Stanza 2, line 3. Le nom de Juste. Louis XIII had no particular affectation of that title: it is rather a reminiscence of his distant collatoral and namesake who closed the fifteenth century.
Last stanza, line 1. Toutes les autres morts. He has just been speaking of death in battle against the factions.
Line 1. Mon fils. The only survivor of his many children, a young man, just called to the bar at Aix and passionately loved by his father, he bore the curious name of Marc-Anthony. A M. de Piles killed him in a duel, having for second his brother-in-law. The whole was an honourable bit of business, and the death such as men of honour must be prepared to risk: but Malherbe would see no reason and defamed the adversary.
Line 9. La Raison. The idea runs all through Malherbe's work. It is his distinguishing note, and is the spirit which differentiates him so powerfully from the sixteenth century, that this stoical balance or regulator which he calls "La Raison," and which governed France for two hundred years, is his rule and text for verse and prose as well as for practical life. Even the grandeur to which it gave rise seemed to him accidental. He demanded "la raison" only, and felt the necessity of it in art as acutely as though its absence were something immoral.
[EXTRACTS FROM THE "CONSOLATION OF DU PERRIER."]
Stanza 1, line 1. Duperrier. A critic of sorts and a gentleman, living in Provence and perhaps of Provençal ancestry. The verses were written while Malherbe's fame was still local, two years before the king's visit had lifted him to Paris.
Stanza 2, line 2. Ta fille. The child Marguerite. Her name does not appear in the poem nor in any letter; we have it from Racan.
Stanza 10, line 3. Et la garde, etc. These two lines are quoted, sometimes, not often, by admirers who would prove that Malherbe was not incapable of colour or of warmth.