la légende des siecles

Leste, et prenant les forteresses
Par le corset;
Il triompha de cent bastilles
Qu'il investit.—
Voici pour toi, voici des filles,
Petit, petit.
These two passages are good specimens of what Brunetière called Hugo's barbarous and
Merovingian humour, a species of humour which suits well the reproduction of a
mediaeval Chanson, even if it offends the critical in a modern satire.
gentil, used in its original sense of 'noble'.
maillot, Old French form of maillet, a mace or club. salade, head-piece worn by
knights, a word used in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.
duché, which is now masculine, was formerly of the feminine gender.
liais, lias; pierre de liais is Portland stone.
douve, as a term in fortification, means the wall of a ditch.
estramaçon, a long, straight, two-edged sword. The word is of Italian origin and first
came into use in the sixteenth century. In an adaptation of a thirteenth-century Chanson
it is out of place, as is salade above.
escarcelle, a kind of large purse which was carried at the belt.
l 193. The reference to the Sorbonne, which was founded in 1252, is of course an
anachronism.
estoc. See note on MARIAGE DE ROLAND, l 34.
bachelier. In the Middle Ages the word was used of a young man of good birth who,
being too poor to raise his own standard, fought under the banner of a knight, but not as
a squire. The juxtaposition of Je suis bachelier with Je sais lire en latin has given rise to
the suspicion that Hugo, who found the word in one of Jubinal's articles, understood it
in the modern sense. In the absence of further evidence, however, the poet may be
considered entitled to a verdict of 'not proven'.
BIVAR.