37. LE CHANT du DÉPART. 9. De BARRA, DE VIALA; Agricole Viala and François-Joseph Barra (properly Bara) were both young boys, thirteen and fourteen years of age, who fell fighting with the revolutionary armies, the former in the Vendée, the latter near Avignon. To both the Convention voted the honors of burial in the Pantheon. Their names are often coupled, as here.
ANTOINE-VINCENT ARNAULT.
1766-1834.
He wrote a number of tragedies and a collection of fables that were admired in their day, but his name is best preserved for the larger public by this brief elegy, which is found in most anthologies. The circumstances attending its composition, on the eve of his departure from France after his banishment in January, 1816, are related by Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vol. vii, in the course of his notice of Arnault, which should be consulted.
FRANÇOIS-RENÉ, VICOMTE DE CHAUTEAUBRIAND.
1768-1848.
An enormous literary force at the beginning of this century; M. E. Faguet calls him the "greatest date in French letters since the Pleiad." But the instrument of his power was prose. His attempts in verse were poor. Yet he exercised a direct influence towards the renewal of lyric poetry, as has been indicated in the introduction.
For reference: E. Faguet, Études littéraires sur le dix-neuvième siècle, 1887 ; F. Brunetière, l'Évolution de la poésie lyrique au dix-neuvième siècle, vol. i, 1894.
39. LE MONTAGNARD EXILÉ. Introduced into the prose tale, le Dernier des Abencérages (1807). "J'en avais composé les paroles pour un air des montagnes d'Auvergne remarquable par sa douceur et sa simplicité." (Author's note.) 24. la Dore, a rapid stream in the department Puy- de-Dôme, flowing into the Allier. 27. l'airain, i.e. the bell.