[2] There were grave differences between Denmark and Sweden, because Count d’Ahlefeld insisted, during the negotiation of a treaty between the two States, that the Danish king should be addressed as _rex Gothorum_, which apparently attributed to him supremacy over Gothland, a Swedish province; while the Swedes persisted in styling him _rex Gotorum_, a vague title, equivalent to the ancient name of Danish sovereigns,--King of the Goths. It is probably to this “h”--the cause not of a war, but of long and threatening negotiations--that Schumacker alluded. [3] Certain chroniclers assert that in 1525 a bishop of Borglum made himself notorious by his depredations. He is said to have kept pirates in his pay, who infested the coast of Norway. [4] According to popular superstition, Nistheim was the hell reserved for those who died of disease or old age. [5] This forcible passage scarcely requires the explanation that in France a parricide has the right hand taken off, prior to execution, and all criminals about to be guillotined have their hair removed, lest the axe might be impeded, and cause extra suffering. [6] The translator having a detestation of “slang idiom” in any language has declined the task of rendering this prison-song into English; not from any actual indecorum being in its clever though coarse composition, but from a doubt of any advantage to be obtained by familiarizing the reading public with the idiom of a Gaol, and which was doubtless invented for the concealment and furtherance of immoral or criminal purposes. It has become a sort of fashion of the hour to descend from the utmost refinement of sentiment, or the most elevated speculation of philosophy, to grovel and almost revel in the phraseology hitherto confined to the obscure haunts of crime. In order to render justice to M. Victor Hugo’s versatile powers, his skilful imitation of a low ballad shall be given here, in the original, the translator only disliking to be the means of interrupting the refined illusion arising from the author’s elegant conception of the “Condemned.” The general meaning of the song is given afterwards in the text. SONG OF THE YOUNG GIRL OF THE PRISON. I. C’est dans la rue du Mail, Lirlonfa malurette, Où j’ai été coltigé, Maluré, Par trois coquins du railles, lirlonfa malurette, Sur mes sique’ ont foncé, lirlonfa maluré. II. Ils m’ont mis la tartouve, lirlonfa malurette, Grand Meudon est aboulé, lirlonfa maluré; Dans mon trimin rencontre, lirlonfa malurette, Un peigre du quartier, lirlonfa maluré. III. Va-t’en dire à ma largue, lirlonfa malurette, Que je suis enfourraillé, lirlonfa maluré. Ma largue tout en colère, lirlonfa malurette, M’dit: Qu’ as-tu donc morfillé? lirlonfa maluré. IV.