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_