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39. THE BOUQUET OF VIOLETS

1. Carmes: a former convent turned into a prison by the Revolutionary government.

2. Boulogne … Abbeville: Boulogne is a port on the English Channel; nearby Abbeville is an inland town on the Somme River.

3. louis: the louis d’or was a gold coin worth 24 francs at the end of the eighteenth century.

4. a Marseillais: Revolutionary troops from the Marseilles region that had a reputation for excessive zeal, even among other Revolutionaries.

40. THE PUITS-DE-NOÉ BY NIGHT

1. obole: an insignificant amount of money.

41. THE CLERK FROM THE WAR MINISTRY

1. Sanson: The Sanson family were the chief executioners of France for almost two hundred years.

43. DIXMER’S PREPARATIONS

1. Anne of Austria: from the Spanish branch of the Hapsburgs, Queen of Louis XIII and mother of Louis XIV. When her husband died, she found herself Regent for the five-year-old king. With the help of Cardinal Mazarin, she fiercely defended the royal prerogatives against the aristocratic and parliamentary revolts known as the Fronde.

2. Two kings: Apparent references to Louis XV—her husband’s grandfather—and her own father, Holy Roman Emperor Francis I, who arranged her marriage to the future Louis XVI.

46. THE JUDGMENT

1. year II: Seeking to wholly re-create society, the Revolutionary government instituted a new calendar beginning with the establishment of the Republic. The year II indicated the second year of the Republic, starting in September 1793.

2. Chauveau-Lagarde: Claude Chauveau-Lagarde (1756–1841), lawyer who defended Marie Antoinette and many other doomed aristocrats before the Revolutionary tribunal. See also Glossary, p. 417.

47. PRIEST AND BUTCHER

1. powder: One of Robespierre’s laws was a ban on wigs and powder, which were considered aristocratic. Robespierre never applied the law to himself and, like an aristocrat, continued to wear a powdered wig and the formal suit, with cravat and breeches, of the lawyer that he had been before entering politics.

2. la Salpêtrière: a hospital established in 1656.

3. juror priests: Priests were required to swear an oath of loyalty to the Constitution rather than to Rome. This measure provoked a serious split among the French people, especially in the provinces.

48. THE CART

1. Maria Theresa: Marie Antoinette’s formidable mother, Holy Roman Empress and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia (born 1717, reigned 1740–80).

2. the Comédie-Française: the state theater of France, founded early in the reign of Louis XIV.

3. Grammont: from a famous family of actors, Grammont joined the Revolution with fervor.

4. Ophelia: a reference to Hamlet’s lover, who went mad and drowned herself.

5. Daughter of the Caesars: The Hapsburgs claimed actual descent from the Roman Caesars.

49. THE SCAFFOLD

1. “Adieu … au revoir!”: Formally, adieu was used for final farewells, au revoir suggests “till we meet again.”

2. he expired: unlike his fictional counterpart, Rougeville (see note 11, p. 403) survived Marie Antoinette’s execution and the Terror. He escaped to Brussels, where he was eventually captured and imprisoned. Released after the fall of the Convention, he offered his services to Napoleon, but remained a Royalist. In 1814, he was accused of treason by the Imperial government for allegedly offering to serve with approaching Russian armies. He was executed by firing squad in March 1814, just weeks before the collapse of the Empire.

50. THE HOME VISIT

1. Carmelites … Luxembourg: The policies of the Terror required many prisons in Paris alone.

2. Dagobert: Dagobert I, King of the Franks from 629 to 639. He reinforced royal authority and confirmed the borders of the Frankish kingdom.

3. Demoustier’s Lettres à Emilie: See note 9, p. 403.

54. THE HALL OF THE DEAD

1. monseigneur: literally, “my lord,” a form of address reserved for bishops and archbishops, and under the Ancien Régime, for princes of the Royal family.

2. “The geese on the Capitol”: according to Roman legend,