spaces vermeils_. See note on AYMERILLOT.

L. 232. _Zoroastre_. Zoroaster was the founder of the Persian religion.
He was a great observer of the stars.

L. 245. _Fatalite_. In Victor Hugo the word denotes, not so much
destiny, as the feeling or the doctrine that man is the helpless victim
of an unseen and cruel power. It is a gloom which overhangs human life,
from which in the progress of the ages man will be delivered. Compare
_La Vision d'ou sortit ce livre_, where the spirit of 'Fatalite' is
associated with paganism and contrasted with the spirit of religion. In
_Dieu_ again 'Fatalite' is one of the three sombre deities of paganism,
the other two being Venus, the goddess of pleasure, and Hecate, the
goddess of death. Cf. also the following lines from _La Fin de Satan_,
put into the mouth of man's evil angel:--

Je suis Lilith-Isis, l'ame noire du monde.
Tremble! l'etre inconnu, funeste, illimite,
Que l'homme en fremissant nomme Fatalite,
C'est moi. Tremble! Ananke, c'est moi. Tremble! Le voile
C'est moi.

And again in Satan's speech to the Almighty:--

Tu seras Providence et moi Fatalite.

_Notre-Dame de Paris_ is based upon this theme. See especially Livre
VII. iv.

L. 255. For the metaphor compare 'la fausse clef du fatal gouffre bleu',
l. 37, and the following passage in _L'Ane_ about the prison of life:--

La porte en est massive et la voute en est dure;
Tu regardes parfois au trou de la serrure,
Et tu nommes cela science; mais tu n'as
Pas de clef pour ouvrir le fatal cadenas.

L. 273. Cf. the well-known line in _Les Contemplations: Ce que dit la
Bouche d'Ombre_:--

Le fauve univers est le forcat de Dieu.

Man is likened to a convict, in that he is undergoing punishment, not in
that he deserves it.

_Allioth_, a star of the first magnitude in the Great Bear.

_J'en arrive_: 'Tis from there I come.

_la pesanteur_. Gravity symbolizes the forces which keep man down.

_guebres_, fire-worshippers, i.e. the Persians, who still adhere to the
ancient religion of Zoroaster. The word itself is Persian.

_Thales_ (English Thales), one of the seven wise men of Greece.

L. 317. An allusion to the well-known doctrine of the music of the
spheres, enunciated by Plato.

_chouette_. The owl, as a bird of darkness, was to Hugo suggestive of
evil things. Cf. _La Confiance_.

_frisson des roseaux_, i.e. a trembling like that of reeds.

_Spinosa_ (English Spinoza) (1632-77), the Jewis