Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/255

 9* s. vm. SEPT. 2i, i9oi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

247

explained (p. 141) : " This word Lancia spez- zata amongst the Italians is of no other signification, then a tried experience in the warres," equivalent, as we should say, to one who has actually " shivered a lance."

A section of the book is devoted to the explanation of " The Office and duetie that appertaines to the Lanze-spezzate, volentarie Lieutenants, the Gentlemen of a Band, or Caualliere of S. George's Squadrons." It commences thus (p. 73) :

" The sundrie degrees whereunto valiant souldiers with aspiring minds seeke to ascend, for that they be many, and for that those which have attained and served in those roomes and other great offices, by divers sinister meanes and accidents, be now and then dissevered and made frustrate from their charge, as experience hath made many times apparant, who yet neyerthelesse being naturally desirous to continue in service, and perchance through forrain necessitie are driven to remain in pay, in attending further preferment: Therefore this place was first invented for such persons, as a speciall seat wherein the flower of warlike souldiers doe sit, like a greene Laurell garland that doth environ the martiall head of a mightie armie, whose order for warlike force or fame, gives not place to the Grecian Falanges, the chiefest of the Romaine legions, or to the knightly constitution or couragious enterprises of those of Arthur's round table. For there neither hath bene, nor can be found any place of such honour or reputation as to be a Gentleman of a Band, whether we serve for pleasure or for profite, or have attained thereunto by merite : or whether we have been Corporal, Sergeant, Alfierus, or Lieutenant, wherein Cap- taines som times do plant themselves, specially in the ColloneFs Squadre, and temporise the time, untill preferment do fall : for thereby their former reputation is nothing disgraced, nor their charge had in or of any other company, nothing derogated: Considering that those in these Squadrons either are, or ought to be souldiers of such policie and perfite experence, that they be capeaole of any office under the degree of a Collonell, and may supplie any of those foresaid offices, or performe any other enterprise of great importance, com- manded by the Captain, Collonel, or Generall," &c.

It is a somewhat precipitous descent from this bombastic description to the present-day lance - corporal and lance - sergeant, and I doubt whether a single holder of one of those " appointments " (as they are not " ranks ") is at all aware of the reason of his title.

In Robert Ward's 'Animadversions of Warre,' 1639, the title is spelt " Lantsprezado" and " Lansprezado" ; but the introduction of the r must be an error, as the meaning in Italian would be materially altered, and there is no reason to suppose that such a result was intended. See also 9 th S. iv. 189, 273. C. S. HAKRIS.

BONAPARTE QUERIES (9 th S. viii. 185, 227). Caroline Murat, nee Bonaparte (25 March, 178218 May, 1839), after Joachim Murat's

(King of Naples) decease (Pizzo, 13 October, 1815), married in a morganatic way General Macdonald, of Naples not to be taken for the marshal of the First Empire of the same name. There was no offspring. See Alberto Lumbroso's ' Muratiana ' (Rome, Modes & Mendel ; Paris, Picard & Son, 1898), with unpublished letters of Caroline and of General Macdonald after 1815.

As for the descendants of Marie Louise, ex-Empress of the French and Duchess of Parma, and of her second husband, Count Neipperg (who plays a very inexact rdle in the Luigia a Parma secondo Inediti Documenti,' by Mrs. Caterina Pigorini Beri, the celebrated author of 'Santa Caterina da Siena'; 'Le Due Mogli di Napoleone,' by Prof. Ernesto Masi (Bologna, Zanichelli, 1888) ; and Lum- broso, 'Napoleone II., L'Aiglon' (Milano, Tipografia Umberto Allegretti).
 * Madame Sans-Gene ' of Sardpu), see ' Maria

Frederic Masson, the friend of H.I.H. the Prince Napoleon Gerdme, told the editor of the Figaro in August that he is preparing a volume about Marie Louise.

BARON ALBERT LUMBROSO, D.L., Director of the Revue Napolfonienne. Frascati, Italy.

MALT AND HOP SUBSTITUTES (9 th S. vii. 150, 215, 296, 454 ; viii. 26, 72, 171). The germ of the couplet asked for by GNOMON may be traced (though still in the form of a quota- tion) to the sixteenth century :

' I know not how it happened (as he merrily saith) that herisie and beere came hopping into England both in a yeere." Buttes, 'Dyets drie Dinner,' sig. G iv.

AUTHOR OF POEM WANTED (9 th S. viii. 204). The poem alluded to is * The Story of the Faithful Soul ' (founded on an old French legend), by Adelaide Anne Procter.

CONSTANCE RUSSELL.

Swallowfield.

' LE BON Roi DAGOBERT ' (9 th S. viii. 205). I have a small book called ' La Vieille Chanson Franqaise/ which contains a note upon ' Dago- bert ' saying that no date can with any cer- tainty be assigned to this very amusing song, which has received many additions from time to time ; but in view of its style and the air to which it is sung, the editor places it not earlier than the beginning of the eighteenth century. MR. BOUCHIER'S impres- sion that he saw it in a shop window near the Rue St. Antoine is no doubt quite correct. My first copy was in the shape of letter- press distributed among highly coloured pic- tures on one large sheet of thin paper, bought