en,
Bourguignon et Francois...je remenrai ici, a Narbonois." C'est
ce qu'a bien compris Victor Hugo, qui a si fidelement traduit et
surpasse encore les beautes du texte original.'

Hugo's poem, however, is not based directly on the _Chanson_, but on
two prose adaptations written by Achille Jubinal, and published
respectively in the _Musee des Familles_ (1843) and the _Journal du
Dimanche _(1846). Yet these stories did little more than furnish the
framework for the poem, by far the greater part of which is the
original work of Hugo.

_a la barbe fleurie_, white-bearded. Expression taken from the
_Chanson_. In mediaeval poetry Charlemagne is always described as an
old man.

_Roncevaux_, which we call by the Spanish name Roncesvalles, is the
valley in the Pyrenees where Charlemagne's rearguard was attacked and
cut to pieces by the Moors during his retreat from Spain.

_Ganelon_, the knight through whose treachery the defeat of
Charlemagne at Roncesvalles was brought about.

_les douze pairs_. The twelve Paladins of tradition, who formed
Charlemagne's Round Table.

L. 6-10. These words are taken almost verbatim from Jubinal's
adaptation of the story in the _Musee des Familles_. Jubinal's words
are:

'L'etcheco-sauna (le laboureur des montagnes) est rentre chez lui
avec son chien; il a embrasse sa femme et ses enfants. Il a nettoye
ses fleches ainsi que sa corne de boeuf, et les ossements des heros
qui ne sont plus blanchissent deja pour l'eternite.'

In a note Jubinal says: 'Ces paroles sont empruntees au chant basque
d'Altabicar.'

_Son cheval syrien_. In the _Chanson_ Charlemagne rides on a _mulet
de Sulie (Syrie)_. Jubinal changed the mule into a horse. This is
one of the points of detail which show that Hugo followed the modern
author.

L. 25. The city, as we learn subsequently, was Narbonne. Narbonne is
on the west coast of the Gulf of Lyons, near the eastern end of the
Pyrenees. Originally a Roman colony, it was one of the chief seats of
the Visigoths, from whom it was taken by the Saracens, when they
overran Southern France. Charlemagne took it from the latter in 759.
Till the fourteenth century it was a port, but the sand has blocked
up the harbour and the town is now some distance from the sea.

_machicoulis_, battlements; or, more exactly, a gallery round the
tower with openings in it from which projectiles could be hurled
upon an enemy below.

_vermeil_. The word is one of Hugo's favourite adjec