The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [321]
49.Jean Mocquet: A traveler (1575–1617) who visited the west coast of Africa, Guyana, Morocco, the East Indies, and Palestine in the years 1601–12, and on his return was made keeper of the king’s cabinet of curiosities. He wrote a six-volume account of his travels that was published in 1617 and reprinted in 1831.
50.Saul: The witch of Endor summoned up the shade of the prophet Samuel at the demand of King Saul, who was seeking advice for his war against the Philistines (1 Samuel 28:8–19).
51.M. de Putange: Guillaume Morel, sieur de Putanges [sic], was indeed equerry of the queen’s stables. But it was in 1625, not earlier, as Aramis implies, that the scene took place between Buckingham and the queen in the garden at Amiens. It is not clear what happened, but Buckingham apparently behaved too boldly; the queen cried out, her equerry came running, followed by other attendants. The incident, which is mentioned in a number of contemporary memoirs, strained diplomatic relations between France and England.
52.rue de Jérusalem: A short street on the Île de la Cité, which began on the quai des Orfèvres and led to the old préfecture de police—hence its association with police jargon.
53.well-stuffed purse…: An assertion incidentally borne out by the Mémoires of Antoine, duc de Gramont, maréchal de France (1604–78), who took part in the Thirty Years’ War, and by Winston Churchill’s biography of his illustrious ancestor, John Churchill, duke of Marlborough (1650–1722), who led the English army in the Low Countries during the War of Spanish Succession.
54.Chasse-Midi: This street, which runs parallel to the rue de Vaugirard, was called “Cherche-Midy” until the end of the sixteenth century, and “Chasse-Midy” after 1628, perhaps through some connection with the Hôtel de la Chasse, which was located at its northern end. More recently it was again renamed Cherche-Midi.
55.the faubourg Saint-Germain: This is the “noble faubourg Saint-Germain” about which Proust wrote, which stretches from the rue des Saints-Pères to the boulevard des Invalides. Until the end of the sixteenth century it was all fields belonging to the abbey of Saint-Germain and the university. The construction of its many grand hôtels began in earnest only after 1685, when it replaced the Marais as the center of elegant life.
56.Fort-l’Évêque: Properly, For-l’Évêque (“for” from the Latin forum), originally the criminal court and prison of the bishop of Paris, built in 1161 by the bishop Maurice de Sully and rebuilt in 1652, when Louis XIV turned it into a royal prison to supplement the Bastille. Dumas spells the name correctly further on, and then incorrectly again.
57.Mme de Vernet: Antoinette d’Albert du Vernet was first maid of honor to Anne d’Autriche. She was sent away from the court in 1625, following the incident in Amiens, as were M. de Putange, and, a year later, Mme de Chevreuse.
58.The pleasure…: Charles Samaran, in his annotated edition of the novel (Garnier: Paris, 1956), points out that this motive was not Dumas’s invention and is borne out by the Mémoires of Richelieu himself, who sent a “Notice to the King” saying that “the war had come about because Buckingham had not been permitted to come to France, and that he would gladly begin it again for the same reason, since the same passion [for Anne d’Autriche] was still in him” (Mémoires de Richelieu, vol. VII, ed. R. Lavollée, Paris, 1926, 145).
59.Holland: Henry Rich (1589–1649), Lord Kensington, later earl of Holland, friend and collaborator of Buckingham, came to Paris in 1624 to begin negotiations for the marriage of Henrietta to Charles I. He became the lover of Mme de Chevreuse and probably helped her to arrange the meeting of Buckingham and Anne d’Autriche in Amiens. He would later negotiate the peace of La Rochelle.
60.a mountain: It is indeed the name of a mountain located at the end of the easternmost peninsula of Chalchidice on the Aegean Sea in northern Greece, an autonomous region which, since the sixth century, has been