The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (212 page)

2
.
the three blows
: In French theatres, before the curtain goes up, the stage manager demands the audience’s attention by knocking three times on the floor with a rod. The phrase,
frapper les trois coups
(here applied to the striking of the clock), indicates the hush before the action starts.

3
.
the antique knife-grinder
: A marble statue which Dumas saw in Florence and which intrigued him because the pose of the figure suggests that he is preoccupied with something other than grinding his knife.

4
.
Louis XVI
: Guillotined in January 1793.

1
.
Augustus… master of the universe
: A reference to Corneille’s play,
Cinna
(Act V, Scene 3).

2
.
britzka
: A light horse-drawn carriage with a covered rear seat.

3
.
François I… Shakespeare
: François I wrote a couplet on the fickleness of women. Othello says of Desdemona: ‘She was false as water’ (Act V, Scene 2); and Hamlet exclaims: ‘Frailty, thy name is woman!’ (Act I, Scene 2).

1
.
the glorious Egyptian campaign
: One of Napoleon’s earliest successes was the conquest of Egypt in 1798 (though it was abandoned after Nelson’s victory over the French fleet at Aboukir).

2
.
Virgil… goddess
: ‘Her walk revealed a true goddess…’; Virgil,
Aeneid
, Book I, lines 404–5.

1
.
Duprez… O, Mathilde, idole de mon âme
: Gilbert Duprez, tenor, whom Dumas had met in Naples in 1835. The phrase is sung by Melchthal in Rossini’s opera
William Tell
(Act I, Scene 5).

2
.
Lara… Manfred… Lord Ruthwen
: See note 4 to
Chapter
XXXIV
and note 6 to
Chapter
XXXVI
.

1
.
‘Suivez-moi!’
: In
William Tell
, Act II, Scene 2.

1
.
Brutus… Philippi
: ‘Plutarch mentions that Caesar’s ghost made its appearance to Brutus in his tent and told him that he would meet him at Philippi’ (Lemprière,
Classical Dictionary
). Brutus and Cassius were defeated by Antony and Octavian at Philippi in 42
BC
.

1
.
Feuchères… Barye
: The Romantic sculptor Jean-Jacques Feuchère (1807–52) and the animal specialist Antoine-Louis Barye (1796–1875).

1
.
holy Vehme or francs-juges
: The
vehme
was a church court in medieval Germany which, like the courts of the
francs-juges
, held its sessions in secret and gave account to no one for its judgements. The reference to Sterne seems to refer to Yorick’s sermon in
Tristram Shandy
, Book II, Chapter 17.

2
.
Atreides
: Members of the accursed family of Atreus in Greek myth.

1
.
Phaedrus… Bias
: The maxim is found in Plato’s
Philebus
and is sometimes attributed to Solon, rather than to the Latin translator of Aesop’s
Fables
. Bias was one of the seven wise men of Greece.

2
.
at the Porte Saint-Martin or the Gaîté
: The sites of popular theatres showing the kind of melodrama in which fathers would behave in this way.

3
.
Pasta, Malibran or Grisi
: Famous opera singers.

4
.
Law… Mississippi
: John Law (1671–1729) was a Scotsman who played an important role in French finances in the early eighteenth century, firstly as controller of finances, then as the creator of the Compagnie d’Occident which for a long time had a monopoly on trade with North
America. His plans to raise money to colonize Louisiana led to the collapse of the scheme and caused many bankruptcies.

5
.
Desdemona
: From Rossini’s
Otello
(1816).

1
.
Dorante… Valère… Alceste… Théâtre Français
: Lovers in plays by Molière (
Le Misanthrope, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme
and
Tartuffe
). The Théâtre Français is another name for the Comédie-Française, the leading French classical theatre, which originated in Molière’s own company.

2
.
Boileau
: Nicolas Boileau (1636–1711), a literary critic who offered the most consistent formulation of the theory underpinning French literary classicism.

3
.
quaerens quem devoret
: The Devil, ‘seeking whom he may devour’ (I Peter 5:8).

1
.
Hercules… Omphale
: Omphale, Queen of Lydia, bought Hercules as a slave, not knowing who he was, and fell in love with him. The pair were also in the habit of cross-dressing: ‘As they [Hercules and Omphale] once travelled together, they came to a grotto on Mount Tmolus, where the queen dressed herself in the habit of her lover, and obliged him to appear in a female garment…’ (Lemprière,
Classical Dictionary
). However, by casting herself in the role of Hercules, Eugénie is simply indicating that she is the dominant partner, and physically the stronger.

2
.
britzka
: See note 2 to
Chapter
LXXXV
.

1
.
excellent hostelry… remember
: The building that once housed the Hôtel de la Cloche et de la Bouteille still exists in Compiègne. Dumas greatly admired the proprietor, Vuillemot, and often stayed here. It was in Compiègne, he tells us, that he finished writing
The Count of Monte Cristo
.

2
.
Achilles with Deidamia
: The print could be from a painting by either Rubens or Teniers, both of whom depicted Achilles at the court of
Lycomedes, King of Scyros, whose daughter was seduced by Achilles. In order to win her favours, he came to her father’s court disguised in women’s clothes.

1
.
Germain Pilon’s three Graces
: The group,
The Three Graces
, was commissioned from the sculptor Germain Pilon (1528–90) to support the funerary urn of King Henri II. It is now in the Louvre.

1
.
Robert Macaire… Frédérick
: ‘Robert Macaire’ was the central character in Antier, Saint-Amant and Paulyanthe’s melodrama,
L’Auberge des Adrets
(1823) and its sequel
Robert Macaire
(1834). It was famously played by Frédérick Lemaître (1800–76), who features in this role in Marcel Carné’s film,
Les Enfants du paradis
(played by Pierre Brasseur).

1
.
Héloïse and Abélard
: A monument to the twelfth-century lovers, made to cover their tomb after Héloïse’s death in 1164, was eventually transferred to the Père Lachaise cemetery in the early nineteenth century.

2
.
Malherbe… du Périer
: A celebrated poem to console du Périer on the death of his daughter, by François de Malherbe (1555–1628).

3
.
the daughter of Jairus
: The story of how Jesus resurrected the daughter of Jairus is told in three gospels (Matthew 19: 18–26; Mark 5: 22–43; and Luke 8: 40–56). The story of Jesus walking on the water is in Matthew, 14: 28–9.

1
.
Saint-Germain-des-Prés
:
Chapter
XCI
puts the house in the Rue des Saint-Pères (which is in the district of Saint-Germain-des-Prés).

2
.
Asmodée… Le Sage
: In Le Sage’s play,
Le Diable boiteux
(1707).

3
.
Lamoricière… Changarnier… Bedeau
: Christophe-Louis-Léon Juchault de Lamoricière (1806–65), Nicholas-Anne-Théodule Changarnier (1793–1877) and Marie-Alphonse Bedeau (1804–63) were officers who distinguished themselves in the conquest of Algeria.

1
.
La Force
: The building, originally a thirteenth-century royal mansion, became a prison in 1782, housed political prisoners during the Revolution and was demolished in 1850.

2
.
Barrière Saint-Jacques
: After 1832, the place where executions were carried out.

3
.
quos ego
: ‘You, whom I…’ the start of Neptune’s reprimand to the disobedient winds in Virgil’s
Aeneid
, Book II, l. 135.

4
.
as Monsieur Racine says
: In his play
Phèdre
, Act I, Scene 3.

1
.
Tarquin
: Tarquin the Proud (534–
510 BC
), King of Rome, who indicated to his son, Tarquinius Sextus, how he wanted him to treat the leading citizens of the beseiged town of Gabii by knocking the heads off some flowers.

1
.
Saint-Simon
: Louis de Rouvroy, Duc de Saint-Simon (1675–1755) was the celebrated author of memoirs on the court of Louis XIV. The reference has not been traced, and could be an invention of Dumas’.

1
.
a shirt of Nessus
: The garment, poisoned with the blood of the centaur Nessus, which caused the death of Hercules.

2
.
Titans… Ajax… at the gods
: In Greek mythology, the Titans were giants who challenged the gods. Ajax, son of Oileus, was saved from drowning and boasted that he had survived without the help of the gods; for this impiety, Neptune cast him back into the water.

1
.
Perrault’s stories
: Charles Perrault (1628–1703) was the author of the original versions of many of the best-known fairy-tales. In this case the reference is to
Sleeping Beauty
.

1
.
Since the July Revolution
: In 1830. See note 1 to
Chapter
XLVIII
.

2
.
Mirabeau’s imprisonment
: See note 1 to
Chapter
VIII
.

3
.
like Hamlet
: Shakespeare,
Hamlet
, Act III, Scene 1.

4
.
Ganymede
: A Trojan youth who ‘became the cup-bearer of the gods in the place of Hebe. Some say that he was carried away by an eagle, to satisfy the shameful and unnatural desires of Jupiter’ (Lemprière,
Classical Dictionary
).

1
.
Figaro’s ‘goddam’
: In Beaumarchais’
Le Mariage de Figaro
, Act III, Scene 5.

2
.
Marius and the Gracchi
: Gaius Marius (155–
86 BC
) was a Roman general; the two Gracchi were political reformers who tried to redistribute wealth, but were murdered successively in 133
BC
and 121
BC
. Dumas seems to be using the names simply as representative early citizens of Rome.

3
.
morra
: A game in which one player tries to shout out the number of
fingers shown on the hand of the other, who quickly raises and lowers them.

4
.
Circus of Caracalla
: The baths and circus of the Emperor Caracalla (188–217) still survive on the outskirts of Rome.

1
.
sauces Robert
: An onion sauce which Dumas, in his
Grand dictionnaire de cuisine
, describes as highly appetizing, as well as highly flavoured.

2
.
the barrel of the Danaids
: The fifty daughters of the king of Argos were betrothed to the fifty sons of Aegyptus, but their father, to avert a prophecy that he would be killed by one of his sons-in-law, made them promise to murder their husbands. They were condemned to spend eternity in hell filling barrels full of holes.