NOTES
Page 75. — I. May. This poem has been translated by
Andrew Lang in his Ballads and Lyrics of Old France. For the motif, cf. page 31.
Page 77. — I. tabourins, drums.
2. ectique = étique ; cf. English ’hectic.’
Page 78. — I. poise = pèse, from peser.
The dames des Roches, the mother Madeleine des Roches and her daughter Catherine, were two intellectual ladies of Poitiers. They may almost be said to have had a sort of literary salon, frequented by clever men who admired them. They both died of the plague on the same day in 1587. This little poem, an example of distaff literature (cf. Theocritus, Idyll XXVIII) is a pretty trifle. It is usually attributed to the daughter.
Theodore Agrippa d’Aubigné (1552-1630) was a Huguenot warrior-poet and a vigorous prose writer as well. His early lyrics are under the inspiration of the Pleiade. His fame rests, however, rather on the Tragiques, a passionate religious and satirical epic on the contemporary wars of religion. Its violent rhetoric contains many striking passages. To d’Aubigné, Catherine de’ Medici is largely responsible for the woes of France. His chief prose works are an autobiography, an Histoire universelle (of the religious wars) and the satirical Aventures du baron de Fæneste. The latest biographer of Agrippa d’Aubigné is S. Rocheblave (two works, 1910 and 1912). The standard edition of his works is by Réaume, de Caussade and Legouez (6 vols., 1873-1892), except the Histoire universelle, edited for the Société de l’histoire de France by A. de Ruble, 9 vols., 1886-1897.
Page 80. — I. abayé = mis aux abois. 2, ma jeunesse. Cf. Alfred de Musset :
Ce livre est toute ma jeunesse ;
Je l’ai fait sans presque y songer.
Il y paraît, je le confesse,
Et j’aurais pu le corriger.
