e_.

14. il en coutera bon. _En_ is often added to _couter_ when the
latter is used impersonally.

3.--5. la fatigue l'avait emporte. In this idiom the
pronoun refers to an unexpressed noun (_prix, choix_, etc.).

25. aussitot que l'ordre...eut ete donne. The past anterior is a
literary tense; it is used to express completed action after certain
temporal conjunctions and _a peine...que_, also with _encore, plus tot,
sitot_, when they are negative and followed by _que_ and when the period
of time is mentioned (_il eut bientot fait son devoir_); in all these
cases the pluperfect is used if the action is repeated. The past
anterior is not used in conversation.

30. eprouvasse. The imperfect subjunctive is a literary tense and
is to be avoided in conversation; it may be so avoided by using the
present subjunctive and thus violating the rule for the sequence of
tenses or by using a circumlocution (particularly obnoxious to
a Frenchman's ear are all the forms of this tense in the first
conjugation, except the third person singular).

4. -4. madame de B * * *. Possibly Merimee was thinking cf
his friend Madame la comtesse de Beaulaincourt, with whom he
corresponded. The _Revue des Deux Mondes_ (August 15, 1879) published a
collection of eleven letters written to her by Merimee (see also Filon,
_Merimee et ses Amis_, 2e ed., Paris, 1909). More probably he refers to
Madame de Boigne, who lived in the street mentioned; he used to read his
stories in her Salon.

7. en voir de grises. For the use of a feminine adjective
referring to no expressed noun compare: _j'ai echappe belle_, I had a
narrow escape; _il se remit a courir de plus belle_, he began to run
harder than ever, etc. The feminine adjective in such phrases cannot
always be explained by saying that _maniere, occasion, chose_, etc.,
have been omitted. Similar phrases occur in Italian, Spanish, Old French
and Romanian. Meyer-Luebke, _Grammaire des langues romanes_, vol. III, Sec.
88, suggests _res, causa_, or a similar substantive as omitted in the
primitive Latin construction. In certain French phrases the reference
seems to be to _balle_, an expression borrowed from play--_donner la
balle belle_, then _la donner_ (or _bailler_) _belle a quelqu'un_, to
impose on anyone.

30. ajouta-t-il. The letter _t_ which occurs in such
interrogative forms is not introduced for the sake of euphony, nor is
it a survival of the Latin _t_ of the third person. It arose by analogy