6 battit des mains.

(III.) 7 que la femme qui donnait le plus d'enfants capables de porter les armes était celle qui méritait le mieux de la patrie. 8 i.e., if he had reflected †.

land, the boy clapped his hands with excitement, and exclaimed, “Oh! quand je serai grand, j'irai voir ce pays-là."

(III.) Since his separation from Miss Kingdom, who had returned to her native country, Brunel had often repeated the wish and the resolve. At length, the longcherished intention resulted in action; and in March 1799, Brunel landed at Falmouth, and was shortly afterwards married to Miss Kingdom. Napoleon maintained that that woman deserved best of her country who gave it most children capable of bearing arms. Had het reflected how France* lost Brunel, he would have seen that it is possible* (f.) for a woman to contribute more to the greatness of her country than by bearing and rearing an entire regiment of soldiers.

7

-The Athenæum, 22d Feb. 1862.

+ Frequently, instead of using "if," the English place the subject after the verb. The French usually arrange the words in the common order :

Charles I. had formed one of the most

illustrious characters of his age, had not the extreme narrowness of his genius in everything but war sullied the lustre of his other talents. (HUME'S "England.")

Charles 1er eût été l'un des plus illustres

personnages de son siècle, si l'ex trême petitesse de son esprit dans tout, excepté dans la guerre, n'avait terni l'éclat de ses autres

talents.

E

51. PRESENCE OF MIND.

PRÉSENCE D'ESPRIT.1 dans la même. 2 proceeded to, se unirent en devoir de. 3 la.

A party of Whiteboys † entered a house in which were a man, his wife, and their daughter, a little girl. The three were altogether in one1 room. The ruffians rushed into the room, dragged the man out of the house, and there proceeded to 2 murder him. In the room where the woman and the girl remained, there was a closet with a hole in its door, through which a person placed inside could see into the room. The woman concealed the little girl in the closet, and said to her, "Now, child, they are murdering your father down-stairs, and when they (will) have murdered him they will come up here and murder me. Take care that, while they are doing it, you look well at them, and mind you swear to them when you see them in the Court. I will throw turf on the fire the last thing, to give you light, and struggle hard, that you may have time to take a good view.” The little girl looked in through the hole in the closet door while her mother was being murdered: she marked the murderers well. She swore to them when she saw them in the court of justice, and they were convicted on her evidence. · GOLDWIN SMITH's Irish History and

Character.

The WHITEBOYS were insurgents, who began to create alarm in Ireland in 1762; so called from their ordinary dress being a white frock.-Dr WORCESTER'S English Dictionary.

52. THE OLD MAN AND HIS ASS.

(LA FONTAINE, Fables, liv. iii., fabl. 1.)

3

1 "Quel sot," dit un passant, "que cet homme de se traîner ainsi à pied. 2 aller à son aise. ces propos. 4 Eh quoi! drôle. 5 est-il convenable que vous soyez monté sur le grison. 6 piqué de ce reproche. ce vieux paresseux va chevauchant.

7

8

presque estropié

10 l'ami-L'article dans les cas semblables indique la familiarité. 11 On ne s'en serait guère douté. 12 à vous le voir charger sans pitié.

(N.B.—With the exception of the first sentence and the last paragraph, use the PRESENT instead of the past tense.-HAVET's French Class-Book, p. 314, No. 696.)

(I.) An old man and a little boy were-driving an ass to the next market to sell. "What a fool is this fellow," says a man upon the road, "to be trudging it on foot1 with his son, that this ass may go light 2!" The old man hearing this set his boy upon the ass, and went whistling by the side of him. "Why, sirrah!" cried a second* man to the boy, "is it fit for you to be riding 5, while your poor old father is walking on foot?" The father, upon this rebuke, took down his boy from the ass, and mounted nimself. "Do you see," says a third, "how the lazy old knave rides along upon his beast, while his poor little boy is almost crippled with 8 walking?" The old man no sooner heard this, than he took up his son behind him o.

(II.) "Pray, honest friend 10," says a fourth, "is that ass your own ?”- "Yes," says the man. "One would not have thought so 11," replied the other, "by your loading him so unmercifully 12. You and your son are better able to carry the poor beast than he you."-" Anything to please," says the owner; and alighting with his son, they tied the legs of the ass together, and by the help of a

13

de l'autre côté de. over, foule.

14 divertissant. 15 que l'on accourut en

16 se trouvant mal de la complaisance exagérée. 17 s'en retourna du mieux qu'il put. 18 that by, de ce qu'en.

le marché.

19

par-dessus

pole endeavoured to carry him upon their shoulders over the bridge that led to the town.

13

This was so entertaining 14 a sight, that the people ran in crowds 15 to laugh at it, till the ass, conceiving a dislike to the over-complaisance 16 of his master, burst asunder the cords that tied him, slipped from the pole, and tumbled into the river. The poor old man made the best of his way home 17, ashamed and vexed that, by 18 endeavouring to please (672.) everybody, he had pleased nobody, and lost his ass into the bargain 19.-HORACE Walpole.

53. GEOGRAPHY.

(See La géographie in HAVET's "French Studies," p. 34.)

1

2

LA GÉOGRAPHIE.—(I.) 1 Nous savons (239.) tous. Nous en avons vu les. . . . 3 indiquer. 4 voisins. 5 parce que nous les avons vus. 6 C'est là savoir un peu de géographie, et c'est bien là le meilleur moyen d'apprendre cette science. 7 obtenir.

(I.) We all know 1 something of the place in which we live. We have seen its 2 houses, roads, and fields, so often that we can easily point 3 them out, and tell how they are situated. We also know something about the towns and (415.) villages near, from having (750.) seen them". This is a little knowledge of geography; and in this way a knowledge of geography is best obtained. We cannot expect, however, to get an extended knowledge of distant parts by our own observation *; we must therefore

nom il porte. 9 demander.

5

auprès. 6 l'entourent.

10 offrent ce genre de

3 Dans ce but. 4 quel 7 habitants. 8 la plupart.

10 et des cours d'eau voisins. 11 nous informer de ce

que. 12 about it, qui s'y rattachent.

(III.) 1 Nous nous mettrons ainsi au courant de. former.

2 to make up,

learn most of our geography from what others have observed. Books of travels and voyages supply information of this kind 10.

8

3

(II.) It1 will help us to understand much of what 2 we read about other parts †, if we think well on what we see in our own neighbourhood. For this purpose we should learn all we can respecting the place we live in ;—what it is called 4;-what rivers are near 5;-what hills and valleys are close by ;-how many houses and people belong to the place;-how most of the people are employed;what is grown in the fields; what other things are produced in it; and many other facts of this kind. We may now inquire the names of the towns, villages, hills, and rivers near 10 The towns we shall learn have a market; the villages are generally smaller (99.) than the towns, and have no regular market. We may then inquire what 11 each place produces, and other remarkable facts. about it 12.

1

(III.) We shall thus get acquainted with the geography of our own neighbourhood. We may then learn that many towns, villages *, hills, valleys, fields, and meadows make up what is called a county: a county there

Let this first clause come last in the French translation, beginning the sentence thus-Si nous pensons bien à ce que, &c.