[Footnote 399:  Napoleon. (See note 273.)]

[Footnote 400:  Noblesse.  Nobility.  Why does Emerson use here the French word?]

[Footnote 401:  Faubourg St. Germain.  A once fashionable quarter of Paris, on the south bank of the Seine; it was long the headquarters of the French royalists.]

[Footnote 402:  Cortez.  Consult a history of the United States for an account of this Spanish soldier, the conqueror of Mexico.]

[Footnote 403:  Nelson.  Horatio Nelson, an English admiral, who won many great naval victories and was killed in the battle of Trafalgar in 1805.]

[Footnote 404:  Mexico.  The scene of Cortez’s victories.]

[Footnote 405:  Marengo.  The scene of a battle in Italy in 1800, in which Napoleon defeated the Austrians with a larger army and made himself master of northern Italy.]

[Footnote 406:  Trafalgar.  A cape on the southern coast of Spain, the scene of Nelson’s last great victory, in which the allied French and Spanish fleets were defeated.]

[Footnote 407:  Mexico, Marengo, and Trafalgar.  Is this the order in which you would expect these words to occur?  Why not?]

[Footnote 408:  Estates of the realm.  Orders or classes of people with regard to political rights and powers.  In modern times, the nobility, the clergy, and the people are called “the three estates.”]

[Footnote 409:  Tournure.  Figure; turn of dress,—­and so of mind.]

[Footnote 410:  Coventry.  It is said that the people of Coventry, a city in England, at one time so disliked soldiers that to send a military man there meant to exclude him from social intercourse; hence the expression “to send to Coventry” means to exclude from society.]

[Footnote 411:  “If you could see Vich Ian Vohr with his tail on.”  Vich Ian Vohr is a Scotch chieftain in Scott’s novel, Waverley.  One of his dependents says to Waverley, the young English officer:  “If you Saxon duinhe-wassal [English gentleman] saw but the Chief with his tail on.”  “With his tail on?” echoed Edward in some surprise.  “Yes—­that is, with all his usual followers when he visits those of the same rank.”  See Waverley, chapter 16.]

[Footnote 412:  Mercuries.  The word here means simply messengers.  According to Greek mythology, Mercury was the messenger of the gods.]

[Footnote 413:  Herald’s office.  In England the Herald’s College, or College of Arms, is a royal corporation the chief business of which is to grant armorial bearings, or coats of arms, and to trace and preserve genealogies.  What does Emerson mean by comparing certain circles of society to this corporation?]

[Footnote 414:  Amphitryon.  Host; it came to have this meaning from an incident in the story of Amphitryon, a character in Greek legend.  At one time Jupiter assumed the form of Amphitryon and gave a banquet.  The real Amphitryon came in and asserted that he was master of the house.  In the French play, founded on this story, the question is settled by the assertion of the servants and guests that “he who gives the feast is the host.”]