He says that when they depart they are saved!"
The error of "out of" for "into" is unimportant; but not so where he renders "partants" by "when they depart." The word "partant," in the original, is an adverb, and means "thereupon," "forthwith." This D'Israeli has mistaken for "partant," the participle of "partir:" and hence the erroneous construction given to the passage.
A third sample occurs in the same article, where the author quotes from one of the dramas called Sotties, a passage in which are these lines:
"Tuer les gens pour leurs plaisirs,
Jouer le leur, l'autrui saisir."
These he translates as follows:
"Killing people for their pleasures,
Minding their own interests, and seizing on what belongs to another."
Here we have "jouer le leur," to gamble, rendered by "to mind their own interests;" a rather equivocal method, it must be confessed, of accomplishing that object.
These are among the very few instances in which D'Israeli, by quoting from the original authorities, enables us to form an opinion as to the correctness of his anecdotes; and when we consider that by far the greater proportion of these are drawn from French sources, there is reason to apprehend that they may not have always been given with sufficient fidelity. I am confirmed in this view by another quotation which D'Israeli seems to have misunderstood. He is speaking of the feudal custom of the French barons, according to which they were allowed to cohabit with the new bride during the first three nights after marriage. Upon this he remarks: