The Toilers of the Sea (49 page)

110.
Edward the Confessor:
Hugo deliberately hyphenates the name Édou-ard.

111.
Savoyard vicar:
a character in Rousseau's
Émile
who preached tolerance.

112.
philosopher:
The reference is to the eighteenth-century French
philosophes
like Voltaire.

113.
Montlosier:
the Comte de Montlosier, an opponent of the clericalism of the extreme right during the Restoration.

114.
“Bourmont . . . on purpose”:
Bourmont was one of Napoleon's generals who went over to Louis XVIII four days before Waterloo. There is an untranslatable pun in Lethierry's remark. It replaces the term
trait d'union
(hyphen, link) with
traître d'union
(traitor of union).

115. Raca: See Matthew 5:22.

116.
Chaussée d'Antin: See note 12.

117.
Mariotte:
Edme Mariotte, a famous seventeenth-century French physicist who formulated what is known in English as Boyle's Law (in France, Mariotte's Law).

118.
Saint-Servan:
a little town just outside Saint-Malo.

119.
Villèle:
French prime minister, was forced to resign in 1828.
two towns on the
River Plate:
Montevideo in Uruguay and Buenos Aires in Argentina, which are on opposite sides of the Rio de la Plata.

120.
Diebitsch:
a Russian general who passed through the Balkans on his way to defeating the Turkish army in 1828.
Leo XII:
Pope Leo XII died in 1829.

121.
Berton:
a French general who organized an insurrection in Saumur and was tried and executed in 1822.
the Bidassoa:
a Spanish river on the frontier with France, where a group of rebels tried to prevent French intervention in Spain.

122.
Restoration:
of the Bourbon monarchy in France, 1815–30.

123.
. . . the social order of the day:
The names in this paragraph are of various rebels and conspirators against the established order; the places that people avoided were the scenes of acts of repression by the Restoration government.

124.
The men . . . Champ d'Asile:
The men of the Loire were a group of French soldiers, demobilized on the Loire after Waterloo, who set out to establish a settlement on the Gulf of Mexico, the Champ d'Asile or Field of Refuge.

125.
the Convention:
the Revolutionary assembly that governed France between 1792 and 1795.

126.
Bourgain . . . Séguin:
financiers of the Revolutionary period.

127.
Mandrin:
a famous eighteenth-century bandit and smuggler.
Comte de
Charolais:
a nobleman notorious for his violence and debauchery.

128.
Sagane:
a sorceress mentioned in a poem by Horace.
Mademoiselle Lenormand:
a clairvoyant and soothsayer.

129.
Brocken:
the mountain in the Harz that is the scene of the witches' sabbath in Goethe's
Faust. Armuyr:
identified by Hugo in
Les Misérables
(Part IV, Book XI, Chapter II) as the heath on which Macbeth encountered the witches in Shakespeare's play.

130.
This was what the ghosts were saying:
Hugo gives the conversation in Spanish (not reproduced here), followed by a French translation.

131. “Egurraldia gaïztoa?”: “In bad weather?” (Basque).

132.
Pundonor:
“Point of honor” (Spanish).

133.
Noguette:
a bell brought from Brazil by the celebrated eighteenth-century privateer Duguay-Trouin.

134.
Lacenaire:
a notorious murderer of the early nineteenth century.

135. setier: an old measure of capacity that varied from region to region and according to the substance measured.
liard:
a quarter of a sou, which was five centimes.

136.
Talleyrand:
French statesman noted for his capacity for political survival, serving successive regimes from the Revolution to the July Monarchy (Louis Philippe). Dictionary of Weathervanes: The
Dictionnaire des Girouettes,
published in 1815, listed the many changes of allegiance among politicians since the French Revolution.

137.
“How d'you do?”:
Hugo, who made a point of not knowing English, actually puts the greeting “Good-bye” in the old sea-captain's mouth.

138.
Douvres:
There is a group of rocks off Guernsey known as the Douvres, but not at the position assigned to them by Hugo.

139.
the Moines:
the Monks.

140.
the Canard:
the Duck.

141.
Malouins:
“Malouin, malin”; a play on words (
malin
means shrewd, cunning).

142.
the Maisons:
the Houses.

143.
Surcouf:
Robert Surcouf (1773–1827), a French seaman; originally a privateer who preyed on British shipping in the Indian Ocean, later a wealthy shipowner.

144.
Duguay-Trouin: See note 92.

145.
Odéon:
the Théâtre de l'Odéon in Paris, which was twice destroyed by fire.

146.
a square toise:
about forty square feet.

147.
Marie Alacoque:
a seventeenth-century nun who had visions of the Sacred Heart.
Cadière and the nun of Louviers:
Catherine Cadière and Madeleine Bavent, the nun of Louviers, were seduced by their confessors and subsequently accused of witchcraft.

148. Escobar: A famous eighteenth-century casuist, Escobar was a Spanish Jesuit.
Léotade:
a French friar, found guilty in 1848 of the murder and attempted rape of a girl of fourteen.

149.
Boue Corneille:
A
boue
is an underwater rock.

150. gestatorial chair: a chair in which the pope was carried on certain occasions. in abito paonazzo: the purple robes of a monsignore (the honorific title of a prelate or officer of the papal court).

151.
the Sorbonne:
Paris's university, originally a theological college and ecclesiastical tribunal.

152. Solus eris: “You will be alone.” From a poem by Ovid, written during his exile from Rome.

153.
It was . . . his father Zibeon:
the reference is to Genesis 36:24. The Authorized Version differs from the text cited by Dr. Hérode, which follows the Vulgate.

154.
deputy viscount:
a traditional title on Jersey, equivalent to deputy sheriff.

155.
Barjesus:
Acts 13:6–11.
Elkesai:
a first-century heretic.
Aholibamah . . . Judith:
Genesis 26:34 and 36:14.
Reuben:
the reference to Isaac's firstborn son is not explained in the Old Testament.
Peniel:
apparently an invented name.

156. Genesis 24:62–67.

157.
and then they bleat:
There seems to be an inventive pun here. The word
moutonner
(from
mouton,
sheep) that Hugo uses means, when applied to the sea, “to be flecked with foam”; but in the present context there is surely a reference to sheep bleating.

158.
Gulf of Stora:
in Algeria.

159.
strangury:
a medical term for retention of urine.

160.
the Eel Bank:
a submarine bank off the southern tip of Africa.
Dumont-d'Urville:
a celebrated early-nineteenth-century French navigator and explorer.

161.
Toluca:
in Mexico.

162. de Ruyter: the great seventeenth-century Dutch admiral.

163.
Lisbon earthquake:
the famous earthquake of 1755, which destroyed much of the city.

164.
Firth of Forth . . . Scotland:
What Hugo actually wrote is a prime example of his determination not to know the English language as well as his shaky knowledge of British geography. He gives the name of the cliff, in English, as the “First of the Fourth.”

165.
Annweiler valley:
in the German Rhineland.

166.
confervae:
a species of alga.

167. Importunaeque Volucres: “And the birds of ill omen . . .” A quotation from Virgil's
Georgics.

168. cagniardelle: an early-nineteenth-century invention, which used the principle of the Archimedean screw to produce a draft. trompe: a mechanism that produced a draft by the flow of water through a funnel.

169. gladiator: Hugo uses the term belluaire, a gladiator who fought against wild animals. Hence the reference in the next sentence to Gilliatt as a “tamer.”

170.
Danaids:
In Greek mythology, the Danaids were condemned eternally to pour water into bottomless pots as punishment for murdering their husbands.

171.
syrinxes:
passages in ancient Egyptian rock-cut royal tombs.

172.
Enceladus:
in classical mythology, a Titan imprisoned under Mount Etna whose breath caused eruptions of the volcano.

173.
Amontons:
a seventeenth-century physicist.
Lahire:
a seventeenth-century astronomer and mathematician.
Coulomb:
an eighteenth-century physicist.

174.
. . . the man who performed this miracle:
There is some doubt about the authenticity of this story.

175.
Balmat:
Jacques Balmat, a Chamonix guide, climbed Mont Blanc in 1786, and in the following year climbed it again with the Swiss naturalist and physicist Horace-Bénédict de Saussure.

176.
Marly waterworks:
Marly was a small palace near Paris built for Louis XIV. The “waterworks” raised water from the Seine to supply the palace of Versailles.

177. Sub Re: Hugo seems to take this phrase (literally, “under the thing”) to refer to the task with which Gilliatt was now faced.

178. Sub Umbra: “In the shadows.”

179.
Thomas:
Alexandre Thomas was imprisoned on Mont Saint-Michel in 1840.
Boisrosé:
Captain Boisrosé and his men scaled a cliff near Fécamp in 1592 to take an enemy fort.
Trenck:
Baron von Trenck escaped from a Prussian fortress in 1746.
Latude:
Jean-Henri Latude was an eighteenth-century French adventurer who escaped once from the Bastille and twice from the prison of Vincennes.

180.
Jean Bart: See note 88.

181.
groyne . . . dike:
The French term is
épi;
“groyne” seems the nearest English equivalent. “Dike” is presumably what Hugo intends with his word
dick.

182.
syzygies:
conjunctions of the sun, moon, and earth.

183. Solem quis dicere falsum audeat?: “Who would dare to call the sun false?” (Virgil's
Georgics
).

184.
“an eel under a rock”:
the French equivalent of a snake in the grass.

185.
Surcouf: See note 143.

186. Napier: Admiral Sir Charles Napier (1786–1860).

187. Weepers' Tower: It was from the Weepers' Tower (Schreierstoren) in Amsterdam that sailors' wives watched their menfolk going off to sea.

188.
Ango: See note 90.

189. Messier: Charles Messier (1730–1817).

190.
Ceto:
in classical mythology a Nereid, daughter of Earth and Sea.

191. Turba, Turma: “The crowd, the troop.”

192.
Lémery:
Nicolas Lémery (1645–1715), French physician and chemist.

193. Malo viento toma contra el sol: “An ill wind turns against the sun.”

194.
Cap de Fer:
on the coast of Algeria.

195.
Stevenson:
Robert Stevenson (1772–1850), the Scottish engineer famed for his lighthouses.

196.
Enceladus: See note 172.

197. Thomas Fuller: English theologian and historian (1608–61).

198.
Piddington:
Henry Piddington (1797–1858), English meteorologist.

199.
devilfish:
an old name for the octopus. The word used by Hugo is
pieuvre,
the term for an octopus in the dialect of the Channel Islands. Thanks to the popularity of Hugo's novel,
pieuvre
has largely displaced the older French term
poulpe.

200.
jararaca:
a venomous snake of Brazil.

201.
buthus:
a particularly venomous yellow scorpion found in the south of France.

202.
ell:
English unit of measure; equals 45 inches.

203.
Buffon:
the celebrated eighteenth-century naturalist, author of a monumental
Natural History. Denys Montfort, Bory de Saint-Vincent, Péron, Lamarck:
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French naturalists.

204.
The entrance is also the exit:
Not so: the octopus has in fact two orifices.

205.
radiates:
animals with radial structure, like polyps and sea anemones: one of the great divisions of the animal world under Cuvier's now discarded system.

206. De Profundis ad Altum: “From the depths to the height”: a reference to Psalm 129:1 in the Vulgate (Psalm 130 in the Authorized Version).

207.
There Is an Ear in the Unknown:
The title of the previous chapter referred to Psalm 129:1 in the Vulgate (Psalm 130 in the Authorized Version). The title of this chapter refers to verse 2, the answer to the appeal in verse 1.

208.
Arnal's:
Étienne Arnal was a famous comic actor of the early nineteenth century.

209.
Hudson Lowe:
governor of St. Helena during Napoleon's confinement on the island.

210.
the treaty of Campo Formio:
treaty between France and Austria in 1797 that preserved most of Napoleon's conquests and marked the completion of his victory over the First Coalition.

211.
Vendôme Column:
in the Place Vendôme in Paris. Topped by a statue of Napoleon, it was pulled down in 1871 during the Commune and re-erected under the Third Republic.