_La Mort a des rigueurs a nulle autre pareilles: On a beau la prier; La cruelle qu'elle est se bouche les oreilles, Et nous laisse crier._ _Le pauvre en sa cabane, ou le chaume le couvre, Est sujet a ses lois; Et la garde qui veille aux barrieres du Louvre N'en defend point nos rois._ _De murmurer contre elle et perdre patience, Il est mal a propos; Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule science Qui nous met en repos._ "_Vouloir ce que Dieu veut est la seule science Qui nous met en repos._" NOTES. CHARLES OF ORLEANS. THE COMPLAINT. Line 5. _Prins._ An inaccurate pedantic past participle of _prendre_. Line 14. _Faulse._ There is to be noted here and elsewhere throughout these extracts, until the modern spelling at the close of the period, the redundant "l" in many words. It was an effect of pure pedantry. The latin "l" had become _u_ in northern French. _Falsa_ made, naturally, "Fausse." The partial learning of the later middle ages reintroduced an "l" which was not known to be transformed, but was thought omitted. Line 24. _Liesse._ One of the commonest words of this epoch, lost to modern French. It means joy=_laetitia_. Line 25. Note the gender of "Amour," feminine even in the singular throughout the middle ages and renaissance--right up to the seventeenth century. THE TWO ROUNDELS OF SPRING. I Line 1. _Fourriers._ The servants who go before to find lodging. The term survives in French military terminology. The _Fourriers_ are the non-commissioned officers and party who go forward and mark the Billeting of a regiment. Line 9. _Pieca=il y a piece_; "lately". _Cf._ _naguere_="_il n'y a guere...."_ Line 11. _Prenez pais_="take the fields," begone. Line 19. Note "_Chant_," the regular form of the subjunctive=_Cantet_. The only latin vowel preserved after the tonic syllable is a=French e (mute). Thus _contat_="chante" which form has in modern French usurped the subjunctive. Line 23. _Livree_="Liberata," _i.e._, things given out. A term originally applied not only to clothing, but to the general allowance of the king's household. Hence our word "livery." THE FAREWELL. Line 2. _Chiere lie._ "Happy countenance." _Chiere_ here is the substantive, _lie_=_laeta_, is the adjective. _Bonne chere_ means "a good time" where _chere_ is an old word for "head" (Greek: kara). Line 5. _Baillie_=Bailliwick, "For Age that has me now within her bounds." Line 7. _Mye._ "Crumb". "I am not a whit (not a crumb) with her (_Joie_) to-day." Line 15. "Well braced," literally "well girthed" (as a horse is). VILLON. THE DEAD LADIES. Stanza 1, line 1. Note the redundant negative; it is characteristic of mediaeval French, as of all primitive work, that the general suggestion of doubt is sufficient to justify a redundant negative.