4
a bloodstained fingerprint:
This is the closest the novel comes to any sort of forensic consideration. Given the novel’s subject matter and Zola’s declared interest in scientific methods, this appears surprising.
CHAPTER IV
1
the examining magistrate:
The examining magistrate (
juge d‘instruction
) was (and still is) responsible for a preliminary investigation into a crime. In current Anglo-American procedure, such an investigation would be carried out by the police. In France in the nineteenth century, investigation was passed on to the judiciary at an early stage of a criminal inquiry. The examining magistrate’s investigation was conducted in private. If there was insufficient evidence, the case would be dismissed. If the examining magistrate felt that there was a case to be answered, it would be forwarded for trial by jury in an open court (
cour d’assises
).
2
opposition newspapers:
From its inception in December 1852, the Second Empire had promoted ‘official’ government newspapers (such as
L’Opinion nationale
) and exercised rigorous censorship of the opposition press. The latter years of the regime, however, saw a more liberal attitude towards the press and the creation of a number of new opposition newspapers. According to James McMillan, ‘in the run-up to the 1869 elections, some 150 newspapers were founded, 120 of them hostile to the regime. The most vituperative was
La Lanterne’
(James McMillan,
Napoleon III
, Longman, 1991, p. 125). The ‘opposition’ included a range of dissidents from Republicans on the left to Orleanists on the right. Zola himself contributed frequently to the opposition press (see Introduction).
3
two deputies who held official positions in the Emperor’s personal entourage:
In March 1869, the Legislative Assembly challenged the right of two members of the Emperor’s ‘household’ to sit as deputies in the lower chamber. The deputies concerned were Monsieur de Bourgoing, the Emperor’s equerry, and Monsieur de Piennes, the Emperor’s chamberlain. The debate raised important constitutional issues.
4
the financial administration of the Prefect of the Seine:
The Prefect of the Seine was the famous Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann (1809 — 91), who was responsible for the wholesale rebuilding of central Paris between 1853 and 1869. The issue in question was Haussmann’s request for retrospective sanction of a loan from Le Crédit Foncier to the municipality of Paris amounting to about a quarter of the whole French budget. It was clearly felt that such arrangements should be subject to approval by a municipal council. At the time, no such council existed.
5
the Tuileries Palace:
The palace of the Emperor, Napoleon III (1808 — 73).
6
the Ministry of Justice:
In France, the judiciary was (and still is) conceived as an instrument of executive authority rather than an authority separate from government. It was overseen by the Ministry of Justice, whose officers were answerable directly to the Emperor. Monsieur Camy-Lamotte’s position within the ministry is the equivalent of a permanent under-secretary (see Introduction).
7
bring them face to face:
It was standard procedure for the examining magistrate to arrange a confrontation between a suspect and a witness in order to observe the suspect’s reaction.
8
Petit-Couronne:
A town on the river Seine, near Rouen. In the nineteenth century it was a small fishing village.
9
they managed to get from their carriage to the President’s
...
while the train was travelling at full speed:
In 1869, railway carriages did not have corridors; each compartment was self-contained. Zola assumes his readers will understand that in order to get from one carriage to another it would have been necessary to get outside the train and walk along the carriage footboard, jumping from one carriage to the next. Corridor trains were not introduced until the late 1880s. It is not surprising that Denizet finds such an operation difficult to believe.
10
brain fever:
I.e. typhoid.
CHAPTER V
1
Séverine knew that he would be in at one o’clock:
How Séverine knew this is not explained. The audacity of this apparently casual visit to the private address of a high-placed government official would have appeared just as remarkable to readers of Zola’s time as it does to the present-day reader. It serves to indicate the extent of the Roubauds’ anxiety.
2
their anxiety would be at an end:
Zola’s novel has been interpreted as a ‘riposte’ to Dostoyevsky’s
Crime and Punishment
(see Introduction), but this account of the criminal being driven by his own anxiety to confess his crime has a strong affinity with comments made by the investigator Porfiry in Dostoyevsky’s novel. ‘I make damn sure that every hour and every minute he knows, or at least suspects that I know everything ... and that I’m keeping an eye on him night and day ... and if he’s conscious of the never-ending suspicion and terror in which I’m keeping him ... he’ll go off into a whirl, he’ll come running of his own accord’ (Dostoyevsky,
Crime and Punishment,
translated by David McDuff, Penguin Classics, 1991, p. 400).
3
the police were so busy protecting politicians that they didn’t have time to arrest murderers:
‘The elections of May — June 1869 unleashed pent-up political passions ... In Paris the electoral campaign was accompanied by an upsurge in violence and threats to public order. Attendance at electoral meetings averaged 20,000 nightly, and rioting was commonplace’ (McMillan,
Napoleon III
, p. 126).
4
They were walking past the entrance to a little park:
The creation of parks and green space was an important part of Haussmann’s rebuilding of Paris, and one which the Emperor himself took a particular interest in. ‘In 1848 Paris had only 19 hectares of parks; by 1870 the total was 1,800’ (Alistair Horne,
Seven Ages of Paris
, Macmillan, 2002, p. 270).
5
the pain de gruau was exquisite, and to finish she treated herself
to
a plate of beignets soufflés:
‘Pain de gruau’ was a speciality white bread made from finely milled flour of wheat. ‘Beignets soufflés’ might be described as small, light-textured doughnuts. They are served hot with confectioner’s sugar and various flavourings. This menu is an indication that French culinary arts (and the culinary language to match) were well advanced in 1869.
6
It was a broad-chested
,
long-limbed, powerful machine:
The analogy between steam locomotives and horses recurs throughout the novel. Zola seeks to ‘animate’ descriptions of locomotive technology by reference to something less technical and still perhaps, even in 1890, more familiar to his readers. The horses referred to are nearly always female (‘fillies’ or ‘mares’).
7
sand boxes:
In difficult conditions, sand would be applied to the rails ahead of the driving wheels in order to improve adhesion, especially when a locomotive was moving a heavy train from stationary.
8
warmly dressed in woollen trousers and smock:
The design of early steam locomotives took little account of the comfort or safety of the driving crew. The driver’s footplate was usually protected by nothing more than a front weather-shield; the overhead roof and enclosed cab were a later luxury. Jacques and Pecqueux are thus exposed to the full force of the elements and also to sparks and cinders thrown out of the locomotive’s chimney; hence the need for strong protective clothing, made out of heavy wool (or pilot cloth), and goggles.
9
reversing wheel:
A hand-operated wheel used by the driver not only to reverse a locomotive but, as here, to control the admission of steam to the cylinders when the locomotive was moving forward. Once sufficient forward momentum was achieved, less tractive effort was needed, and the input of steam could be progressively reduced, a procedure referred to as ‘cut-off’. This helped to economize on fuel consumption and to reduce wear and tear to the cylinders and valve gear.
10
injector:
A mechanism invented in 1859 by the French engineer Henry Giffard, which enabled the water in the boiler to be replenished with the aid of steam pressure from the boiler itself. There was a critical point at which the mechanism functioned successfully; hence Jacques’s attention to the pressure gauge.
CHAPTER VI
1
She had put five or six pots of wallflowers and verbena in the valley of the station roof:
Séverine’s roof garden is a striking example of the vein of horticultural imagery that runs through the novel. Zola’s wife had an extensive knowledge of horticulture; her mother and sister-in-law were both florists.
2
some strange city
,
lined with big
,
square palaces built of black
marble: In a novel which lays emphasis on realistic description, this is a striking example of an ‘unreal’, almost futuristic representation of place.
3
In spite of everything, she had remained virgin:
This is the third time in this chapter that Zola has referred to Séverine in these terms, insistently drawing the reader’s attention to Séverine’s purity and innocence of mind.
4
sous:
The official unit of currency during the Second Empire was the franc, which was divided into one hundred centimes. In daily usage people referred (and still do) to an obsolete unit of currency, the
sou
, which was then worth five centimes. The extent of Roubaud’s gambling debts becomes apparent later in the novel (see chapter IX, note 1).
5
écarté:
A game of cards for two players, similar to piquet (see chapter III, note 3). The players may discard (
écarter
in French; hence the name) any or all of the cards dealt and replace them from the pack.
CHAPTER VII
1
the snowplough could easily clear a depth of one metre:
Snow-ploughs were not standard fittings on early French locomotives. Evidently a snowplough had been attached to
La Lison
before leaving the shed.
2
detonators:
These were small explosive devices clipped to the track and activated by the wheels of the locomotive as they ran over them. They were used to warn engine drivers of any danger ahead.
3
the damper:
A flap or door in the ash-pan underneath the fire grate, operated by means of a ratchet in the driver’s cab and allowing the driver or fireman to control the amount of air entering the bottom of the firebox.
4
ten atmospheres:
The ‘atmosphere’ is a measurement of pressure. I atmosphere is a notional measurement of air pressure at the earth’s surface (14.7 lb on the square inch).
5
Yes
,
monsieur
,
from New York:
In 1869, transatlantic crossings took over a week. Either the two men are talking at cross purposes or the American is exaggerating.
6
and placed it at the side of the cutting:
Zola based this extraordinary exploit on an account of a similar occurrence described by Pol Lefèvre, which Lefèvre had witnessed, involving a train caught in the snow near Rouen in the winter of 1879 — 80.
CHAPTER VIII
1
she reached the fourth floor:
A minor discrepancy. At the beginning of the novel (chapter I), Zola situates the room on the fifth floor.
2
She recognized the sound of the chimes, deep and resonant:
The cuckoo clock is evidently one which both chimes and cuckoos. Wordsworth owned such a clock. The clock is one of several details used here which serve to reinforce the parallel between this scene and the opening scene of the novel.
3
Malaga:
A white wine from the south of Spain.
4
he had been able to slip upstairs without anyone noticing:
The concierge was often one of the first people to be questioned by the police in the event of any suspicious circumstance or criminal investigation. Séverine and Jacques’s clandestine relationship and their concern to be unobserved reflect Zola’s own experience at the time he was writing this novel. In 1888 he had begun a relationship with Jeanne Rozerot and had installed her in an apartment in the Rue Saint-Lazare, where he visited her secretly. Zola’s wife, Alexandrine, knew nothing of the affair until 1891, by which time Jeanne had provided Zola with two children.
5
her shudder of desire became a shudder of death:
This is a macabre variation on a very old literary conceit — sexual ecstasy as a form of death. Killing is given sexual connotations throughout the novel.
6
communication cord:
Although it had become clear since the Poinsot murder in 1860 (see Introduction) that the incidence of crime committed on trains was increasing, the Compagnie de l’Ouest did not in fact introduce any form of alarm system until 1882. The earliest communication system was a cord and bell arrangement, which enabled passengers to alert the guard if there was an emergency. When trains were fitted with continuous vacuum brakes (from 1890 onwards), the communication cord enabled passengers to apply the brakes themselves.
7
I found myself outside on the footboard, clinging with both hands to the brass handrail:
Although Séverine and Roubaud perform this hazardous operation in only one direction, moving away from the coupé back to their own compartment, this is precisely the sort of scenario which Denizet had earlier dismissed as impossible (see chapter IV, note 9).
8
life seems one long holiday:
It was the spread of railways that made areas such as Brittany and the Mediterranean more easily accessible to holiday makers and accelerated the development of seaside resorts such as Cannes.