21 15 mouain: = moins misspelled to indicate a pronuntiation as two syllables instead of one.
21 16 à faire trembler: cf. note to 2 2.
21 19 ce que c'est que la vanité: the construction will be clear if a second est is supplied after vanité, 'what vanity is', cf. note to 72 21.
21 22 fit: = dit There are many examples of this usage in this book.
21 23 je ne dis pas: 'I don't say (that I shan't),' 'I won't commit Myself'
22 12 fit ... effroyable: 'gave Tartarin-Quixote a terrible grilling'.
22 16 éléphantiasis: 'elephantiasis,' a disease of the skin which makes it thick, hard, and fissured like an elephant's hide.
22 21 feu Cambyse: 'the late Cambyses' feu is frequently used, but only with humorous intent, in speaking of persons long since dead. For the story of the expedition (525 B.C.) sent by Cambyses, king of Persia, to plunder the temple of Jupiter Ammon in the desert of Libya, see Herodotus III Cambyses himself did not perish in this expedition as Daudet erroneously states.