[37] D'ALLER A TOUT. For the more modern expression _d'arriver a tout_, 'to attain any height.' [38] DEFAITE, 'Excuse' or 'pretext' (Littre", 4 deg., also Diet, de l'Acad. 1878). [39] ELEVATION. Used here with the unusual meaning of 'desire for social eminence.' [40] ELLE S'ENDORT DANS CET ETAT, 'She is satisfied with her condition.' While already in the seventeenth century the ambition of rich _bourgeois_ to gain admission to the exclusive circles of the nobility had been sufficiently marked to induce Moliere to attack it in his _Bourgeois gentilhomme_, it was even more noticeable in the eighteenth, and _mesalliances_ between noblemen and women of the middle class became much more frequent. [41] REFLEXION ROTURIERE. _Roture_ was the expression used to denote the _bourgeoisie_ as distinguished from the nobility. [42] JE N'Y ENTENDS POINT DE FINESSE, 'I cannot enter into such subtle distinctions on the question of happiness.' She refuses to discuss the possibility of Araminte's preferring happiness to rank. For her, rank means happiness, as would wealth. [43] IL ME L'A PARU = _Cela nil a paru ainsi_. [44] D'OU VIENT. See _le Jeu de l'amour et du hasard_, note 220. [45] J'Y METTRAI BON ORDRE. See _le Jeu de l'amour et du hasard_, note 169. [46] PLAISANT. See _le Jeu de l'amour et du hasard_, note 37. [47] TIMBRE COMME CENT, 'As crazy as a loon.' It is difficult to preserve the figure in an idiomatic translation. Compare the colloquial English, "You act like _sixty_." [48] CERVELLE BRULEE. A peculiar use of _cervelle_. _Brulee_ is used here by Marivaux in the sense _troublee_, as in the passage from Mme. de Sevigne: "Mme. de Saint-Geran est toute brulee du depart de son mari." [49] IL EN EST COMME UN PERDU, 'He is like a man who has lost his reason.' Cf. _le Jeu de l'amour et du hasard_, note 120. [50] UN PEU BOUDANT. Nowadays the adverb follows the verb. Here _boudant_ might at first thought be taken for an adjective, but it is a present participle used verbally and consequently invariable. [51] ON A BIEN AFFAIRE DE, 'I have no use for.' This idiom must not be confounded with _avoir affaire a_, which means 'to have to deal with.' [52] ESPRIT RENVERSE, 'A crazy man.' [53] MALEPESTE. See _le Legs_, note 48. [54] AVANT QUE DE. See _le Jeu de l'amour et du hasard_, note 93. [55] IL N'Y AVOIT PLUS PERSONNE AU LOGIS, 'He was quite unconscious.' (Littre, "logis," 1 deg..) [56] D'EPIER. Later editions print _qu'epier_, as _d'epier_ would not be admissible in modern French. _Que de rever... que d'epier_ would be the most natural modern form. [57] PAYOIS BOUTEILLE = _Payais a boire_. [58] LA COMEDIE. The _Comedie-Francaise_, or _Theatre-Francais_, then, as now, the leading theatre in Paris. [59] DES QUATRE HEURES. The performance did not begin before five o'clock, in the eighteenth century, [60] DANS L'HIVER. The modern form is _en hiver_. [61] JURANT PAR CI PAR LA, 'Swearing every now and then.'