1 3 je m'en souviens: 'I remember it.' Se souvenir de quelque chose, hence s'en souvenir (en replacing de + a pronoun); cf. changer de chanson, en changer 7 5, revenir de là-bas, en revenir 16 12.
1 4 habitait: 'was living in.' Be careful to give the imperfect its progressive force wherever possible.
1 5 le chemin d'Avignon: 'the Avignon road.' Note that an English noun used adjectively is usually replaced in French by de + noun, the student should be careful to translate une robe de soie 'a silk dress' and not 'a dress of silk'; cf. de petits soldats de plomb (71 4) 'little lead soldiers,' l'eau de mer (93 26) 'the sea water', 52 25, 79 23. For une voix de femme (89 5) we cannot say 'a woman voice,' but must say 'the voice of a woman,' 'woman' not being a possible noun-adjective here; still voix de femme is a noun-phrase modified by une; cf. une cour de caravansérail (70 21) 'the court of a caravansary,' un coin de méchante route (70 28) 'the corner of a wretched road'--Avignon: city on the Rhone, above Tarascon; famous as the residence of the Popes from 1309 to 1377.
1 6: devant: adverb, 'in front'; cf. derrière in this sentence, dessus 24 1, 46 12, depuis 56 32, autour 79 15.
1_ 8: Savoyards: boys and men from Savoy, southeastern France, are seen throughout the country exercising such trades as those of bootblacks, chimney-sweeps, charcoal-venders; cf. note to 74 27.--Savoyards ... tête ... leurs boîtes: cf. note to 29 11.
1 10: Du dehors ... rien: 'seen from the outside the house seemed nothing at all,' 'was in no way remarkable'.
1 12: coquin de sort: a characteristic Southern oath, lit. 'rascal of (a) fate' translate 'heavens and earth!' cf. monstre de sort 63 27, coquin de bon sort 68 21. For the construction cf. coquin de lièvre 4 24, diable d'homme 9 3. The genitive (de + noun) in these expressions replaces a noun in apposition. Cf. Engl. "rascal of a man," Latin scelus viri; "the city New York," "the city of New York."
1 16: du pays. i.e. 'native' to that part of Europe; cf. au pays 64 27, du cru 26 6.
1 17: rien que: 'nothing but'; i.e. il n'y avait rien que. Cf. 37 10, and notes to 13 1, 4 23.--plantes exotiques: a few lines farther on, our author explains that these exotic plants were, of course, not of full natural size. The baobab in its native African home is only 40-70 feet in height, but its trunk is sometimes 30 feet in diameter. In 17 20-21 we are given to understand that Tartarin's baobab, the most admired of his botanical rarities, is perhaps after all nothing but a turnip, and we are led to suspect that some of the others are not what they pretend to be. If we are gifted with even a small portion of the imagination possessed by Tartarin and his fellow-townsmen, we can understand how a turnip may after a while come really to be a baobab; if we have not sufficient imagination to admit this possibility, we shall not be able to appreciate the story of the life and adventures of Tartarin de Tarascon.