¹ But this etymology does not fully convince me: the forms bougrain, vougrain, mentioned by Thomas, have alongside them such forms as Picard vilgrain ‘criblures, menues pailles’ (Corblet), a virgrain from a chart of 1401 (in DuCange s.v. vogranum). I suggest vil(e) granum (cf. *vilia [from vilis] > Ital. vigliaccio, vigliaccolo ‘criblures, menues pailles’, REW §9328) with a phonetic development similar to that of protonic -el- in del(i)catus > OF dougié. The vo(lu)granum of DuCange is only a Latinization of the French words.

^1a In Speculum 19.84 vole is found in a Sotte Chanson which contains also the Picardian form estoule (< stipula), the variant of standard OF estouble.

² The use of aveugle illustrated above is simply the continuation of an Old Testament tradition (Jeremiah 4.21 ‘Audi, popule stulte, qui non habes cor: qui habentes oculos non videtis’; Is. 43.8 'Educ foras populum caecum et oculos habentem'): the blindness of the heart was always chastized by the Prophets; it is characteristic of Hebrew style to represent the mental by the physical ('to open the eyes', ‘the night of blindness receded from him’ etc.).

³ As late a writer as Bossuet, whose style is nourished on the Bible, has used this set of metaphors in the concluding chapter of his Discours sur l'histoire universelle, where he summarizes the influence of Divine Providence on history: 'Il [God] connaît la sagesse humaine, toujours courte par quelque endroit; il l'éclaire, il étend ses vues, et puis il l'abandonne à ses ignorances; il l'aveugle, il la précipite, il la confond par elle-même; elle s'enveloppe, elle s'embarrasse dans ses propres subtilités .... L'Egypte, autrefois si sage, marche enivrée, étourdie et chancelante, parce que le Seigneur a répandu l'esprit de vertige dans ses conseils; elle ne sait plus ce qu'elle fait, elle est perdue. Mais que les hommes ne s'y trompent pas: Dieu redresse quand il lui plaît le sens égaré; et celui qui insultoit à l'aveuglement des autres tombe lui-même dans des ténèbres plus épaisses ... .' Cf. the identical wording in the Oraison funèbre de Henriette-Marie de France.

⁴ It is true that the map aveugle of the ALF shows forms with -l- alone, also in Belgium, Lorraine and Franche-comté; the earliest attestation and the semantic development of veule, however, seem definitely to point to Picardy.