Chapter VI: Act I: Scene 5

[Footnote 38: #méchant enfant#, _you naughty boy_. Affectionately reproachful.]

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[Footnote 39: #il#. She uses the third person singular, as one might in affectionately reproving a child.]

[Footnote 40: #il s'agit de vos jours#, _your life is at stake_.]

[Footnote 41: #Consulat# and #Empire#, governments of France from 1799 to 1804, and from 1804 to 1814, and for some months in 1815.]

[Footnote 42: #n'en pensent mais#, equivalent to _n'en peuvent mais, can't help it_, or, _have nothing to do with it_. This use of _mais_ (Latin _magis_) is colloquial.]

[Footnote 43: #en verve#, _on his mettle_.]

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[Footnote 44: #crieurs des rues#, _newsmongers_, men corresponding somewhat to our newsboys.]

[Footnote 45: #soeur#. Cp. p.11, line 21.]

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[Footnote 46: #A la bonne heure!# _Well done_, here, but with very varied shades of meaning, that must be caught always from the context.]

[Footnote 47: The campaign of 1812-1813 is meant. Its chief events were the burning of Moscow (October, 1812), Napoleon's very disastrous retreat thence, and the defeat of the French at Leipzig in October, 1813.]

[Footnote 48: See p. 2, note 1.]

[Footnote 49: #voiture de place#, _public cab_.]

[Footnote 50: #Lambert#. Curiously enough, the three Lamberts known to the history of this time were all _émigrés_, and one of them a Russian general during the invasion of France. The name is therefore somewhat unfortunately chosen.]

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[Footnote 51: #décoration#, i.e., the Cross of the Legion of Honor, founded by Napoleon I., and since always regarded as the highest of such distinctions in France. The cross is not usually worn, but in its place a bit of red ribbon in the buttonhole.]

[Footnote 52: #n'y serais plus#, i.e., should have been already shot.]

ACT I. SCENE 6.

[Footnote 53: #bien#, _properly dressed_, "all right." Cp. p. 9, note 2.]

[Footnote 54: #cravate#, _neck-band_. Part of her riding-habit.]

ACT I. SCENE 7.

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[Footnote 55: #il le croit#, _he really thinks so_, while in fact he would be frightened.]

[Footnote 56: #Ah! çà#, _Come now_. Often the phrase indicates impatience or surprise. For instance, p.45, line 8.]

[Footnote 57: #Bucéphale#, _Bucephalus_, famous horse of Alexander the Great.]

ACT I. SCENE 9.

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[Footnote 58: #par état#, _by my profession_ as _maître des requêtes_.]

[Footnote 59: #tiens de#, _take after_, or _inherit from_.]

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[Footnote 60: #pointe#, like #fougueux# and #enfourcher# below, is in this sense (_dawns, rises_) rhetorical and poetic.]

[Footnote 61: #emporté#, _carried the day_.]

[Footnote 62: #provoquer#, i.e., to a duel such as became almost epidemic in France in the years that followed Waterloo (1815).]

ACT I. SCENE 10.

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[Footnote 63: #J'aime autant#, _I'd just as lief_. Contrast this timidity with the assumed boldness of the close.]