I. hymne a la justice. – André Chénier

L. 5. Virgil, Georg. ii. 150 ff.

L. 14. les hauts Pyrénées, generally feminine, e.g. ‘Pyrénées
Orientales.’ But Chénier thinks of them as ‘les Monts Pyrénées.’

L. 18. Respire, breathes (forth).

L. 19. couvrant, goes with la Provence.

L. 36. Incertaine. Because it shifts its channel.

L. 44. Que visite Phoebus le soir ou le matin. A poetic translation of
Orient and Occident.

L. 47. l’une et l’autre Téthys. Catullus, ‘Uterque Neptunus,’ xxxi. 3.
Cf. notes to Nérée, p. 90, l. 95, and Cybèle, p. 91, l. 133.

L. 50. Trudaine. The grandfather of Chénier’s friend, who was Director
of Public Works under Louis XV, and laid out the fine roads of France.

L. 54. impie. Not, of course, irreligious, but sacrilegious, as
invading the (to a Frenchman) sacred territory of France–in the course
of what Charles Lamb ironically calls ‘the long, steady, deep-rooted,
rational antipathies of the great French and English nations.’–Mrs.
Battle’s Opinions on Whist. See another use of impie, p. 112, l. 107.

L. 83. Le sel. An allusion to the gabelle or salt-tax imposed before
the Revolution. This was written before 1789.

L. 85. Mille brigands, the partisans or men who constituted partis
or societies for the levy of certain taxes.

L. 97. Malesherbes, Turgot. These Ministers retired in 1776, but
Malesherbes resumed office, only for a few months, in 1787.

L. 105. armer d’injustes plaintes. Cf. note to p. 4, l. 100.

Ll. 107. impie. Offending honour, considered as a religion. Cf. p.
110, l. 54.

Ll. 131, 132. le libre encens d’une lyre au coeur chaste. An
incoherent metaphor.