soudan, a word of Arabic origin, was a mediaeval name for certain Mahometan princes in Egypt and Asia Minor. The word seems here loosely to designate the Turkish sultans.
turbé, a kind of small round chapel, usually attached to a mosque, in which the tombs of Sultans and other great persons are placed.
LA CONFIANCE DU MARQUIS FABRICE.
This is the third section of a poem called L'Italie: Ratbert. The story is of Hugo's own invention, and is intended to delineate on the one hand the savagery, and on the other the knight-errantry, of the Middle Ages.
Pharamond, a somewhat legendary Frankish chieftain of the fifth century A.D.
Final. The name, alone or in composition, is borne by three small towns or villages on or near the Genoese coast. There was a marquisate of Final in the Middle Ages.
Witikind. Hugo possibly had in mind the Saxon chief of this name (A.D. 750-807) who for five years successfully resisted the power of Charlemagne, and finally made an honourable peace with him. It does not appear that he ever bore the title of king. His country was the ancient Saxony, that is the country between the lower Rhine and the lower Elbe. He had no connexion with Genoa, whither Hugo has dragged the Saxons without justification.
Albenga: the name is taken from a small town on the Genoese coast, not far from Final.
abbé du peuple, a name of a popularly elected magistrate at Genoa. The office was in existence from 1270 to 1339.
tribun militaire de Rome: Latin, tribunus militaris; the officers of the legion, six in number, who in republican times commanded in turn, six months at a time.