The Knight of Maison-Rouge_ A Novel of Marie Antoinette - Alexandre Dumas [202]
ROLAND, JEAN-MARIE (1734–93): Leader of the GIRONDINS, Roland opposed the execution of Louis XVI and was eventually forced to flee Paris. His highly cultivated and influential wife, Jeanne-Marie (1754–93)—known as Manon—hosted an important salon where Girondins and their political allies gathered. She was arrested and executed with the other leaders of the Rolandiste party. Hearing of her death, her husband killed himself in Rouen.
SAINT-JUST, LOUIS-ANTOINE-LÉON DE (1767–94): a gifted orator and radical revolutionary who became ROBESPIERRE’S closest ally. He was guillotined with Robespierre in July 1794.
SANSON: The Sanson family were the chief executioners of France from 1688 to 1848. Charles-Henri presided over the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793; his son Charles-Henri guillotined Marie Antoinette and Madame Elisabeth the following October.
SANTERRE, ANTOINE-JOSEPH (1752–1809): a wealthy brewer of the faubourg Saint-Antoine. Popular for his charity, Santerre became active in Revolutionary politics and the NATIONAL GUARD. On AUGUST 10, he led his batallion in the assault on the Tuileries. Appointed commander-in-chief of the National Guard by the CONVENTION, he was also commander of the Temple when it became the prison of the Royal family.
SEPTEMBER MASSACRES: from September 2 to 6, 1792, mobs enraged by news of the Prussian invasion of France, and spurred on by the rhetoric of DANTON and MARAT, murdered thousands of prisoners in the Revolutionary prisons of Paris.
SERVAN, JEAN-MARIE-ANTOINE (1752–1808): onetime minister of war who returned to power, briefly, after AUGUST 10. He managed to survive the TERROR.
SIMON, ANTOINE (1736–94): The illiterate Antoine Simon was a failed shoemaker who made a name for himself in Revolutionary politics, first in the Paris Commune and then in the CONVENTION. He was appointed, with his wife, guardian of the former DAUPHIN as part of an effort to give the boy a popular upbringing, that is, to undo the influence of his tyrannical parents and the courtiers that surrounded them.
TERROR: beginning with laws enacted in September 1793 until the fall of ROBESPIERRE in July 1794, the increasingly ruthless dictatorship of the COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY sought to purify France of those deemed Royalists and traitors. Best remembered for mass executions by guillotine, the TERROR was also a time of draconian, and disastrous, economic policies.
TISON: the Tisons were appointed to look after the Royal family in the Temple prison; the participation of the Tison daughter in the Carnation Plot—or any other Royalist activity—is an invention of Dumas.
VALAZÉ, CHARLES-ELÉONORE DUFRICHE (1751–94): a pamphleteer who became associated with the GIRONDINS; he opposed the execution of the King. Arrested and condemned to death in the JACOBIN reaction, he killed himself in prison. The leader of the CONVENTION ordered that his body be brought to the scaffold with the other Girondin prisoners.
VARENNES: town in northeast France where the Royal family was arrested on June 22, 1791, after they tried to flee the control of the Revolutionaries in Paris.
VERGNIAUD, PIERRE VICTURNIEN (1753–93): an eloquent orator of the GIRONDIN party, guillotined as part of ROBESPIERRE’S purge.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
JULIE ROSE is the highly regarded translator of more than a dozen works, including an acclaimed version of Racine’s Phèdre as well as works by Paul Virilio, Jacques Rancière, Chantal Thomas, and many others.
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