Read The Red and the Black Online
Authors: Stendhal
Tags: #General, #Fiction, #France, #Classics, #Literary, #Europe, #Juvenile Fiction, #Psychological, #Young men, #Church and state, #People & Places, #Bildungsromane, #Ambition, #Young Men - France
| 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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