Chapter IV: Act I: Scene 1

[Footnote 3: #madame#. French and German usage requires that a title of courtesy be prefixed to designations of adult relatives of the person addressed, as, e.g., _madame votre mère, monsieur votre frère, mademoiselle votre soeur_; but Charles, as valet, should have said, _madame la comtesse_ alone. The reader should note that from the first his speeches show a refinement which to Léonie seems a surprising presumption. The disguised noble is too courteous to act a menial part successfully.]

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[Footnote 4: The letter begins with allusion to the _troubles at Lyons_, in the environs of which the action is placed. This is the chief city on the Rhône, and was in 1817 the centre of a region seething with political intrigue against the recently restored Bourbon monarchy. That summer a rising had been sternly suppressed, and twenty-eight persons executed by General Canuel, who was recalled in the autumn (cp. p.14, line 24, and p.12, line 14); but there is no accuracy in details. The last lines of the letter allude to the dissatisfaction of the royalists, who had passed their youth in exile, with the studious moderation and cautious prudence of the new king, who gradually fell under the influence of clerical reactionaries, while many nobles would have preferred a return to the gallant _fêtes_ of the _ancien régime_.]

[Footnote 5: #Ah bien oui!# _Indeed I would_, but nowadays one has no time, etc.]

[Footnote 6: #née Kermadio#, _born a Kermadio_, and so, as this name implies to a French ear, a Breton noble, and therefore almost certainly an extreme royalist, and so least likely to be suspected of sheltering a Bonapartist conspirator.]

[Footnote 7: #timbrée#, _post-marked_.--#pleine Vendée#, _in the heart of Vendée_, in Poitou, noted for the fierce civil war between the French Republic and the local royalists (March-December, 1793), and the scene of frequent royalist outbreaks for many years after.]

[Footnote 8: #maître des requêtes#, _referendary_, a minor officer of the Council of State.]

[Footnote 9: #avec humeur#, _out of temper, irritated_.]

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[Footnote 10: #Talleyrand# (1754-1838), a politician whose skill in unprincipled intrigue made him a power under every form of government, from the States-General that inaugurated the First Revolution until his death. Many epigrams like this testify to his cynicism, which anticipated remarkably the modern _blague_, as we find it, for instance, in "Le Gendre de monsieur Poirier."]

ACT I. SCENE 2

[Footnote 11: See preceding note and, for historical details, any biographical dictionary.]

[Footnote 12: The use of the imperfect subjunctive is far more restricted in French conversation than our school grammars would imply. Persons of little education hardly use it at all, and persons of refined culture avoid its ill-sounding forms; while even such classical authors as Voltaire sometimes substitute the present for it. Cp. my note to "Le Gendre de monsieur Poirier," p.29, note 2.]