Knight of Maison-Rouge by Alexandre Dumas
19. THE REQUEST
1. boudoir: small drawing room where women received their lovers.
2. savant: here, one who is erudite and well read.
3. he’s shot up … in no time: Santerre’s rise in rank had more to do with politics than with military ability, but rapid advancement of talented officers—Napoleon Bonaparte being the most famous—was common in the Revolutionary armies.
21. THE RED CARNATION
1. “A stone-cutter”: i.e., a mason. There is a possible play on words here. The Freemasons were suspected of all sorts of plots in the Revolutionary era. Dumas himself was suspicious of the Masons.
2. “sneezes in the sack”: one of the many darkly humorous euphemisms for death by guillotine.
22. SIMON THE CENSOR
1. It had disappeared: Dumas based this plan on a real plot involving Rougeville (see note 11, p. 403). Rougeville managed to gain access to Marie Antoinette in the Conciergerie (see also Glossary, p. 418)—not the Temple—and hand her a bouquet of carnations with two notes hidden in it, as in the novel. The first note informed the Queen that she would soon receive money with which to bribe her guards, the other detailed the plan for her escape. Marie Antoinette did manage to respond, in pencil, not in pinpricks. The plot was discovered and added momentum to the already determined execution of the Queen. It also led to stricter surveillance for the royal prisoner. Rougeville managed to escape from Paris and then from France.
24. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
1. Conciergerie: prison and former royal palace on the île de la Cité; the prison was the last holding place of prisoners condemned to death. See also Glossary, p. 418.
25. THE NOTE
1. “Ah, things will all … the lampposts”: “Ça ira” was one of the most popular Revolutionary songs; its lyrics celebrated the practice of hanging aristocrats from the lanternes (lampposts) in the streets of Paris.
2. Barbaroux’s: Charles-Henri-Marie Barbaroux (1767–94) had been a radical, but allied himself with the Girondins when the Montagnards became too extreme. He paid with his life, but he did not kill himself, as Roland did.
3. the Princesse Lamballe looming up on a pike: Following her brutal murder during the September massacres, the head of the Princesse de Lamballe was stuck on a pike and taken to the Temple to be shown to her friend Marie Antoinette through a window.
26. BLACK
1. “Aux armes, citoyens! … impur”: Madame Tison sings a verse from “La Marseillaise”; now the French national anthem, the “Marseillaise” was a Revolutionary song associated with troops from the Marseilles region. (See note 8, p. 402.)
27. THE MUSCADIN
1. “no more châteaux”: Dumas is playing with the Revolutionary jargon.
28. THE KNIGHT OF MAISON-ROUGE
1. Cromwell’s: The English revolutions of the seventeenth century were a constant reference point for the Revolutionary and Romantic generations in France. Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658), leader of the anti-Royalist Puritan faction, was the chief proponent of the execution of King Charles I; he then became the leader of the country with the title of Lord Protector.
29. THE PATROL
1. Racine: Jean Racine (1639–99), one of the greatest playwrights of the seventeenth century. Racine’s verse tragedies (Phèdre, Andromaque) are among the greatest works of the Classical period.
2. Molière: Molière was the stage and pen name of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (1622–73), the great comic playwright (Tartuffe, Le Misanthrope) of the seventeenth century.
3. Amadis: Amadis de Gaule was a Spanish medieval romance that told the story of a heroic knight who, in spite of his virtue, is rejected by his lady. The spurned, brooding young lover was described as the beau ténébreux, a popular image in Romantic literature.
32. FAITH SWORN
1. Enceladus: In Greek mythology, the many-armed Enceladus was one of the Titans who rose up in rebellion against the gods of Olympus.
2. Monsieur Latude … ladies of Les Halles: an adventurer who called himself the Chevalier de Latude, he had been imprisoned in the Bastille and Vincennes prisons. He became a popular hero based on his three escapes from prison, and in the propaganda of the Revolution was portrayed as a victim of despotism. He was an honored guest at a ceremony commemorating the fall of the Bastille; the ladies of Les Halles—The market-women of Les Halles—called the poissardes—often played a part in the violence of the Revolutionary years. It was these women who led the march from Paris to Versailles on October 5, 1789.
3. Osselin … marquise de Charny: the revolutionary politician Osselin, who proposed some of the harshest anti-emigré laws, fell in love with the beautiful Marquise de Charny. Probably under her influence, he began assisting certain prisoners and was expelled from the Jacobin club and then arrested. Osselin was eventually guillotined.
4. “a tyrant who knew the fair sex well”: a reference to the very gallant Francis I (born 1494, reigned 1515–47).
34. THE CONCIERGERIE
1. the old palace of Saint Louis: the Conciergerie (for Saint Louis, see ch. 5, note 7, p. 405).
2. the place de Grève: historically the site of public tortures and executions in Paris; the placement of the guillotine in the place de la Révolution was a temporary political calculation.
3. Richard: The sympathetic M. et Mme. Richard were the concierges of the Conciergerie prison when Marie Antoinette arrived there. They were replaced by more “patriotic” guardians after the discovery of the Carnation Plot. Their maid later published her memories of looking after the Queen.
4. Widow Capet: There was in fact some confusion about how the ci-devant royal prisoner should be registered on her arrival at the Conciergerie.
5. fleur-de-lys: the three lilies against a blue background was the traditional heraldic symbol of the Kings of France.
6. Le Voyage du jeune Anarcharsis: immensely popular 1788 work by the priest Jean-Jacques Barthélemy; the Voyage recounted the fictional travels of a young Greek in the time of Plato, as a device for presenting ancient Greece to contemporary readers.
35. THE HALL OF LOST FOOTSTEPS
1. Fouquier-Tinville: Antoine Fouquier-Tinville (1746–95), the relentless chief prosecutor of aristocrats during the Terror. He was executed in 1794 with Robespierre and the other leaders of the Convention.
2. “Nero’s confession to Narcissus”: from Racine’s Britannicus, the young Emperor, not yet the monster of legend, confesses to the scheming servant Narcissus his love for Junia, the beloved of Britannicus, Nero’s cousin and rival for the Imperial throne. Narcissus encourages the Emperor to eliminate Britannicus as a romantic and political rival.
36. CITIZEN THÉODORE
1. sabots: heavy wooden shoes worn by peasants.
2. Gracchus: another name taken from the Classical era; the Gracchus family rose from the plebeian class to the aristocracy in the last years of the Republic; several were known as patriots and reformers.
38. THE ROYAL CHILD
1. Messalina … Agrippina: Two legendary Roman empresses to whom Marie Antoinette was frequently compared in anti-Royalist propaganda. Messalina, first wife of the Emperor Claudius, was made a legend by Tacitus and Suetonius for her lusty immorality. After Claudius had her killed, he married Agrippina, who is said to have used poison to assassinate her enemies—including her husband—to advance her son, Nero, to the throne. Nero had her killed anyway.
2. Hébert:Jacques-René Hébert (1757–94), journalist and politician, his newspaper, Le Père Duchesne—named for a popular figure in French theater—was the organ for the most radical elements in Revolutionary politics. Hébert was arrested after accusing Robespierre of an excessive moderation, and sentenced to death.
39. THE BOUQUET OF VIOLETS
1. Carmes: a former convent turned into a prison by the Revolutionary government.
2. Boulogne … Abbeville: Boulogne is a port on the English Channel; nearby Abbeville is an inland town on the Somme River.
3. louis: the louis
4. a Marseillais: Revolutionary troops from the Marseilles region that had a reputation for excessive zeal, even among other Revolutionaries.
40. THE PUITS-DE-NOÉ BY NIGHT
1. obole: an insignificant amount of money.
41. THE CLERK FROM THE WAR MINISTRY
1. Sanson: The Sanson family were the chief executioners of France for almost two hundred years.
43. DIXMER’S PREPARATIONS
1. Anne of Austria: from the Spanish branch of the Hapsburgs, Queen of Louis XIII and mother of Louis XIV. When her husband died, she found herself Regent for the five-year-old king. With the help of Cardinal Mazarin, she fiercely defended the royal prerogatives against the aristocratic and parliamentary revolts known as the Fronde.
2. Two kings: Apparent references to Louis XV—her husband’s grandfather—and her own father, Holy Roman Emperor Francis I, who arranged her marriage to the future Louis XVI.
46. THE JUDGMENT
1. year II: Seeking to wholly re-create society, the Revolutionary government instituted a new calendar beginning with the establishment of the Republic. The year II indicated the second year of the Republic, starting in September 1793.
2. Chauveau-Lagarde: Claude Chauveau-Lagarde (1756–1841), lawyer who defended Marie Antoinette and many other doomed aristocrats before the Revolutionary tribunal. See also Glossary, p. 417.
47. PRIEST AND BUTCHER
1. powder: One of Robespierre’s laws was a ban on wigs and powder, which were considered aristocratic. Robespierre never applied the law to himself and, like an aristocrat, continued to wear a powdered wig and the formal suit, with cravat and breeches, of the lawyer that he had been before entering politics.
2. la Salpêtrière: a hospital established in 1656.
3. juror priests: Priests were required to swear an oath of loyalty to the Constitution rather than to Rome. This measure provoked a serious split among the French people, especially in the provinces.
48. THE CART
1. Maria Theresa: Marie Antoinette’s formidable mother, Holy Roman Empress and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia (born 1717, reigned 1740–80).
2. the Comédie-Française: the state theater of France, founded early in the reign of Louis XIV.
3. Grammont: from a famous family of actors, Grammont joined the Revolution with fervor.
4. Ophelia: a reference to Hamlet’s lover, who went mad and drowned herself.
5. Daughter of the Caesars: The Hapsburgs claimed actual descent from the Roman Caesars.
49. THE SCAFFOLD
1. “Adieu … au revoir!”: Formally, adieu was used for final farewells, au revoir suggests “till we meet again.”
2. he expired: unlike his fictional counterpart, Rougeville (see note 11, p. 403) survived Marie Antoinette’s execution and the Terror. He escaped to Brussels, where he was eventually captured and imprisoned. Released after the fall of the Convention, he offered his services to Napoleon, but remained a Royalist. In 1814, he was accused of treason by the Imperial government for allegedly offering to serve with approaching Russian armies. He was executed by firing squad in March 1814, just weeks before the collapse of the Empire.
50. THE HOME VISIT
1. Carmelites … Luxembourg: The policies of the Terror required many prisons in Paris alone.
2. Dagobert: Dagobert I, King of the Franks from 629 to 639. He reinforced royal authority and confirmed the borders of the Frankish kingdom.
3. Demoustier’s Lettres à Emilie: See note 9, p. 403.
54. THE HALL OF THE DEAD
1. monseigneur: literally, “my lord,” a form of address reserved for bishops and archbishops, and under the Ancien Régime, for princes of the Royal family.
2. “The geese on the Capitol”: according to Roman legend, the sacred geese of the Capitol hill began honking when they sensed the approach of a silent army of Gauls in the fifth century BC.
3. Eloi: Saint Eloi, Bishop of Noyon (died 660), served as treasurer and adviser to Dagobert.
4. sous: a coin worth twenty centimes; five sous equaled one franc.
55. WHY LORIN LEFT
1. Monsieur Guillotine: Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738–1814), physician and deputy to the Estates-General, promoted the use of the machine that bears his name—but which, contrary to popular belief, he did not invent—as a humanitarian measure. Prior to 1789, decapitation was reserved for aristocrats, commoners were hanged.
GLOSSARY OF HISTORICAL PERSONS AND TERMS
AUGUST 10, 1792: The ultimate collapse of the Bourbon monarchy, when the mobs stormed the Tuileries Palace, forcing the Royal family to seek asylum from the Legislative Assembly and the subsequent abdication of Louis XVI.
BAILLY, JEAN SYLVAIN (1736–93): Mayor of Paris from 1789 to 1791, Bailly supported a constitutional monarchy. He was forced to resign after ordering the NATIONAL GUARD to fire on a group of sans culottes. He was arrested and guillotined in 1793.
BARBAROUX, CHARLES-JEAN-MARIE (1767–94): leading GIRONDIN guillotined in ROBESPIERRE’S purge.
BARNAVE, ANTOINE (1761–93): a gifted young orator who quickly became one of the leaders of the National Assembly in 1789. An advocate of constitutional monarchy, Barnave was one of the first victims of the TERROR.
BRISSOT (DE WARVILLE), JACQUES-PIERRE (1753–94): journalist and politician, became one of the leaders of the moderate GIRONDIN party in the CONVENTION. His followers were known as Brissotins.
CAPET: From Hugues Capet, the traditional founder of the French Royal family, the imprisoned Bourbons were called Capet by the anti-Royalist press and then by the governments of the Revolution.
CARMAGNOLE: the short, close-fitting jacket favored by revolutionaries.
CHAUVEAU-LAGARDE, CLAUDE (1756–1841): lawyer who defended Marie Antoinette and MADAME ELISABETH before the Revolutionary Tribunal. His other clients included BRISSOT and Charlotte Corday.
CHÉNIER, MARIE-JOSEPH (1764–1811): a poet and playwright as well as a politician, Chénier survived the TERROR and continued to wield influence under the Directory.
CI-DEVANT: this adjective, literally meaning “former,” became charged with political significance during the Revolution when it came to be used—often as a noun—to refer to members of the legally abolished nobility.
CLAVIÈRES, ETIENNE (1735–93): Genevan banker inspired to democratic idealism by the writings of Rousseau; served briefly as Minister of Finance.
COLLOT D’HERBOIS, JEAN-MARIE (1750–96): member of the COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY, one of the chief architects of the TERROR. He turned on ROBESPIERRE in 1794 and was exiled in 1795.
COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY: a committee of twelve members of the CONVENTION formed in April 1793 to deal with foreign and domestic threats to the new Republic; the Committee soon became the real political power in France. Its influential members included DANTON, SAINT-JUST, and the increasingly powerful ROBESPIERRE. It was the Committee, and especially Robespierre, who enacted and executed most of the brutal measures associated with the TERROR.
CONCIERGERIE: massive medieval edifice on the île de la Cité, a royal palace until the fourteenth century, when the kings moved to the Louvre and the Conciergerie became a prison; as a Revolutionary prison, the Conciergerie loomed large as the last stop for those condemned to the guillotine.
CONVENTION: or Convention nationale, the unicameral legislature that governed France after the official abdication of Louis XVI and the declaration of a Republic in September 1792. At first dominated by the (relatively) moderate republican GIRONDINS, the more radical MONTAGNARDS became increasingly powerful, ultimately taking power in a bloody coup that sent most of the Girondin leaders to the guillotine. The Convention government is now chiefly associated with the TERROR. The armies of the Convention were successful for a time, repelling Austrian and Prussian armies and conquering such territories as Belgium and Savoy.
CORDELIERS: Radical Revolutionary club—offic
DANTON, GEORGES-JACQUES (1759–94): Powerful orator and republican politician, Danton became Minister of Justice for the Republic in 1792, and helped form the Revolutionary Tribunal and the COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY. His rhetoric inspired both the SEPTEMBER MASSACRES and the AUGUST 10 storming of the Tuileries. DANTON split with the increasingly powerful ROBESPIERRE over the policies of the TERROR, and was arrested and convicted on charges of corruption, which later proved to be true. He was guillotined with a number of his followers in April 1794.
DAUPHIN: The formal title given to the eldest son and heir of the King of France. The Dauphin in this novel—Louis-Charles de Bourbon (1785–95), known as “Charles Capet” to the Revolutionaries—is traditionally known as Louis XVII. The boy died while still imprisoned in the Temple.
DUMOURIEZ, CHARLES (1739–1823): born Charles-François du Périer du Mouriez, became a successful Revolutionary general after having served as a diplomat under Louis XV and as the last Minister of War under Louis XVI (1791–92). Dumouriez won such significant victories as Valmy over the Prussians and Jemappes against the Austrians, and successfully conquered and occupied modern Belgium for the Republic. When Dumouriez was relieved of command and summoned back to Paris after losing the battle of Neerwinden in March 1793, he understood the order to be a death sentence and defected to the Austrians. Dumouriez’s treason precipitated the MONTAGNARD reaction and the arrest and execution of many GIRONDIN leaders.