The Women's War

  45. Greek like Homer, Latin like Cicero and theology like Jan Hus: Cauvignac implies that the Greek poet, Homer (c.800 BC), the Roman orator, Cicero (106–43 BC) and the Czechoslovakian religious reformer, Jan Hus (c.1372–1415) were experts in their fields, as he is himself.

  46. Pico della Mirandolas, Erasmuses and Descartes: Famous philosophers. Count Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1453–94), was an Italian Platonist philosopher, Desiderius Erasmus (1466– 1536) was a Dutch humanist and René Descartes (1596–1650) was the French thinker who gave his name to Cartesian philosophy.

  47. the Trappist order: The Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance was in fact founded in 1664 by Armand-Jean de Rancé at the monastery of La Trappe. The Trappists are famous for their vow of silence.

  48. Dunois, Duguesclin, a Bayard… fearless, blameless knight: The three names are those of famous knights. Jean, Comte de Dunois, the Bastard of Orleans (1403–68), was one of the companions of Joan of Arc at the end of the Hundred Years’ War; Bertrand du Guesclin (1320–80) was a Breton knight in the early part of the Hundred Years’ War; and Pierre Terrail, Seigneur de Bayard (1473–1524) served most of his life in the French army, fighting in Italy and Spain. It was the last of the three who earned the nickname ‘chevalier sans peur et sans reproche’ – the fearless and blameless (or untainted) knight.

  49. I would not… Sforza… ask what is meant by fear: The condottieri were mercenaries employed by the Italian city states, the most famous of whom was Muzio Attendolo, nicknamed ‘Sforza’ (1369–1424).

  50. as Plautus says… foreign to me: Cauvignac is confusing the two best-known Roman comic dramatists: Titus Maccius Plautus (c.254–184 BC) and Publius Terentius Afer (Terence, c. 185–159 BC). It was, in fact, the latter who wrote the line that Cauvignac quotes, in his Heauton Timoroumenos (‘The Self Tormentor’, c.163 BC).

  51. the Abbé de Gondi: See note 7, Book I and Appendix.

  52. wheel: The type of gun used by Pompée was an arquebus of the wheel-lock type, in which when the trigger mechanism was released it spun a wheel against a flint, letting off sparks. These then ignited the gunpowder in the pan and discharged the shot.

  53. Don Quixote: The hero of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s (1547–1616) novel Don Quixote (1605) attacked some windmills, under the impression that they were armed knights.

  54. Baron des Adrets: François de Beamont, Baron des Adrets (1513–87) was a leader of the Huguenots during the wars of religion, who is said to have impressed even his own side by his ruthlessness and cruelty.

  55. Horatius pretended to flee: Lempriere’s Classical Dictionary (1828) tells the story as follows: ‘Horatii… three brave Romans, born at the same birth, who fought against the Curiatii, about 667 years before Christ. This celebrated fight was fought between the hostile camps of the people of Alba and Rome, and on their success depended the victory. In the first attack, two of the Horatii were killed, and the only surviving one, by joining artifice to valour, obtained an honourable trophy: by pretending to fly from the field of battle, he easily separated his antagonists, and, in attacking them one by one, he was enabled to conquer them all.’

  56. the viscount’s Barb: A north African breed of horse.

  57. but like Virgil’s Orpheus… he embraced only air: In Greek myth, when Orpheus’s wife Eurydice died, he was allowed to visit her in the Underworld and so charmed Pluto with his singing that the king of the Underworld permitted him to take her back to earth, provided she walked behind him and he did not look round while they were leaving his domain. Unfortunately, Orpheus was unable to resist the temptation, and her shade vanished again into the Underworld. Virgil describes the scene in the Georgics, Book IV (ll. 485–503), in a passage that is probably the one to which Dumas refers.

  58. Monsieur de la Calprenède’s Cléopâtre… Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s Grand Cyrus: These were three popular romances of the day. Gauthier de Costes, Seigneur de la Calprenède (c.1610–63) wrote Cléopâtre in 1648. Madeleine de Scudéry (1608–1701) was one of the most prolific novelists of her time; Artamène, ou Le Grand Cyrus (1649–53) was probably her most popular work. For Honoré d’Urfé, see note 43, Book I.

  59. the Great Condé: Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé (1621–86), uncle of Louis XIV. Led the French Army against the Spaniards at Rocroi in 1643 and Lens in the Netherlands in 1648, and against the forces of the Holy Roman Empire at Nordlingen in Germany in 1645. Later on, he opposed the king during the Fronde, at the time this novel is set (see Introduction).

  60. facchino italiano: An Italian porter or general servant. Modi di facchino means ‘coarse manners’.

  61. Anne of Austria: Anne of Austria (1601–66), widow of Louis XIII and Queen Regent during the minority of her son, Louis XIV, is a central figure in Dumas’s The Three Musketeers (1844) and its sequels. (See Introduction.)

  62. The princess, a Themistocles in a mobcap, has her Miltiades in skirts: Miltiades (c.550–489 BC) led the Greek army to victory at the Battle of Marathon, but was later disgraced and died in prison. Themistocles (c.514–449 BC) was his successor as general of the Athenian armies. So the Princess de Condé is Themistocles, her mother-in-law, Miltiades.

  63. the laurels of Madame de Longueville… prevent her from sleeping: Anne-Geneviève de Bourbon, Duchess of Longueville (1619– 79) was the sister of the Prince de Condé and reputed to be the most beautiful woman of her day. She was a leading figure in the Fronde and appears in several of Dumas’s other novels about this period.

  64. Monsieur de Saint-Aignan: François-Honorat de Beauvilliers, Duke de Saint-Aignan (1607–87) was a soldier and counsellor of the king, who also distinguished himself as a patron of literature and the arts, and a member of the French Academy.

  65. Monsieur Pierre Lenet: Pierre Lenet (?–1671), procurator-general and counsellor of state, came from a family that had long been in the service of the princes of Condé. He was generally admired for his intellect. However, the rest of his character, as it appears in the novel, is the invention of Dumas. Lenet’s memoirs (published in Nouvelle collection des mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de France (Paris: Michaud and Poujoulat 1838, vol. II)), were certainly one of Dumas’s sources for the history of the period, since he mentions them in the novel.

  66. Duke de La Rochefoucauld: Rochefoucauld (see note 32, Book I) was Prince de Marsillac until the death of his father in 1650.

  67. Fama nocet: ‘Fame is harmful.’ This Latin tag, sometimes used as a heraldic device, may be taken from the remark by the historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus (AD c. 55–120) that a good reputation may be as dangerous as a bad one (in Agricola, 5).

  68. Have you forgotten… the Grand Prior de Vendôme, Marshal d’Ornano and Puy-Laurent… worth its weight in arsenic: These were victims of Richelieu, who imprisoned them in the Château de Vincennes. The fact that they all died in the same dungeon explains the remark about that particular jail being ‘worth its weight in arsenic’ – a particularly deadly place of incarceration.

  69. like Achilles, she had retired to her tent: After the Greeks plundered the city of Lyrnessus, in Cilicia, Agamemnon deprived the warrior Achilles of the girl, Briseis, a captive who had been Achilles’s share of the booty, so he refused to fight, only coming back to the field after the death of his friend Patroclus (see Homer, The Iliad, Books I and II).

  70. constable Anne de Montmorency: Anne, Duke of Montmorency (1473–1567), was constable (or chief military officer) of France under King François I. He played a leading role in the sixteenth-century wars of religion.

  71. Hôtel de Bourgogne: The main theatre of Paris, on the right bank of the Seine.

  72. the Duke de Saint-Simon: Louis de Rouvroy, Duke de Saint-Simon (1675–1755), was the author of celebrated memoirs of the court of Louis XIV.

  73. false Duke d’Enghien… false Princess de Condé: The story of the Princess de Condé’s escape from Chantilly is told in Claude-Bernard Petitot’s Collection des mémoires relatifs à l’histoire de France (Paris: Fo
ucault, 1824), vol. XXXV, pp. 166–8. For the purposes of the story, Dumas has changed several details. The officer sent by the queen and Mazarin to prevent the princess’s escape was called Du Vouldy. The Dowager Princess did, indeed, pretend to be ill. An Englishwoman called Gerber was substituted for the princess, and the Duke d’Enghien, whose place was taken by a boy of his own age, was disguised as a girl.

  74. ruelle: Literally a ‘small street’: the part of the bedchamber used by ladies for receiving guests.

  BOOK II

  MADAME DE CONDÉ

  1. a gesture that has since become associated with a greater man: Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821), Emperor of France.

  2. Don Japhet of Armenia: The Quixotic hero of the play Don Japhet of Armenia (1651–2) by Paul Scarron (1610–60).

  3. Guitauts and Miossens: Soldiers who had done service to the royal family and been rewarded for it. Guitaut appears as a character in Dumas’s play, The Youth of Louis XIV, the Captain of the Guards, who, on Anne of Austria’s orders, arrested the three princes, Condé, Conti and Longueville. He is also mentioned in the memoirs of the Duke de La Rochefoucauld (Maximes et mémoires (Paris: Rivages, 2001)), who says that he was appointed Governor of Saumur as a reward.

  4. some ruddy Vatel: François Vatel, a celebrated chef of the house of Condé, who, according to Madame de Sévigné’s letters, committed suicide after the fish failed to arrive in time for a dinner that he was serving for King Louis XIV.

  5. the natural heir: Léon Bouthillier, Count de Chavigny et Buzancais (1608–52) became one of King Louis XIII’s chief ministers after the death of Cardinal Richelieu in 1642 and was rumoured to be Richelieu’s son (a fact that Dumas mentions in his novel Twenty Years After (1845)).

  6. Monsieur de Turenne: Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne, Viscount de Turenne (1611–75) and younger brother of the Duke de Bouillon, distinguished himself in the Thirty Years’ War and was made a marshal of France in 1643. However, like his brother, he was implicated in the conspiracy of Cinq-Mars (see note 9, Book III).

  7. the Pandects of Justinian: Justinian (c.482–565 ad) became emperor of Byzantium in 527 and was famous for his books of laws, including the Pandects (533).

  8. the bill of Parliament… no foreigner can ever be a minister in France: Among those who came from Italy to the French court with Marie de’ Médicis (see note 27, Book I) was Concino Concini, later marquis, and Marshal d’Ancre. He exercised an important influence over the queen during the minority of Louis XIII and attracted great hostility from the nobles, particularly the Condé family. He was assassinated in 1617.

  9. Pico della Mirandola: See note 46, Book I.

  10. Against a certain Biscarros… the heir of his wife, an Orléanist: That is to say, a supporter of Gaston d’Orléans against Mazarin (see note 10, Book I).

  11. the Revenue: The French text refers to two kinds of taxes under the Old Regime (the one which existed before the French Revolution of 1789): the aides, which were a form of purchase tax, and the gabelle, a tax on salt. Taxation was a particular cause of popular unrest under the monarchy.

  12. I am His Majesty’s exempt: An exempt was an officer of the police.

  13. the crime of lèse-majesté: Treason.

  14. He was subjected to the torture of the boot… the eighth wedge: The torture of the boot (or brodequin) was one of the most severe, almost always resulting in permanent injury. It took various forms, all based on the principle of encasing the victim’s feet and legs in a device that could be tightened to crush the bones. In some cases, the tightening was done by hammering wedges into the boot; eight was considered to be the maximum.

  15. as beadle at Saint-Sauveur: The beadle, like the Swiss guards at the Vatican, would have carried a pike.

  16. Camillus: Marcus Furius Camillus (446–365 BC), Roman general and political leader. According to the historian Livy, when Camillus was besieging Falerii, a schoolmaster of the town offered to betray the sons of some of its leading citizens to him; Camillus responded to this treacherous act by getting the young men to beat the schoolmaster back inside the gates.

  17. Some thought they were serving Parliament… some others the King of England… to recover his crown: Charles Stuart, son of King Charles I, went into exile in France in 1649 after his father’s execution and did, indeed, lead an expedition into Scotland in 1650 in an attempt to recover the throne. He was defeated by Cromwell.

  18. et fugit ad salices: A quotation from Virgil, Eclogues (Book III, l. 65): ‘and runs away to the willow trees’. The whole passage reads: ‘Galatea throws me an apple and runs away to the willow trees, hoping that I have seen her.’ Cauvignac is implying that Nanon wants someone to see through her disguise.

  19. Barabbas: Barabbas shares his name with the thief who was released in place of Christ (Matthew 27:16).

  20. A fine name, an old name, well reputed from the scriptures… much hanged and burned in my family: As a Protestant, Canolles would know the Bible and base his faith on it, while the Catholic Barabbas would take his knowledge of religion from what he heard in church (including his own name in the Easter service). Another mark of Canolles’s Protestantism is his knowledge of the Psalms. He goes on to refer delicately to the religious persecution of Huguenots in the previous century.

  21. the memory of Buckingham: Anne of Austria’s affair with the Duke of Buckingham is a central theme in the plot of Dumas’s The Three Musketeers.

  22. siege of Montauban and the Battle of Corbie: Louis XIII besieged Montauban in 1620 during the religious war against the Huguenots. For the Battle of Corbie, see note 34, Book I.

  23. the Prince de Marsillac: The new Duke de La Rochefoucauld. In his memoirs, he describes how he used his father’s funeral as an opportunity to assemble an army of the nobility who supported the princes. See François de La Rochefoucauld, Maximes et mémoires (Paris: Rivages, 2001), pp. 230–41 and note 3, Book II.

  24. like a Clorinda or a Bradamante: Heroines, respectively, of Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata (‘Jerusalem Delivered’, 1581) and Ludvico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (1516).

  25. I think that one must be content… to accomplish anything: The quotation is not, in fact, from La Rochefoucauld’s memoirs, but from the self-portrait (‘Portrait of the Duke de La Rochefoucauld written by himself’) which is included as a preface to his memoirs in Nouvelle collection des mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de France (Paris, 1838, vol. V, p. 378), which is Dumas’s probable source. He abridges and misquotes slightly. In full, the passage reads: ‘However, there is nothing that I would not do to ease the suffering of an afflicted person, and this even includes showing him a lot of compassion in his woes; for unfortunate people are so silly that this has the greatest possible benefit for them. But I also believe that one should be content with showing it and be most wary of feeling it: this is a passion that is good for naught in a well-made soul, one that only serves to weaken the heart. It should be left to the common people, who, never acting from reason, need passion to accomplish anything.’ The passage, illustrating La Rochefoucauld’s belief that the superior being should act from reason alone, is taken by Dumas to show his lack of human feeling and moral sense.

  BOOK III

  VISCOUNTESS DE CAMBES

  1. Rocroi, Nordlingen and Lens: The Prince de Condé distinguished himself in the war against Spain and the Hapsburgs at Rocroi (1643), Nordlingen (1645) and Lens (1648).

  2. I have read, Madame… but throughout Italy: The story of Agrippina the Elder (14 BC – AD 33), wife of Germanicus, is told by the historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus (AD c. 55–c.117) in his Annals (Books II and III).

  3. Hardly had the princess got through the gate… and the air perfumed: La Rochefoucauld (Maximes et mémoires, p. 237) describes the scene as follows: ‘As soon as it was known in Bordeaux that she and the Duke d’Enghien were to arrive at Lormont near the town, public signs of celebration were observed. A very great number of people came out to meet them, their way was covered with flowers
and the boat which was bringing them was followed by all those that were on the river. The vessels in the port saluted them with all their artillery and so they entered Bordeaux…’

  4. the life of Reilly: In fact, the reference is to a certain Roi d’Yvetot, who had a proverbially easy time of it, ‘rising late and going to bed early’, in the song by the popular poet Pierre-Jean de Béranger (1780–1857). Of course, there is an anachronism in Canolles referring to this (which is why I feel justified in translating it by the similarly anachronistic ‘life of Reilly’).

  5. Aemilius Paulus was defeated at Cannae… Attila at Châlons: Aemilius Paulus and Terentius Varro were the two Roman consuls who in 216 BC led a much stronger army against Hannibal and suffered Rome’s greatest military defeat at Cannae. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (or Pompey, 106–48 BC), was a member, with Julius Caesar and Crassus, of the first triumvirate; later he opposed Caesar and was defeated by him at Pharsalia in 48 BC. Attila (AD c.406–53), King of the Huns, ravaged the Eastern Roman Empire during 445–50; after making peace with Theodosius, he invaded the Western Empire and was defeated at Châlons by Aëtius in 451.

  6. You will understand that it is only… to mollify them: This is not one of La Rochefoucauld’s maxims, but very much in the spirit of maxim 42: ‘We promise according to our hopes and keep our promises according to our fears’ (Maximes et mémoires).

  7. Château-Trompette: The fortress in Bordeaux, which was used as a prison. Built at the end of the Hundred Years’ War, it was destroyed during the Fronde after the events described in Dumas’s novel, then rebuilt by Louis XIV and finally destroyed in 1819.

  8. Hardly had he been presented… seven sages of Greece… Horatius Cocles… wiles of Ulysses: As usual, Dumas likes to include a few references to classical history and myth. The seven sages were in fact rather more in number, since there is disagreement in Greek sources on which wise men were distinguished enough to qualify for inclusion in their number. Horatius Cocles was a legendary Roman hero who defended the bridge across the Tiber against the Etruscans. Ulysses (Odysseus) was the fictional Greek hero who is sometimes credited with having had the idea of using the Wooden Horse as a means to get inside the besieged town of Troy; his wanderings after the war are the subject of Homer’s epic The Odyssey.