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13.31. Huon de Bordeaux : a thirteenth-century epic poem ; Huon, having offended Charlemagne, is compelled to perform perilous tasks in which he succeeds by the help of Oberon, king of the fairies.
13.32. Gaston Paris : a great French philologist and editor of old French texts, who died in 1903.
Les Trois Aveugles de Compiègne
15.1. Compiègne : a town of what is now the dept. of Oise, on the river of that name ; it was there that Joan of Arc was captured in 1430.
15.3. Senlis : also in the dept. of Oise ; the town contains many buildings of antiquarian interest.
15.5. Clerc : clerk in holy orders.
15.10. Qui ne voient goutte : this expression is the only one still in use, in which is still to be found the old negative form ne… goutte, lit.‘not a drop.’ Similarly, ne… pas, ne… point, ne… mie originally meant ‘not a step’, ‘not a point’, ‘not a crumb.’
15.16. Un écu : a gold or silver coin, so called because it bore the écu, i.e. the escutcheon or arms of France.
16.25. Soissons : a town now in the dept. of Aisne, and on the river of that name. It played a prominent part in French history, and was already an important place when Cæsar invaded Gaul.
Auxerre [ɔseːr] : chief town of the dept. of Yonne, and on the river of that name ; its wines are well known.
18.6. Dix sous : the sou has always been a small copper coin, the twentieth part of the silver livre (now franc) ; its purchasing power was, of course, much greater in the Middle Ages than to-day, and it was divided into either twelve or fifteen deniers. The écu which the beggars had received was probably a silver écu equal to three livres or sixty sous, the purchasing power of which may be estimated from the fact that the whole entertainment of the three men amounted only to ten sous !
C’était là le moment : c’est là, before a noun, is equivalent to, and replaces, cela est.
18.24. Riait… à se pâmer : lit.‘was laughing to the point of swooning’, i.e.‘was dying of laughter’. Notice this use of à, and compare : elle était laide à faire peur ; il fait un vent à tout casser ; pleurer à cœur fendre, etc.
19.1. Ces bonnes gens : give the rule for this use of the feminine adjective.
19.8. Beau sire : beau is thus used in old French, and repeatedly in this text, as a mere word of courtesy, which may be left untranslated.
