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6.--7. au travers de. _Au travers_ should always be
followed by _de_, _a travers_ should never be followed by _de_; the
meaning is the same in each case.

18. que je l'entendis prononcer. Although the second verb has an
object, the object of entendre need not be in the indirect form; with
_faire_ in this construction the object of _faire_ must be Indirect.

7.--1. je n'ai presque plus. Notice that _presque_ is
placed between _plus_ (_pas, rien_, etc.) and the verb.

26. le general C * * * va vous faire soutenir. _Vous_ is the
object of soutenir, but in this construction the pronoun object of the
second verb is regularly placed in front of _faire_. General Compans was
in command of two regiments at the assault of the Redoubt, he was one of
Napoleon's distinguished generals; he was made a prisoner at Waterloo
and afterwards became a peer when the Bourbons were restored
(1767-1845).

LE COUP DE PISTOLET

8.--19. je ne sais quel. Note the omission of _pas_ in
this phrase which stands for _quelque_; note also the omission of _pas_
after _savait_ in the next sentence (see also note to p. 201, 1.
13).

9.--18. personne... n'eut fait. The imperfect and the
pluperfect subjunctive sometimes occur in conditional sentences contrary
to fact, but only in literary style.

22. lui demandait-on s'il s'etait battu, il repondait... que oui.
_Si_ is avoided in the first clause by means of inversion, otherwise two
successive clauses introduced by _si_ would occur; _que_ is used before
_oui_ because _oui_ substitutes a clause (_il s'etait battu_); notice
that no elision occurs before _oui_.

31. tous. When _tous_ is used without a following noun, _s_ is
Pronounced.

12.--14. celui-la. The meaning here is "sldquo;still another" or
"aldquo;a third."

25. precipitamment. This is not an exception to the rule that
_-ment_ is added to the feminine form of the adjective to form the
adverb; adjectives having only two terminations in Latin, that is, those
that had the same form for the masculine and feminine (_grandis_, etc.)
had the same form for both the masculine and feminine in Old French;
_precipitant_ is both masculine and feminine in Old French and becomes
with the addition of _-ment precipitamment_ by assimilation (see also
note to p.87, l. 17).

13.--4. il la fit partager a toute la compagnie.
_Compagnie_ is the direct object of _fit_.

14.--1. R... Merimee uses both this form of abbreviation
and the form which occurs on p. 1, l .9 (cf. also p. 17, l. 26).
16.--7. de n'avoir pas. _Pas_ is usually placed before the
infinitive.

18.--12. depit... des pires. Merimee tries to reproduce a
Russian pun by means of a play on these words. He gives the following
note: "Il y a, dans le russe un jeu de mots impossible a traduire:
sdelatsa pianitseiou _s'goria_, t. c. samym _gorkim_ pia-nitseiou."

20.--24. il y a bien quatre ans que je n'ai touche. Note
that while _pas_ is omitted in this phrase it is used below (p. 21, l.
27) in _voila cinq ans que je n'en ai pas eu_; compare also: _il y a
cinq ans que je me mariai_ (p. 22, l. 18), where there is no negative
idea.

21.--10. prendre son verre d'eau-de-vie avant la soupe.
Merimee gives the following note: "C'est l'usage en Russie de prendre de
l'eau-de-vie un peu avant le diner."

22.--6. serait-ce vous. The conditional here expresses
uncertainty; it should be rendered in English by "cldquo;could" not by "wldquo;would."

24.--14. reviens-nous. Note the use of the indirect object
(instead of _a nous_) with a verb of motion.

GUY DE MAUPASSANT

Miromesnil (Seine-Superieure), 1850-Paris, 1893

De Maupassant was a godson and disciple of Flaubert, thus his name is
closely connected with the Naturalistic School, which goes back to
_Madame Bovary_, Flaubert's masterpiece. The leading writers of this
school are: Flaubert, the de Goncourt brothers, Daudet (only in portions
of his work), Zola and Maupassant. Maupassant is known as a writer of
short stories and as a novelist. His work is at times pessimistic and
morbid, in this respect he represents the worst side of the Naturalists;
he had, however, a remarkable power of observation and the "sldquo;saving gift
of irony," and was a master of style, the chief characteristics of which
are strength and simplicity. In the artistic composition of the short
story he is probably unsurpassed. Important works: _Des Vers_ (1880),
_Une Vie_ (1883), _Bel Ami_ (1885), _Mont Oriol_ (1881), _Pierre et
Jean_ (1888), _Fort comme la Mort_ (1889), and especially several
collections of _Contes_.

Edition: Havard, 9 vols.; Ollendorff, 8 vols.

LA MAIN

27.--20. qu'entourent partout de hautes montagnes. Note
the inversion in the relative clause.

28. ce terrible prejuge corse. Compare Merimee's _Colomba_.

28.--10. on pretendit que c'etait. _Pretendre_, "tldquo;to
maintain," has the construction of a verb of saying, _pretendre_, "tldquo;to
require" or "tldquo;to insist on," takes the subjunctive.

29.--6. qui fumait. Note the relative clause where in
English the participle would be used.

11. cette pays, cette rivage. Illustrations of the frequent
mistakes in gender made by the English.

17. j'ave ...bocoup. Illustrations of the errors made by the
English in pronouncing French vowels; _avais_ is pronounced _ave_ and
_eau_ in _beaucoup_ should not be drawled; this latter remark applies
generally to French vowels. No (l. 24) represents the fa
to nasalize; c'ete (for _c'etait_, l. 24) illustrates the error
mentioned in regard to _avais_; une drap japonaise (p. 3
2), wrong gender; ma (p. 30, l. 17) for _mon_; c'ete, vene,
ave (11. 17, 18), illustrate mistakes already mentioned; arrache
la peau, that is, _la peau avait ete arrachee_; une caillou
coupante, wrong gender; aoh, represents the English tendency
to diphthongize simple vowels; tres bonne pour moi, cette =
_c'est une tres bonne chose pour moi_; je ete (l. 30) for
_j'etais_ or _j'ai ete_.

UNE VENDETTA

37.--13. revenir, retourner. These words are not
synonymous.

39.--5. pour la lui entrer dedans. _Entrer_ is here
transitive; it is used intransitively in the preceding paragraph.

26. des qu'elle apercevait. The imperfect is used to express the
repetition of the action; this and the following paragraphs offer good
material for a study of the use of tenses.

L'AVENTURE DE WALTER SCHNAFFS

41.--1. l'annee d'invasion. The reference is to the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. This war was largely brought on
through The instrumentality of Bismarck, who went so far as to falsify
French telegrams; it resulted in the defeat of France and the loss of
the Alsace-Lorraine territory. The French Emperor, Napoleon III, was
overthrown and the present Republic was established.

9. il aimait se lever tard. _Aimer_, except in poetry or unless
used colloquially as in this instance, is usually followed by
the infinitive with a; sometimes it is followed by the simple
infinitive,. in this case it is usually in the conditional or it is
accompanied by certain adverbs (_mieux, autant, bien, assez_, etc.); it
may even be followed by the infinitive with _de_ when the infinitive
gives the cause (_je vous aime d'avoir fait cela_).

46.--21. des petites betes. In familiar style, or when the
words form really only one idea, partition is expressed by _de_ and the
article even when an adjective precedes the noun.

47.--16. on apercut l'ennemi. Apercevoir refers especially
to the sense of sight, _s'apercevoir de_ to a mental process (_il
s'apercut de son erreur_).

48.--4. cesserent. Note the plural verb though the
singular subjects are not connected by _et_.

17. mangeaille, _-aille_ is a derogatory suffix; the force of the
various French suffixes, to which little or no attention is paid in the
ordinary French grammars, may be seen in the _Dictionnaire general_,
vol. l, pp. 43 ff. and pp. 48 ff.; also in Ayer, _Grammaire comparee de
la langue francaise_ (4th edition), pp. 300 ff.

49.--25. mon colonel. The possessive pronoun is used by
French soldiers in addressing superior officers.

TOMBOUCTOU

63. -12. bonjou. The letter _r_ is as difficult for Tombouctou as
it is for the negroes in the Southern States. Tombouctou's language is
like the Pidgin-English used in the Orient, he pays no attention
to syntax, but puts his verbs in the first conjugation and in the>
infinitive, that is, he knows only one form of the verb (_aime, cherche;
reconne_, etc.); the mistakes will be easily seen (Bezi, p. 53,
l. 18, is for _Bezieres_; Empeeu, p. 54, l. 7, is for _Empereur_;
gives and capules, p. 57, l. 11, are for _grives_ and
_crapules_; povisions, p. 58, l. 3, for _provisions_, etc.);
gade, pesonne = _garder, personne_ (p. 60, l. 5); pati, p.
60, l. 21, is for _parti_, one verb which he does not put in the
first conjugation; moi fait mange colonel, that is, he was the
colonel's cook; Algeie, for _Algerie_.

EN MER

64.--13. faut couper. Popular omission of the subject
pronoun.

19. coupe pas. An example of the popular omission of _ne_.--
je vas, for _je vais_; the first person is formed on analogy with
the second and third (_vas, va_).

66.--13. iau. Dialectic for _eau_.

19. drait. Dialectic (Norman) for _droit_; this peculiarity may
be seen in Canadian French, which is partly Norman in origin; the Latin
_i_ and _e_ became in Old French _ei_, this sound developed in Modern
French into _oi_, but the Norman dialect retained the Old French sound
(represented here by _ai_).

23. aigue. Note the diaeresis, which indicates that _u_ is
pronounced in this word.

67.--3. a c't'-heure. For _a cette heure_, a popular
phrase for _maintenant_; this also illustrates the popular tendency to
slur over syllables and to omit completely the pronunciation of mute e.

11. j'pourrions t'y point. For _ne pourrais-je point?_ The
uneducated often use the first person plural with _je; t'y_ (sometimes
written _ti_ and _il_) represents the interrogative particle also used
by the uneducated, it arose by analogy with the sound of the final
syllable in such phrases as _est-il?, sont-ils?_

68.--17. il etait regardant a son bien. Compare the
English construction: "hldquo;he was looking after his property"; this use of
the French present participle is incorrect.

LES PRISONNIERS

70.--21. tous, boulangers, epiciers, etc. The French are
fond of ridiculing these classes of tradespeople, particularly the
_epiciers_, the _notaires_ and the _pharmaciens_; such soldiers would be
far from the martial type.

72.--5. sept~huit. For _sept ou huit_; v'la, for
_voila_, illustrates the popular tendency to slur over syllables.

13. oufrez. For _ouvrez_; the Germans in speaking a foreign
language confuse voiced and unvoiced consonants, that is, b, d, g, j,
v, become p, t, c, ch, f, and vice versa; these errors will be easily
detected (che = _j'ai_; manche = _mange_, etc.).

73.--6. Un brave homme. Compare _un homme brave_;
adjectives having secondary meanings precede their nouns when they have
the figurative meaning and follow when the literal meaning occurs.

7. fous nous ferez a mancher. That is, _vous nous ferez manger_
or _vous nous donnerez a manger_.

74.--6. c'est les loups. Popular for _ce sont les loups_.
12. che. For _je_.

77.--11. entre eux. Note that there is no elision with
_entre_ except in compound verbs (_entr'ouvrir_, etc.).

32. que qui font. _For qu'est-ce qu'ils font_ (_il_ and _ils_ are
often pronounced _i_ even by the well educated).

78.--14. pi is for _puis_, t'as, for _tu as_; the
other errors have already been noted.

80.--25. Potdevin. Note de Maupassant's choice of names
(_cf. Maloison_, etc.).

83.--21. medaille militaire. See note to p. 195, l. 24.

LE BAPTEME

86.--3. les femmes, c'est jamais pret. A further example
of the popular omission of _ne_ and of the use of a singular verb
instead of the agreement of the verb with the real subject.

5. qui avait appele le premier. _Le premier_ is in apposition to
_qui_.

7. all' viendront point. _All'_ represents the vulgar
pronunciation of _elles_ with the tendency to omit completely the mute
_e_; the omission of _ne_ has already been noted.

27. sage-femme. Compare _femme sage_, and notice the importance
of the correct position of the adjective.

86.--29. le sel symbolique. Used in the Catholic
christening ceremony.

87.--10. m'sieu. A further example of the slurring over of
syllables by the uneducated (qu' for _que_, m' for _me_,
vot' for _votre_, Etc.).

12. dans les estomacs. That is, _dans l'estomac_, the plural may
be by analogy with les entrailles.

17. grand'meres. Etymologically the apostrophe is an error. The
adjective _grand_ had no distinct feminine form in Latin (_grandem_)
nor in Old French (_grant_), consequently no _e_ has been omitted;
the feminine form of Modern French (_grande_) is due to analogy with
feminine adjectives where _e_ represents a Latin _a_ (_bonne_, from
_bona_, etc.), the form _grand'_ is merely a preservation of the Old
French form; _cf. grand'rue_, main street, _grand merci_, I thank you
kindly (where the apostrophe is not written), also such adverbs as
_prudemment, precipitamment_, etc. (see also note to p. 12, l. 25).

TOINE

90.--2. Toine-ma-Fine. A further illustration of de
Maupassant's choice of proper names. 24. be, pe. _Be_ is for
_boire_, _pe_ for _Pere_, illustrating the dialectic omission of _r_ and
the Norman pronunciation of _oi_ (see note to p. 66, l. 19).

91.--7. arrondissement. See note to p. 176, l. 15. 32.
qu'al'est. For _parce qu'elle est_ (see note to p. 85, l. 7).

92.--1. i for _il_ (see note to p. 77, l. 32).

29. c'qu'arrivera. For _ce qui arrivera_, notice the incorrect
use of _que_ as subject (no elision would occur with _qui_).

93.--4. la me. The article may be used in familiar or
disrespectful address (for _la mere_).

94.--23. te. For _toi_ (see note to p. 66, l. 19); compare
also me for moi (l. 25); c'est-il, incorrect for _est-ce que_
(see also note top. 67, l. 11).

95.--1. pu. For _plus_.

6. guetez. For _guettez_; in the same sentence both y and
i represent _il_ (see note to p. 77, l. 32).

96.--16. li. For _lui_.

23. a. For _elle_ (see note to p. 85, l. 7).

28. pourque. For _pourquoi_; pisque (l. 29) for _puisque_.

91.--6. que que tu veux. For _qu'est-ce que tu veux_.

32. quasiment t'une lourdeur. _t'_ here shows that a liaison has
been made. The question of liaison is difficult for a foreigner, some
book on pronunciation (such as Geddes, _French Pronunciation_, Oxford
Press) should be consulted.

98.--1. on entendit entrer. Notice that the indefinite
subject of the infinitive is omitted.

18. un lapin qui bat du tambour. An allusion to the drumming of
rabbits.

23. il dut couver, il dut renoncer. The past definite of certain
verbs expresses accomplishment, "hldquo;he had to do it and he did it";
_devait_ would not express the accomplishment of the action.

100.--31. que. For _quel_.

101.--3. combien qu'i en a. For _combien qu'il y en a_,
that is, _combien y a-t-il_?

5. cette famille nouvelle. When _nouveau_ is placed after the
noun, it means "rldquo;recently appeared," not "oldquo;other"; _nouveau_ should also
be distinguished from _neuf_, which means "uldquo;unused" and follows its noun.

11. son enveloppe. The use of _son_ before a feminine noun
beginning with a vowel arose by analogy with _bon: bon ami, bonne amie_,
therefore _son ami, son amie_.

LE PERE MILON

103.--4. la guerre de 1870. See note to p. 41, l. 1.

105.--14. tretous. A dialectic survival of an Old French
form (in Old French _trestot, trestout_, etc., are at times used for
_tout_, etc.; the word is derived from _tres_ and _tout_).

28. qu'il etait. The uneducated are fond of introducing que in
phrases where it is unnecessary. Other dialectic peculiarities in this
paragraph which have not been noted are: pu de chinquante for
_plus de cinquante_, the Picard dialect resembles the Italian in the
pronunciation of the soft _c_, on the other hand the French _ch_ is
pronounced in the Picard dialect as hard _c (k)_, _vache_ becoming
vaque; itou is another instance of a dialectic survival of
an Old French word (in Old French _itel_, "sldquo;such, similarly, also,"
occurred, formed on analogy with _icel=celui; itel_ and _tel, icel_ and
_cel_ were used without difference of meaning, _i_ is a relic of the
Latin _ecce_ originally added to the word for the sake of emphasis);
li is for _lui_. The following errors in syntax occur in this
passage: The first sentence should read, _Je revenais un soir, alors
qu'il etait peut-etre dix heures, le lendemain apres que vous etiez
venus_ (or _arrives_) _ici_. After the phrase, _Je me dis_, read,
_Autant de fois qu'ils me prendront vingt ecus, autant de fois je leur
revaudrai ca. De sorte_ or a similar phrase should be supplied before
_qu'il n'entendit_, also before _qu'il n'a pas seulement dit_.

109.--2. pu, pus. Both stand for plus, the spelling of the
latter form represents the frequent pronunciation of _s_ in plus when it
stands before a pause.

8. l'Empereur premier. For Napoleon Premier.

16. ou que. _Que_ is superfluous; after chez me (l. 17),
insert _de sorte_ or _de telle facon_.

27. le vieux. See note to p. 93, l. 4.

32. toute coupee. In this construction _tout_ does not take the
feminine form if the following adjective begins with a vowel (tout
ancienne, etc.).

ALPHONSE DAUDET

Nimes, 1840--Paris, 1897

Daudet has given the impressions and the experiences of his early life
in the two volumes with which he established his reputation: _Le Petit
Chose_ and _Lettres de Mon Moulin_; in the former he describes the
struggles of his boyhood, and in the latter the customs and legends
of his native Provence. The books which he published later are of a
different character, marked by the influence of the Naturalistic School,
but unlike the other members of this school, he was endowed with a
spontaneous, sympathetic nature, which enabled him to feel what he
described. Thus while de Maupassant describes with the greatest art
what he observes, Daudet sympathetically describes what he observes and
feels. He had too much originality ever to come completely under the
influence of the Naturalists. His short stories usually deal with some
incident of the Franco-Prussian War (_Le Siege de Berlin, La Derniere
Classe, La Vision du Juge de Colmar_, etc.) or with life in the Midi
(_Lettres de Mon Moulin_). _Le Cure de Cucugnan_ and _Le Sous-Prefet aux
Champs_ are taken from _Lettres de Mon Moulin_ (1869), the remaining
three stories of the collection are taken from _Contes du Lundi_ (1873).
His best novels are given in the following list; in these he has often
been compared with Dickens and Thackeray.

Important works (besides the collections of short stories mentioned):
_Les Amoureuses_ (verse, 1858), _Le Petit Chose_ (1868), _Aventures
Prodigieuses de Tartarin de Tarascon_ (1872), _L'Arlesienne_ (drama,
1872), _Fromont Jeune et Risler Aine_ (1874), _Jack_ (1876), _Le
Nabab_ (1877), _Les Rois en Exil_ (1879), _Numa Roumestan_ (1881),
_L'Evangeliste_ (1883), _Sapho_ (1884), _Tartarin sur les Alpes_ (1885),
_La Defense de Tarascon_ (1887), _L'Immortel_ (1888), _Port Tarascon_
(1890).

Edition: Flammarion, 13 vols. (illustrated); Charpentier, Dentu, Hetzel
and Lemerre have each published portions of his work.

LE CURE DE CUCUGNAN

This story is an almost literal translation of _Lou Curat de Cucugnan_,
a Provencal story by Roumanille, published by him under the pseudonym of
Lou Cascarelet in the _Armana prouvencau_ (Provencal Almanac) in 1867
(Daudet was in Provence during this year). This Almanac was first
published in the year 1855, a little after the foundation of the
_Felibrige_ (May 21, 1854). _The Felibrige_ was a brotherhood of modern
Provencal poets, its purpose was to revive Provencal as a literary
language; the word _Felibrige_ is of unknown origin, it comes from an
obscure word found by Mistral in a Provencal text; the members of the
brotherhood, which later became a great literary society, were called
_felibres_; the brotherhood was originated by Roumanille, who was
followed by a more celebrated poet, Mistral, and five other poets,
Aubanel, Brunet, Camille Raybaud, Mathieu and Felix Gras. In regard to
the _Armana prouvencau_, the following quotation from an article by
Mistral in _Les Annales politiques et litteraires_, May 13, 1906, will
give an idea of the type of this Almanac: "Et sans parler ici des
innombrables poesies qui s'y sont publiees, sans parler de ses
Chroniques, ou est continue, peut-on dire, l'histoire du Felibrige,
la quantite de contes, de legendes, de sornettes, de faceties et de
gaudrioles, tous recueillis dans le terroir, qui s'y sont ramasses, font
de cette entreprise une collection unique. Toute la tradition, toute la
raillerie, tout l'esprit de notre race se trouvent serres la-dedans."
The dialects of France fall into two great classes: the _Langue d'oil_,
in the north, and the _Langue d'oc_, in the south (_oil_ is the old>
northern form for _oui, oc_ the southern form). The difference really
dates from Roman colonization, which occurred on the Mediterranean some
seventy-five years before Caesar conquered northern Gaul (59--5l B.C.).
Provencal is one of the principal dialects of the southern group; during
the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries (prior to the Albigensian
crusade) it was, at least in lyric poetry, the most important literary
language of France. Because of political and literary superiority, the
language of Paris, or of the Ile-de-France, became the general literary
language of France. The dialects, however, still live on, and Provencal
has, as described above, been somewhat revived as a literary language
by the efforts of Mistral and the other poets of the _Felibrige_. Many
scholars regard the characteristics of the territory embraced by the
modern departments of Loire, Rhone, Isere, Ain, Savoie, the old province
of Franche-Comte and a part of Switzerland as sufficient to form a third
group of dialects known as _Franco-Provencal_. The dividing line between
the _Langue d'oc_ and the _Langue d'oil_ passes approximately from the
mouth of the Gironde to the Alps by way of Limoges, Clermont-Ferrand and
Grenoble.

111.--1. a la Chandeleur. The article in such
constructions is usually explained as equal to _la fete de_; it should
be noticed, however, that in Old French a substantive frequently
occurred in the oblique without a preceding _de_, the construction being
equal to the Latin genitive, no preposition having been used (the phrase
is thus literally: "oldquo;on that of Candlemas").

2. en Avignon. _En_ is not now used with cities except in
ironical imitation of Provencal style (see Brunot, _Precis de grammaire
historique de la langue francaise_, sec. 496, 2) or as a poetic and
archaic survival of the usage of the seventeenth century,--un joyeux
petit livre. The _Armana prouvencau_.

112.--3. quel bon vent. The verb is to be supplied (_quel
bon vent vous amene?_).

4. le grand livre et la clef. Cf. Matthew xvi, 19 and Revelation
xx, 12.

11. disons-nous. Here = _vous dites_.

27. faites que je puisse. _Faire_ in the imperative is followed
by the subjunctive, elsewhere by the indicative (_c'est ce qui fait que
cela va mal_), but notice that _faites attention_ takes the indicative
(_faites attention qu'il est la_).

114.--19. je n'ai pas entendu chanter le coq. See Matthew
xvi, 34 ff.

116.--9. en l'air. _En_ is never used before _les_; it is
rarely used before the singular definite article, when it is so used the
article is usually elided. In those cases where _en_ is not used, _dans_
takes its place; _en_ was more frequently used in former times, it is
now largely limited to fixed phrases. The following distinctions should
also be observed: _je ferai cet ouvrage en deux jours_ (two days will be
required), _je ferai cet ouvrage dans deux jours_ (after two days have
elapsed).

117.--7. rang par rang... quand on danse. As in the dance
called the _farandole_, where a number of people join bands and dance in
a long line.

16. le meunier. The French have always ridiculed the millers; cf.
the proverb: _il n'y a rien de plus hardi que la chemise d'un meunier,
parce qu'elle prend, tous les matins, un fripon au collier_; also, _il
s'est fait d'eveque meunier_, said when one has fallen from a good
position to a poorer one.

118.--4. le. This pronoun does not refer to _histoire_,
but to all that has been told. This paragraph has not been added by
Daudet, but occurs in the Provencal version.

LE SOUS-PREFET AUX CHAMPS

121.--26. de plus belle. See note to p. 4, l. 7.

LE PAPE EST MORT

123.--1. une grande ville de province. Daudet was born at
Nimes, his father was a wealthy manufacturer of silk handkerchiefs, the
father lost his money and moved to Lyons when Alphonse was nine years
old, it was here that the boy went to school and it is this city that is
described in the story.

2. tres-encombree. The hyphen is now omitted after _tres_.

125.--32. j'avais beau revenir. Littre explains this idiom
as follows: "_Avoir beau_, c'est toujours avoir beau champ, beau
temps, belle occasion; _avoir beau faire_, c'est proprement avoir tout
favorable pour faire. Voila le sens ancien et naturel. Par une ironie
facile a comprendre, _avoir beau_ a pris le sens d'avoir le champ libre,
de pouvoir faire ce qu'on voudra, et, par suite, de se perdre en vains
efforts."

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