in familiar intercourse. Rebonsoir, chère, en quelle langue est cela?' disait Sampson suffoqué." Quoted by Barine, Alfred de Musset, p. 148.

Page 204.

10. Queue. Here:

=

line of carriages.

Page 208.

Page 211.

11. Les larmes soulagent toujours. Cf. Ovid :

Est quaedam flere voluptas;

Expletur lacrymis egeriturque dolor.

12. Elle a les yeux battus, etc. She has blue rings about the eyes; jusqu'au menton is an emphatic expression = frightful. Cf. German bis an den Hals.

13. Invalides (Hôtel des). One of the chief public monuments of Paris. Begun by Louis XIV as an asylum for maimed and wounded soldiers. It contains at present the mausoleum of Napoleon and his remains as they were brought from St. Helena.

14. Bastille (Place de la). The name Bastille formerly meant a strong fortress; it is now commonly given to the structure originally

a castle for the defense of Paris, but which afterwards became famous as a prison. It was attacked by the mob, July 14, 1789, and destroyed the next day.

Page 212. 15. Groom. There are a number of similar English words in French, such as "jockey," "sport," etc.

Page 314. 16. Revue des Deux Mondes. Established in 1829 by Ségur-Dupeyron and Mauroy, but it ceased to appear at the end of the year, and its actual existence dates from its acquisition in 1831 by François Buloz, a masterful editor, under whose energetic management it soon achieved a world-wide reputation. The most distinguished names in French literature have been among its contributors, for whom it has been styled "the vestibule of the Academy." See Encyc. Brit. xviii, 540.

17. Madame Sand. George Sand, eudonym of Mme. Amandine Lucile Aurore Dudevant, born Dupin (1804-1876), the well-known French novelist and Musset's companion on his Italian trip. See Introduction.

Page 215. 18. This pretence of finding ambiguity in Chavigny's remarks is paralleled in Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée, "Vous vous embrouillez ; qu'est-ce qui est toujours vieux, et qu'est-ce qui est toujours jeune?" Cf. also On ne badine pas avec l'amour, p. 144. Qui était rouge de colère, ma nièce ou dame Pluche?"

Page 222.

19. Est-ce en bâtarde ou en coulée ? Bâtarde = inclined handwriting; the letter are heavy and made most easily with a stub-pen coulée running hand. Anglaise pur sang = genuine

English hand.

20. Poulet.

=

Love letter.

Page 227. 21. La bénédiction ne le métamorphose pas. Cf. On ne badine pas avec l'amour, ii, 5. Si le curé de votre paroisse soufflait sur vous, et me disait que vous m'aimerez toute votre vie, aurais-je raison de le croire?" The Count here seems to confirm Camille's doubts as to the efficacy of the marriage sacrament.