Bearnais, inhabitant of Bearn, the province in the Pyrenees from which Henri IV came.

Turcs.  This is of course a mistake for Saracens or Moors.  The word occurs in the original poem, Jubinal copied it, and Hugo copied Jubinal.  The original, it maybe noted, had ‘trente mille Turcs,’ Jubinal cut them down to ‘vingt mille.’  Hugo’s ‘vingt mille’ is another detail which shows that his poem is based on Jubinal’s adaptation.

preux.  The Old French adjective meant ‘valiant.’  At the present time the word is only used in the phrase preux chevalier.  Preux as a noun is rare, but de Vigny has ‘Charlemagne et ses preux.’

je ne farde guere:  I speak without affectation. Farder used absolutely in this way is rare.

rendus:  knocked up, overdone.

arbaletes, crossbows.

L. 80, For the metaphor compare the Chanson in Les Chatiments,
Livre VII

  Berlin, Vienne etaient ses maitresses;
  Il les forcait,
  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 Brunetiere 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.

duche, 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.

estramacon, 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.

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’.