The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas [637]
[17] The Genoese conspirator.
[18] Lake Maggiore.
[19] In the old Greek legend the Atreidae, or children of Atreus, were doomed to punishment because of the abominable crime of their father. The Agamemnon of Aeschylus is based on this legend.
[20] The performance of the civil marriage.
[21] In Moliere's comedy, Le Misanthrope.
[22] Literally, "the basket," because wedding gifts were originally brought in such a receptacle.
[23] Germain Pillon was a famous French sculptor (1535-1598) His best known work is "The Three Graces," now in the Louvre.
[24] Frederic Lemaitre—French actor (1800-1876) Robert Macaire is the hero of two favorite melodramas—"Chien de Montargis" and "Chien d'Aubry"—and the name is applied to bold criminals as a term of derision.
[25] The Spahis are French cavalry reserved for service in Africa.
[26] Savate: an old shoe.
[27] Guilbert de Pixerecourt, French dramatist (1775-1844)
[28] Pierre Puget, the sculptor–architect, was born at Marseilles in 1622.
[29] The Carolina—not Virginia—jessamine, gelsemium sempervirens (properly speaking not a jessamine at all) has yellow blossoms. The reference is no doubt to the Wistaria frutescens.—Ed.
[30] The miser in Moliere's comedy of "L'Avare."—Ed.