The Red and the Black (84 page)

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Authors: Stendhal

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #France, #Classics, #Literary, #Europe, #Juvenile Fiction, #Psychological, #Young men, #Church and state, #People & Places, #Bildungsromane, #Ambition, #Young Men - France

BOOK: The Red and the Black
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Le Globe
: review which voiced the anti-establishment opinions of a group of gifted young writers in the late 1820s.
Kléber
: 1753-1800, French general who commanded the revolutionary armies in the Vendée, the Rhine and in Egypt.
Hoche
: 1768-97, French general who commanded the revolutionary armies in the Moselle and the Vendée.
Jourdan
: 1762-1833, marshal of France who defeated the Austrians at Fleurus in 1794, and headed the revolutionary armies in Spain.
Pichegru
: see n. to p. 309.
1815
:
Napoleon's former soldiers rallied round him when he landed from Elba
and marched on Paris in March 1815 at the beginning of the Hundred
Days.
Cathelineau
: 1759-93, leader of the counter-revolutionary uprising in 1793.
Jacobins' song
: the
Marseillaise
.
Gustave-Adolphe
:
King of Sweden, 1594-1632. Intervened in the Thirty Years War on the
side of the German Protestant princes against the Holy Roman Emperor.
towards the. . . tonight
: see n. to p. 402 on
Mainz
.
Hume
: 1711-76, Scottish philosopher and historian.
Saints
: strict dissenters.
Mr Brougham
: Lord Brougham, 1778-1868; lord chancellor from 1830 to 1834. He was admired by Stendhal for his liberalism.
doggerel
: reference to the Marseillaise quoted in the previous chapter.
Vendée
: see n. to p. 328.
clergy . . . forests
: see n. to p. 328.
parish priest
: one of the terms of the Concordat of 1801 was the payment of clerical salaries by the State.
Nerval
:
modelled on the Prince de Polignac, 1780-1847. He served as foreign
minister, and prime minister from Aug. 1829 until his reactionary
measures brought about the downfall of Charles X. He had a reputation
for mysticism.
under Louis XV
: the regional Parliaments were suppressed from 1770 to 1774.
Saint-Rock cannon
: in 1795 a detachment of the National Guard

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trying to storm the Convention was dispersed from the steps of
Saint-Roch, a church off the Rue Saint-Honoré, by a single small
cannon manned by the revolutionary forces.
Mainz
:
this reference to Mainz is the key to the unknown destination of
Julien's mission. The last sentence of 11. 22 can be read as 'I shall
be galloping off to the [Grand Duchy of Hesse] tonight'. The Duke of
--- then plausibly becomes the Austrian statesman Prince Metternich (
1773-1859), who resided in Hesse and was backed by the forces of the
Holy Alliance. He opposed the development of liberal movements in
Europe in the 1820s.
Café-hauss
: Stendhal's version of the German Kaffeehaus.
the Congregation's police
: see n. to p. 25.
Gouvion Saint-Cyr
:
1764-1830, marshal of France. With General Desaix ( 1768-1800) he
defended Kehl against the Austrians in 1796. He served as minister of
war under Louis XVIII. His
Mémoires sur les campagnes des armées du Rhin et Moselle
appeared in 1829.
Lope de Vega
: 1562-1635, Spanish writer.
Don Diego Bustos
:
Stendhal may have modelled this character on the Spanish republican
Don Bastos, who appears in Lebrun play the Cid d'Andalousie. This was
first performed in 1825, after being banned for over 4 years by the
censorship on account of a scene where Don Bastos strikes the King of
Spain in the dark.
carbonaro
: member of an Italian secret political society formed in the early years of the 19th c. to promote republican ideals.
furia francese
: 'French ardour' (Italian).
Collé
: 1709-83, song-writer and dramatist.
'Tis my caprice . . . etc
.:
J'ai la marotte
/
D'aimer Marote, etc
.
took against this song
:
critics have detected here an allusion to the treatment of the
song-writer Béranger (see n. to p. 263) by Mme du Cayla, 1785-1852,
Louis XVIII's mistress. Before his conviction in 1828, he had been
remanded in 1821 for offences against public morality and against the
person of the king, and had been sacked from a position worth 1,800
francs a year, to which he had been appointed under Napoleon. The song
in question depicts the king's virility in scurrilous terms which
neither the monarch nor his mistress could have been expected to
appreciate. In 1822 Béranger attacked Mme du Cayla herself in another
song. She was noted for her striking beauty, her religious devotion,
and her

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prudishness, which she displayed with great
éclat
in her salon. In these respects she may provide a model for Mme de Fervaques.
Hôtel d'Aligre
: situated on the Rue de Richelieu near the PalaisRoyal.
Opera-Buffa
: the Opera Bouffe, or comic opera.
clandestine government
: name given under Louis XVIII to the Ultra faction which backed the Comte d'Artois (the future Charles X).
Camarilla
:
Spanish term designating the extremist supporters of Ferdinand VII.
The expression was applied to the Ultra faction in France in 1830.
Saint-Simon
:
1675-1755. His Memoirs span the period 1694-173, and contain a
detailed account, from a traditional monarchist perspective, of Court
life and the chief characters involved.
Massillon
: 1663-1742, French preacher.
Telemachus
:
Les Aventures de Télémaque
, 1699; written by Fénelon (see n. to p. 504) for the edification of the young Duke of Burgundy.
Dorat
: 1734-80, French poet; prolific writer of elegant froth.
had the pictures corrected: Mme du Cayla (see n. to p. 414) was on
close terms with the minister for the arts, who made a point of
rectifying the indecency of statues and paintings m public places.
Bishop of
--- one of Mme du Cayla's protégés (though not her uncle) was the
Bishop of Hermopolis, Monsignor Frayssinous ( 1765-1841). At her
instigation, Louis XVIII made him minister for ecclesiastical affairs
in 1824. He held this office until 1828, and was again given
responsibility for Church positions in 1829.
Lichtemberg
: 1744-99, German physicist and satirical writer.
the ballet based on Manon Lescaut
:
a grand spectacle first performed in May 1830. The libretto (based on
the novel by the Abbé Prévost, see n. to p. 322) is by Scribe (
1791-1861), and the score by Halévy (1799-1862).
Girodet
: 1767-1824, French painter. His literary writings and part of his correspondence were published m 1829.
Matrimonio Segreto
:
The Secret Marriage, opera by Cimarosa ( 1749- 1801). The heroine
Caroline becomes secretly engaged to one of her father's subordinates.

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si fata sinant
: 'if the Fates allow' ( Virgil,
Aeneid
, 1.19)
Memoirs dictated . . . by Napoleon
: the 8-vol.
Mémoires de Napoléon à Sainte-Hélène
were compiled by Gourgaud and Montholon (two officers who had accompanied Napoleon to St Helena), and published 1822-7.
Beaumarchais
: 1732-99, French dramatist; author of the
Mariage de Figaro
( 1784), from which this epigraph is taken (V.3).
I am no angel
: Molière,
Tartuffe
( III.3).
a footstool
: see n. to p. 335.
Chêteau d'Aiguillon
: built in the 17th c.
like Othello
: echo of Desdemona's speech to the Venetian Senate ( I.3).
Louis XI
:
1423-83; reigned from 1461. In his strife with his great lords and
his feud with Charles the Bold he displayed cold, calculating cunning.
Duchess of Burgundy
: Adelaide of Savoy had married Louis XIV's grandson Louis of Burgundy in 1697, and the old king delighted in her company.
fifteenth regiment of Hussars
: there were only 14.
Article 1342 of the Penal Code
:
the Penal Code of 1810 contained only 484 articles. Article 295 deals
with 'murder', defined as 'voluntary homicide'. Article 296 deals
with 'assassinat', defined as 'murder committed with premeditation'.
From this time forth I never will speak word
:
Othello
, V. a (quoted m English by Stendhal).
bad French
:
a survey conducted in 1794 revealed that 6 million Frenchmen spoke no
French at all, and another 6 million spoke it very imperfectly; only 3
million were judged to speak it correctly. Despite the attempts of
the Revolution to eradicate the various regional dialects in favour of
a national language, French in 1830 was still a second language for
large sections of the population.
Sterne
: 1713-68.
Lavalitte's escape
:
Lavalette ( 1769-1830) was an important figure in Napoleon's army and
civil administration. He was condemned to death in 1815 for his part
in engineering Napoleon's comeback, but managed to escape from prison
by changing clothes with his wife. He was smuggled into Bavaria, where
he remained until

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granted a pardon in 1822. Sadly, his wife had by this time lost her
reason, and never recognized him when he returned to Paris.
René
: novel by Chateaubriand ( 1768- 1848), published in 1802. Its hero suffers from world-weariness.
Fouqué's bad grammar
: see n. to p. 475 on bad French.
Congregationist
: member of the Congregation (see n. to p. 25).
Bishop of
---: see n. to p. 426.
Locke
: quoted in French by Stendhal.
The Life of John Locke with Extracts from his Correspondence, Journals and Commonplace Books
was published by Lord King in 1829.
suppression of the death penalty
:
this was a subject of contemporary debate. Victor Hugo had published a
poem entitled 'The Last Days of a Condemned Man' in 1829.
the Fronde
:
name of an uprising of nobles against Cardinal Mazarin during Louis
XIV's minority ( 1648-52). The Duchesse de Chevreuse ( 1600-79) and
the Duchesse de Longueville ( 1619-79) were leading figures in the
movement.
king of terrors
: Job 18: 14.
Jacobin law
: the law of 2 May 1827 had extended the list of those eligible for jury service.
liberal by defection
: see n. to p. 291 on the 1827 elections.
events of 1814
: fall of Napoleon and Restoration of Louis XVIII.
bad French
: see n. to p. 475.
Lavalette
: see n. to p. 478. Lavalette glanced at his watch as his death sentence was read out.
Chapter 42
: the last 4 chapters have neither title nor epigraph.
Fénelon's God
: Fénelon ( 1651-1715), prelate and writer. His
Maxims of the Saints
( 1697) were condemned by the Church for Quietism.
thou hast loved much
: echo of Christ's words to Mary Magdalene (
Luke
7: 47)
Danton . . . prevented the enemy from reaching Paris
:
the Jacobins, led by Danton, set up the Insurrectionary Commune on 10
Aug. 1792. Prussian forces marched on France in July 1792, but were
defeated by the revolutionary armies at Valmy on 20 Sept.
. . .
of common men
: lines quoted (with a minor inaccuracy) from Voltaire play Mahomet, 1741 ( II. 5): 'Du droit qu'un esprit

-558-

ferme et vaste en ses desseins / A sur l'esprit grossier des vulgaires humains.'
Manuel
: 1775-1827; barrister and liberal deputy under the Restoration. He fought in the revolutionary armies from 1792 to 1797.
Belphégor's lines
:
'. . . le nœud du mariage / Damne aussi dru qu'aucuns autres estats'
('The marriage bond / Damns as surely as any other state'), from La
Fontaine tale
Belphégor
( v,7), in which a demon sent to Earth
to investigate the marriage state discovers that conjugal life is not a
bed of roses.
charcoal
:
presumably from the fumes. Carbon monoxide poisoning was a recognized
hazard of cooking on charcoal stoves and chafing dishes.
latterday apostate
: comparison of Julien with Julian the Apostate (331-63): Roman emperor from 361), who forsook Christianity for paganism.
almost noon
: Mass could not be celebrated after noon.
natural rights
: reference to Rousseau
Social Contract
(see n. to p. 22).
confiscated from the Protestants
: to hand out to nobles in favour at Court.
King of Rome
:
Napoleon II ( 1811-32), son of Napoleon by his second wife
Marie-Louise, was proclaimed King of Rome at his birth. Napoleon
abdicated in his favour in both 1814 and 1815.
Dubois
:
in 1720 Massillon (see n. to p. 423) officiated under Cardinal de
Rohan at the consecration of Cardinal Dubois (see n. to p. 248).
novena
: 9 days of ritual prayer.
Charles X
: 1757-1836; reigned 1824-30.

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