[399] Napoleon. (See note [273].)
[400] Noblesse. Nobility. Why does Emerson use here the French word?
[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.
[402] Cortez. Consult a history of the United States for an account of this Spanish soldier, the conqueror of Mexico.
[403] Nelson. Horatio Nelson, an English admiral, who won many great naval victories and was killed in the battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
[404] Mexico. The scene of Cortez's victories.
[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.
[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.
[407] Mexico, Marengo, and Trafalgar. Is this the order in which you would expect these words to occur? Why not?
[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."