Masters and Servants

Notes

The ambition of these few mentions is minor: to catalogue a handful of items sure to elude a good American dictionary or encyclopedia. Noted are a few French phrases and historical references, and one countermea-sure is taken against a potential catastrophe of mistaken identity.

THE LIFE OF JOSEPH ROULIN

Henri Riviere. 1827–1883; French Naval officer, defended Hanoi in 1882.

Le casseur des assiettes. Literally, the plate-breaker; a vendor of china and flatware in a traditional open market who would bark out a sales pitch: “A lovely service for eight! Sixty-four pieces! Just fifteen francs! Buy ’em, or I start breaking ’em!”

Le temps des cerises. Cherry-picking time, a line from a popular song of the period about spring.

Sur le motif. An artists’ term, used to describe the painting of landscapes, or the act of placing an easel in no particular spot and proceeding to paint whatever lies in the distance.

Le Grand Soir, or “Great Eve.” An expression coined by the idealistic members of the post-revolutionary republican proletariat, denoting the eve of the installation of the “true” republic.

As le Grand Soir is the eve, la Sociale is the day.

Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville. 1746–1795; political official, magistrate; condemned men to death by guillotine during the period known as “The Terror.”

Baron Jean Baptiste Anacharsis de Cloots. 1755–1794; founder of anti-clergy movement, “The cult of reason”; guillotined.

GOD IS NEVER THROUGH

The Pardo. As distinct from The Prado. El Pardo Palace is located a few miles outside of Madrid and was built in the sixteenth century by Charles I. The paintings of the King’s Antechamber described in the story were moved many years later to the Prado Museum, located on the Paseo del Prado, in Madrid. The Prado Museum was built in 1820 and was first devoted to Spain’s natural history collections, not to its art.

The Prado mentioned in the story is therefore the boulevard, not the museum. The Pardo, the palace. Viator emptor!