_Contignation_.--This rather pedantic, and now, I think, quite
obsolete word (from _tignum_, 'beam') means 'having a common or
continuous roof.'
The slackness of England in taking advantage of the Vendéan and Chouan
movements, of which Burke here complains, has never been fully
explained. The poltroonery of the Bourbon princes, and the factions of
the emigrants, throw a certain but not a complete light on it; and
though conjectural explanations are obvious enough, there is little
positive evidence to support them.
_But when the possibility ... that the_.--It will probably seem
to a modern reader that either 'that' or 'the' has crept in improperly.
It might be so; but Burke still maintained the authoritative but rather
inelegant tradition by which 'that,' like the French _que_, could
replace any such antecedent word as 'when,' 'because,' etc.
_Louis the Sixteenth_.--To this is appended a note in the editions
beginning, 'It may be right to do justice to Louis XVI. He did what he
could to destroy the double diplomacy of France.' The subject has of
late years received considerable illustration in the Duke of Broglie's
_Le Secret du Roi_, and other works by the same author.
_Montalembert_.--Marc René, Marquis de (1714-1800), a voluminous
military writer.
_Harrington_--of the _Oceana_.