P. 66: Sainte-Soline abandoned Strozzi at the battle of the Iles Ter Tercères.
P. 67. Capaneus was one of the mythical seven heroes who marched from Argos against Thebes (Aeschylus, Septem contra Thebas). "During the siege, he was presumptuous enough to say, that even the fire of Zeus should not prevent his scaling the walls of the city; but when she saw his body was burning, his wife Euadné leaped into the flames and destroyed herself."
P. 67: Alcestis was a daughter of Pelias, and the wife of Admetus, King of Pheræ in Thessaly. According to the legend, Apollo having induced the Fates to promise Admetus deliverance from death, if at the hour of his decease his father, mother or wife would die for him, Alcestis sacrificed herself for her husband's sake. But Heracles brought her back again from the underworld, and "all ended well." The story is the subject of Euripides' beautiful play of Alcestis.
P. 68: Tancred, one of the chief heroes of the First Crusade, was the son of Odo the Good, of Sicily. Date of his birth is uncertain; he died 1112. Type of the gallant soldier and adventurer and the "very perfect, gentle knight."
P. 68: Philippe I.—1060-1108.
P. 68: See Guillaume de Tyr, liv. XI., who tells this anecdote about Tancrède. Bertrade d'Anjou, the wife of Foulques, had been carried off by Philip I., to whom she bore, among other children, Cécile, who married Tancrède.
P. 68: Compare this Albanian savagery with the story of Councillor Jean Lavoix, who lived with the wife of an attorney named Boulanger. The wife having decided to discontinue that liaison, the Councillor grew so furious that he caused her to be slashed and disfigured, although he could not get her nose cut off. He was pardoned after having paid his judges. The following song was written about him:
Chasteauvillain, Poisle et Levois,
Seront jugez tous d'une voix
Par un arrest aussi leger
Que fust celluy de Saint-Leger.
Car le malheur est tel en France
Que tout se juge par la finance.
(Bib. Nat., ms. français, 22563, fo 101.)
[366]
