Poésies choisies de André Chénier
V. La République des Lettres.
L. 34. amer, an obvious misprint for amère. Besides, with amer the line is deficient by one foot.
L. 44. ils s'écrivent des fleurs. This is as happy as it is bold. As much may be said of: 'Lit en bouquet la lettre...,' l. 50. All this fragment is gracefully ingenious.
L. 46. sa durée. The duration of the 'flame,' of course.
V. LA RÉPUBLIQUE DES LETTRES.
L. 1. Il n'est que de = le mieux est de... 'Il n'est que de jouer d'adresse en ce monde,' Molière, Mal. Imag., interm, l. sc. vi. être roi, king over oneself... as is explained at l. 4. Cf. Horace, Sat. 1. iii. 132, and Epist. I. i. 106.
L. 5. Mon Louvre. Racan, Stances: 'Roy de passions,... Sa cabane est son Louvre...'
L. 15. engagé, having engaged in (as Thackeray writes: 'Mr. B.,... engaging in a labyrinth of stables,' Newcomes, i. 127), i.e. having penetrated into.
POÉSIES DIVERSES.
I. HYMNE A LA JUSTICE.
L. 5. Virgil, Georg. ii. 150 ff.
L. 14. les hauts Pyrénées, generally feminine, e.g. 'Pyrénées Orientales.' But Chénier thinks of them as 'les Monts Pyrénées.'
L. 18. Respire, breathes (forth).
L. 19. couvrant, goes with la Provence.
L. 36. Incertaine. Because it shifts its channel.
L. 44. Que visite Phoebus le soir ou le matin. A poetic translation of Orient and Occident.
L. 47. l'une et l'autre Téthys. Catullus, 'Uterque Neptunus,' xxxi. 3. Cf. notes to Nérée, p. 90, l. 95, and Cybèle, p. 91, l. 133.
L. 50. Trudaine. The grandfather of Chénier's friend, who was Director of Public Works under Louis XV, and laid out the fine roads of France.
L. 54. impie. Not, of course, irreligious, but sacrilegious, as invading the (to a Frenchman) sacred territory of France—in the course of what Charles Lamb ironically calls 'the long, steady, deep-rooted, rational antipathies of the great French and English nations.'—Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist. See another use of impie, p. 112, l. 107.
L. 83. Le sel. An allusion to the gabelle or salt-tax imposed before the Revolution. This was written before 1789.
L. 85. Mille brigands, the partisans or men who constituted partis or societies for the levy of certain taxes.
L. 97. Malesherbes, Turgot. These Ministers retired in 1776, but Malesherbes resumed office, only for a few months, in 1787.
L. 105. armer d'injustes plaintes. Cf. note to p. 4, l. 100.
Ll. 107. impie. Offending honour, considered as a religion. Cf. p. 110, l. 54.