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7. Thermopylae club: from the name of the site of a fierce but doomed resistance the Greeks put up against the invading Persian armies of Xerxes I. Allusions to the ancient republics and heroes of classical Greece and Rome were common in the propaganda and imagery of the Revolutionary generation. Political clubs of all ideologies, less famous than the Jacobins and Cordeliers, abounded in the Revolutionary years.

8. the Marseillaise: taking its name from the troops from Marseille who sang it while storming the Tuileries on August 10, 1792, this violent revolutionary song—“Let impure blood wash over our furrows”—quickly spread throughout Paris and the whole country. “La Marseillaise” is now the French national anthem.

9. Dorat, Parny, and Gentil-Bernard: all French poets of the eighteenth century, known for their love poetry. The verse-spouting Lorin—would-be poet, gallant lover, fearless soldier, and fiercely loyal friend and comrade-in-arms—represents a traditional ideal of French culture.

10. cockades: The colors of these small badges, usually worn in hats, were a declaration of political principle and affiliation; Lorin’s cockade is no doubt the politically correct red, white, and blue tricolor. In 1793 it would be declared a crime to wear the white cockade, a sign of royalism.

11. Gaul and Lutetia: the Roman names of France (Gaul) and Paris (Lutetia).

3. RUE DES FOSSÉS-SAINT-VICTOR

1. pont-Marie … pont de la Tournelle:pont means bridge; the pont-Marie connects the Right Bank to the île Saint-Louis; the Pont de la Tournelle then crosses to the Left Bank. Maurice and his companion are working their way south through the heart of Paris.

2. the Bièvre River: this small river once flowed into the Seine near the île de la Cité and the île Saint-Louis. The banks of the Bièvre were the site of many manufactures such as tanneries and tapestry makers. The Bièvre was covered to form an underground canal in the late nineteenth century.

3. chevalier: the French word for “knight”; the mysterious lady is complimenting Maurice’s chivalric manners.

4. THE CUSTOMS OF THE DAY

1. the Capet woman: from Hugues Capet, the tenth-century founder of the French royal dynasty and ancestor of the Bourbons. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were called Citizen and Citizeness Capet—among other things—by the revolutionaries.

2. chasseurs: the name used for many different divisions of the cavalry and infantry in the French armies.

3. Madelonnettes prison: a former convent dedicated to the rehabilitation of young prostitutes, converted to a prison by the Revolution.

4. Agesilaus: known as Agesilaus II, King of Sparta (399–360 B.C.) at the time of the battle of Marathon.

5. Phrygian cap: the red cap that was especially popular with the sans culottes; in ancient Rome, the Phrygian cap was worn by freed slaves.

6. Paris himself: the Trojan prince; the ancient country of Phrygia was near Troy.

7. “You sleep, Brutus”: from The Death of Caesar, by Voltaire.

8. Eucharis: From Homer’s Odyssey, Eucharis is the beautiful nymph with whom Telemachus falls in love, but the young hero must leave her to continue his quest to find his father. The scene inspired a famous painting by Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825).

9. Demoustier: Charles-Albert Demoustier (1760–1801), author of Lettres à Emilie sur la mythologie (1788), a popular book that was part of the vogue of antiquity in late-eighteenth-century France.

10. Cythera: according to Greek myth, this island was the site of Aphrodite’s birth from the waves, thus sacred to the goddess of love.

11. Knight of Maison-Rouge: Knight, or Chevalier, was the title given to younger sons of noble families; the word has the same associations—medievalism, chivalry, etc.—as knight in English. Maison-Rouge, which literally translates as “Red House,” was the name given to corps of guards attached to the person of the king under the Ancien Régime, named for their brilliant scarlet cloaks. The name also alludes to Alexandre de Rougeville (1752–1814), who inspired