Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/422

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. x. NOV. 21, 1914.

identifying the official margravate with the " marquisat du Saint Empire " of which the Emperors declared themselves, in their styles, the titulars ; yet it would be a strictly parallel case. The official burggrave vicomtes of later days no doubt took advantage of their nomenclature to con- found themselves, as far as possible, with viscounts by patent: e.g., Philippe de 1'Es- pinoy on the title-page of his ' Recherche des Antiquitez et Noblesse de Flandres ' (Douay, 1631) calls himself Viscount of Therouanne. In Zeelandthe Van Cruiningens were for many generations burggraves, or pretended to the same ; Jan van Cruiningen, elected Knight of the Fleece at Mechlin in 1491, figures in the armorials, in the French ones at least, as Vicomte de Zelande. One should remember that his sovereign, Philip the Handsome, was Count of Holland and Zeeland. Article 106 of the modern Belgian Conseil heraldique's jurisprudence says :

"Le titre de vicomte ou chatelain en Flandre ne oonfSrait aucun rang dans la hierarchic nobiliaire. 11 n'4tait pas requis d'etre noble pour exercer cette charge."

As regards titles, it is interesting to note that (1) whilst Bruxelles and Antwerp have given these to no man (the marquisate of H. R. E. and the inappropriate predicate in Cahen d'Anvers perhaps excepted), one Jan van de Ven was created Vicomte de Louvain by patent in 1711. In 1773 his nephew X. de Chaignon, French envoy to the Valais, claimed the viscountcy, but without success. (2) Leopold II. chose (as sovereign of the Congo Free State ?) to decorate his sons by Baroness Vaughan with the titles d brevet of Due de Tervueren and Comte de Raven- stein. A. V. D. P.

WALTER SCOTT (11 S. x. 330, 374, 393). I am not able to furnish OLD GOWN with any instances of modern denunciations Scott, but the following from the preface of M. Paul Bourget's latest work, ' Le Demon de Midi,' giving evidence of a reaction in Scott's favour, may perhaps be of interest, and, by implication, of use :

" Dans ce chef-d'oeuvre qui s'appelle en anglais ' Old Mortality,' et, en francais, ' Les Puritains d'Ecosse,' Walter Scott, ce ge"nia initiateur, nous a donne' un modele accompli d< la maniere dont ce domaine [les theses religieuses peut etre exploit^, sans que 1' artiste tombe n dans le pamphlet ni dans la dissertation the"o logique, egales erreurs des qu'il compose un roman. Son Balfour de Burley, le fanatique tentateur d'Henri Morton, qui cite 1'Ecritur I'e'p&j & la main et se livre a des meditations spirituelles entre deux embuscades, demeure s plus e"topnante creation peut-etre. Et cependanl

uel peuple de figures inoubliables Scott a mis ur pied et avec quelle vigueur de touche, que| ouvoir merveilleux de credibility ! Je n'ai certea as la preteiition, permise au seul Balzac, de ivaliserde prds ou de loin avec le Grand Ecossais. i j'ai rappete son nom a la premiere page d'un ivre oil est raconte un drame de conscience reli- ieuse, c'est simplement pour bien prouver, pat e rappel, que les d&faiits du ' Demon de Midi ' ne oivent etre reproches qu'a 1'auteur et non au "enre, et que 1'art du roman peut ^s'attaquer ^gitimement, sans se d^naturer, meme a cefc rdre de sujets. (Vest aussi pour rendre hommage une fois de plus a cet ancetre, trop m6connu chez lous aujourd'hui, a ce grand ' romantique con- ervateur,' comme 1'a si heureusement appele son Vernier et distingu6 critique M. 1'abbe Henri Jremond."

HYLLARA.

OLD CHARING CROSS (US. vii. 288, 357; K. 353). My contention was that this monu- ment had not fallen down or been removed during the whole course of its existence, 291-1646. The further excerpts from Dekker do not afford any direct evidence to he contrary, and we may interpret the whole of his allusions as applying to the cross surmounting the structure. The whole upper >art may have stood awn', but it is inv Drobable that the entire monument, largest ind most magnificent of the Eleanor crosses, was so neglected as to be ruinous and unsafe. Its position so near the Court would save it rom harm by intent or carelessness, such as jaused the complete loss of the crosses at 3rrantham and St. Albans. Dr. J. Galloway (' Historical Sketches of Old Charing/ p. ! quotes from John Norden (MS. Harl. 570, -irca 1593): "An old weather-beaten monument .... was most stately, though now defaced by antiquity."

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

" BOCHES " (11 S. x. 367). It is not easy to see any connexion between boche and caboche. The latter appears as a familiar word meaning " head " in French and French- English dictionaries, e.g., Napoleon Landais, Boyer, Chambaud. Leroux gives it as mean- ing tete in his ' Dictionnaire Comique,' &c., 1786, as well as in the earlier edition of 171 Boche does not appear. In Alfred Delvau ; f ' Dictionnaire de la Langue Verte,' nouvelle edition (? 1883), and in Jean La Rue's 'Dictionnaire d ' Argot ' (? about 1890), ca- boche means tele.

Delvau gives " Boche. Mauvais sujet La Rue, " Boche. Mauvais, laid. Alle mand. Tete de boche, individu entete on d'esprit borne, tete dure."

A. Barrere does not give caboche in h ' Argot and Slang,' 1887 ; but he gives