The Red and the Black (81 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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100
Voltaire
:
1694-1788, philosopher and writer of the French Enlightenment;
mordant critic of all forms of religious and political humbug.
100
Louis XV
: 1710-74, came to the throne in 1715.
100
Chamber of Deputies
:
lower house of the French Parliament. Deputies were chosen by
electoral colleges, themselves elected by citizens paying sufficient
taxes to qualify as primary electors.
101
Fontenoy
: victory of the French over the English and the Dutch in 1745.
101
peculiar institution
:
reference to one of the local pious associations sponsored by the
official Congregation to enlist the lower orders (see n. to p. 25
above). They were believed by liberals to turn servants into spies.
101
as equals
: shown in French by the use of the 'familiar' pronoun tu.
102
Richelieu
:
1585-1642, cardinal and statesman. He entered Louis XIII's council in
1624 and played a major role in shaping the absolute monarchy and
centralizing French administration. (The Duc de Richelieu (see n. to
p. 394) had been prime minister in M
me
de Rênal's own time, but the cardinal is a more plausible model for her to choose.)
105
Bray-le-Haut
: fictitious.
105
Jansenist
:
follower of the doctrine of Cornelius Jansenius ( 1585-1638) on
divine grace, predestination, and the perverseness of the human will.
The history of the French Catholic Church was marked by hostility
between Jesuits and Jansenists.
106
département
:
the French Constitution of 1789 abolished the old French provinces
and divided the territory of France into 83 départements.
107
Leipzig
: site of the battle of the Nations in 1813 between Napoleon and the Allies.
Montmirail
: Napoleonic victory of 1814.
108
Revolution
: that of 1789.
108
Restoration
: see n. to p. 5 above.
108
Agde
: French port on the Mediterranean coast.
113
a sky-blue sash
: see n. to p. 212 below.
113
ardent chapel
: the French expression
chapelle ardente
is the standard term for a mortuary chapel lit by candles.

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114
St Clement
: the real St Clement was pope from 88 to 97, and was not a military figure. There are no surviving effigies of him.
115
Philip the Good
: 1396-1497, Duke of Burgundy from 1419.
116
'93 of cursed memory
: during the Terror of 1793, the National Guard in Lyon revolted, imprisoned the mayor and massacred 200 local Jacobins.
116
lottery office
: the royal lottery, founded in 1776, abolished in 1836.
116
yesserdy
: the French word hier is misspelt yert and italicized by Stendhal.
125
Guardate alia pagine 130
: 'look at page 130'.
125
spelling mistakes
: not reproduced by Stendhal in the text of the letter.
129
red morocco case
:
Stendhal specifies a case used to hold a single glass. It was
customary for a suitor to have a crystal glass engraved with
appropriate verses, and to present this to his beloved in a case as a
love-token. M
me
de Rênal might well have received such a case from her husband.
133
Casino
: Stendhal's uncle had frequented an Ultra-royalist circle in Grenoble called the Casino.
134
making her eat his heart
: see n. to p. 52.
140
That man taking refuge on his roof
:
allusion to a notorious incident in the Isère in 1816, when a liberal
innkeeper who had fallen foul of the Ultras tried to escape arrest by
climbing on to a neighbour's roof, and was shot dead.
143 Malagrida: 1689-1761, Italian Jesuit burned in Lisbon by the
Inquisition on account of his seditious writings. This quotation is
generally (and elsewhere by Stendhal) attributed to the diplomat
Talleyrand ( 1754-1838).
144
edicate
: the French verb
éduquer
(italicized by Stendhal) had been stigmatized by Voltaire, and was
still considered vulgar in the 1860s by the lexicographer Littré.
144
King Philip
:
Philip II of Macedon ( 382-336 BC) employed Aristotle as rotor to his
son Alexander. M. de Maugiron's compliment to Julien is modelled
directly on the text of an apocryphal letter from King Philip to
Aristotle, quoted in 19th-c. biographies of Aristotle.
148
the last mission
: the Catholic Church organized a number of propaganda missions in the provinces during the Restoration.

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148
Ligorio's new theology
:
St Alphonsus Liguori ( 1696-1787) was a Neapolitan bishop and
missionary who founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (
1732). He was an outspoken critic of Jansenism.
149
La Fontaine
: 1621-95. French poet whose Fables have long been an obligatory ingredient in French children's education.
149
Messire Jean Chouart
: the priest in the fable
'The Priest and the Dead Man'
( VII, 11): accompanying a coffin to the cemetery, he is thinking
covetously of the luxuries he will be able to buy with the money he
earns from this funeral, when a sudden jolt smashes his head against
the coffin, and he accompanies the dead man to the grave. The
annotated edition of the
Fables
published in 1818 by the writer Charles Nodier ( 1780-1844) gives a reactionary, monarchist commentary on the fables.
150
Gros
:
the geometer Louis-Gabriel Gros ( 1765-1812) had given tuition in
mathematics to the young Stendhal, unbeknown to his parents, since
Gros held Jansenist views. He was deeply admired by Stendhal.
152
cabaret
:
modest establishment serving wine and food, where it would be
fashionable and deliberately daring for people of the Rênals' class to
dine.
153
medical practitioners
: the French term
officier de santé
was applied from 1803 to 1892 to doctors who did not have the title of
docteur en médecine
.
155
Brotherhood of St Joseph . . . etc.
: officially registered pious associations (see n. to p. 25).
156
The Woes of a Civil Servant
: this chapter has a slightly different title in the table of contents.
156
Casti
:
1724-1803, Italian writer. 'The pleasure of holding one's head high
all year round is well worth buying at the price of one or two
quarters of an hour that have to be endured.'
156
Charter
: France was granted a Charter by Louis XVIII in 1814.
157
commune
: smallest administrative subdivision of a département.
157
Mad the man who trusts her
: the couplet attributed to Francois I ( 1494-1547):
Souvent femme varie / Bien fol qui s'y fie
is recorded by Brantôme (see n. to p. 316). It was given notoriety in
1832 by Victor Hugo in his portrayal of François I in
Le Roi s'amuse
, and features in Rigoletto (based on Hugo's play).
159
Congregation
: see n. to p. 25.

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159
Mr Five-and-Ninety
:
reference to a magistrate from Marseille, M. Mérindol, who, in a
court case against the pamphleteer Barthélemy in January 1830, let slip
the regional form
nonante-cinq
(instead of the standard
quatre-vingt-quinze
). He was mercilessly ridiculed by Barthélemy in a poem, and by the whole of the liberal press.
160
Signor Geronimo
:
probably modelled on the Italian singer Lablache ( 1794-1858), who
arrived in France around May 1830 to sing the role of Don Geronimo in
Cimarosa
Matrimonio Segreto
(first performed in Paris in Nov. 1830).
160
Zingarelli
: Italian composer and director of the Conservatory in Naples where Lablache had studied music.
160
Giovannone
: Giovanni Stile was appointed director of San-Carlino in 1810.
161
credete a me
: 'do believe me'.
162
carta canta
!: 'This paper proclaims them!'
170
siege of 1674
:
Besançon, which belonged to Spain, was besieged by Louis XIV's troops
for 27 days in 1674. It finally became French under the terms of the
treaty of Nijmegen in 1678.
173
La Nouvelle Héloïse
: see n. to p. 22 above.
174
Dôle
: Genlis is well beyond Dole (
sic
) on the road from Besançon to Dijon.
177
Besançon Valenod
:
Stendhal is here putting words into the mouth of the 'purveyor of
dinners' at the Besançon seminary (see p. 188)--the counterpart of M.
Valenod in the workhouse in Verrières. The French has a pun on the
term soumission ('submission'), which means both 'submissiveness' and
(as a commercial term) 'tender'.
180
Intelligenti pauca
: (Latin) 'Few words [are needed] for one who understands'.
180
Bossuet
:
1627-1704, Bishop of Meaux, theologian, and orator famous for the
eloquence of his sermons. He supported Louis XIV against
Protestantism, and championed the Gallican cause.
Arnault
:
Antoine Amauld, 1612-94, theologian; key figure in the Jansenist
movement associated with the convent of Port-Royal Fleury: see n. to
p. 11. Stendhal's grandfather was shocked to note that contemporary
priests were ignorant of the writings of this famous Church historian.
180
Vale et me ama
: (Latin) 'Farewell, and grant me your affection.'

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181
(Do you speak Latin?)
: the translations given in the text are Stendhal's.
183
Unam Ecclesiam
: 'One Church': this bull is an invention of Stendhal's.
185
Young
: Edward Young, 1681-1765, author of
Night Thoughts, and Love of Fame, the Universal Passion
.
This epigraph and the one to ch. 28 (both quoted in French) appear to
be fictitious; I have translated them 'back' into English.
186
Mount Verna
: Mount Alverino.
187
government by two Chambers
: established by the Charter of 1814.
187
books are her real enemies
: in 1827 a law was passed at the instigation of the clerical faction to curb freedom of the press.
187
Sieyès
: see n. to p. 73.
187
Grégoire
:
the Abbé Grégoire, 1750-1831, was Bishop of Blois and a member of the
Convention during the Revolution. He was elected deputy for Grenoble
in 1819.
190
Sixtus V
:
Felice Peretti, 1520-90, religious reformer, elected pope in 1585. He
had spent the previous 15 years in semidisgrace, pretending to be dumb
and lame, and was chosen as a compromise candidate who appeared to
offer little threat. On election, however, he immediately resumed full
possession of his faculties.
191
Abbé Delille
:
1738-1813, French poet and translator of Virgil. Stendhal met him in
his youth, and may have heard this anecdote at first hand.
191
Guercino
: 1591-1666, Italian fresco painter.
195
Diderot
: 1713-84, French Enlightenment philosopher.
200
the use of arms
:
Stendhal commented in a letter to Strich in 1825 on the fact that
since 1817 young peasants in seminaries throughout France had been
instructed in the use of arms to prepare them for the eventuality of a
civil war if the Jesuits were driven from France.
200
Incedo per ignes
: 'I go forward through the flames' ( Horace).
203
Barême's genius
: the reference is to B. F. Barrême ( 1640-1702), French mathematician.
203
altars of repose
: small altar on which the priest puts the consecrated sacrament, particularly during a procession.

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206 The Precursor: newspaper published in Lyon, and widely read in Paris, particularly in liberal circles.
209
The only king remembered by the crowd
: ('
Le seul roi dont le peuple ait gardé la mémoire
') this line of verse from the
Eulogie of Voltaire
by Gudin de la Brenellerie ( 1738- 1812) had been inscribed on the
base of the statue of Henri IV ( 1553-1610) by the Pont-Neuf in Paris.
212
Blue Sash
: the
cordon bleu
of the
Ordre du Saint-Esprit
(Order of the Holy Spirit), an order of knighthood founded by Henri
III in 1578, abolished in 1791, and re-established between 1815 and
1830. The cross was fastened to a wide, azure-blue ribbon worn as a
sash across the right shoulder.
215
Emigration
: adversaries of the Revolution took refuge abroad after 1789.
216
Mary Magdalene
: reference to the poet Delphine Gay 1804-55, who recited her poetry in the salons of the period.
219
Sacred Heart of Jesus
:
devotion founded by a visitation nun, St Marguerite-Marie Alacoque (
1647-90). It was much favoured by the Congregation in the 1820s.
Stendhal commented in 1825 on the unscrupulous way in which the
Jesuits used the gory image of the Sacred Heart to manipulate the
emotions of women in the provinces.
220
Marie Alacoque
: see preceding n.
221
particular Cabinet
:
at the beginning of 1828 an Ultra right-wing faction had tried to
take over the Cabinet, against the wishes of the country as expressed
in recent elections.
222
in pace
: (Latin: 'in peace') reference to underground cells used to lock up dissident monks.
239
Sainte-Beuve
: 1804-69, French writer and critic.
239
Virgil
: 'O countryside, when shall I gaze on you?' The quotation is in fact from Horace (
Satires
, II. vi. 60).
240
Mirabeau
:
the Comte de Mirabeau, 1749-91 (son of the economist and physiocrat
Marquis de Mirabeau), was a leading figure of the Third Estate. An
advocate of constitutional monarchy, he used his oratorical powers to
steer a dangerous course between the revolutionaries and the Court.
One of his triumphs was to get the Constituent Assembly to vote for a
patriotic levy.
240
last election
: the liberal opposition gained ground at the expense of the Ultras in the general election of 1827.

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