C. J.
Fortune, infortune, fort une (Vol. iv., pp. 57. 142.).
—The explanation offered by a writer in the Magasin Pittoresque for 1850, seems perfectly clear without the proposed transposition of the adverb fort into fait of your correspondent D. C.
If the sentence be read according to the French explanation D. C. has quoted, viz. by reading infortune as a verb, fort the adverb to it, it must be plain that the reading of the sentence must be:
"Fortune fort infortune une."
(Fortune very much afflicts one.)
If we turned fort into fait, it would entirely spoil the sentence.
Query, But is "infortuner" to be found as a verb in any old dictionary? We have the adjective "infortuné," which looks much like a participle.
J. C. W.
Francis Terrace, Kentish Town.