The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [326]
113.la Force: The prison known as La Petite-Force, mainly reserved for prostitutes, was on the rue Pavée in the Marais, just off the rue des Francs-Bourgeois. La Grande-Force, a men’s prison, was on the nearby rue du Roi-de-Sicile.
114.the siege of Arras: Arras was besieged and taken by the prince of Orange in 1578, some twenty-five years before Aramis was born. It was rebesieged and taken back by Louis XIII in 1640.
115.Vanitas vanitatem: Words from the opening of Ecclesiastes (1:2): “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”
116.M. de Nogaret de La Valette: Louis de Nogaret de La Valette (1593–1639), third son of the duc d’Épernon, entered holy orders against his will, became archbishop of Toulouse in 1613 and cardinal in 1621, but continued his military career, serving the king in Germany, Burgundy, Picardy, and Italy. His influence was decisive during the journée de Dupes (see note 75), when he urged Richelieu not to retreat.
117.Rubens’s paintings: The great Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) was known for the breadth of his drawing, the freedom of his technique, and the warmth of his coloration. Drunken satyrs figure frequently in his mythological paintings.
118.a Dandolo or a Montmorency: The Dandolos were an old patrician family of Venice, which supplied the republic with a number of doges. The family of Montmorency was one of the most illustrious of France, furnishing four connétables (supreme military commanders) between the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries. Since 1327 the ducs de Montmorency had borne the title of “first baron of France.”
119. branded: Dumas drew this episode of the branding not from the pseudo Mémoires de M. d’Artagnan, but from another book attributed to Courtilz de Sandras, known as the Mémoires de M.L.C.D.R. The Memoirs of Monsieur le comte de Rochefort), in which Rochefort’s father marries a woman who turns out to be branded. Though it was the mark of prostitutes, branding was also practiced as a punishment for other criminal acts (as will turn out in the present case).
120.the proverb: The French proverb is: Faute d’un point, Martin perdit son âne (“For want of a point, Martin lost his ass”). The English equivalent would be: “For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost.” Athos plays on the French word point, which also means “nail.”
121.Minerva seized Achilles…: In the opening book of the Iliad, Athene (Minerva) descends from the sky as Achilles is about to draw his sword in wrath against Agamemnon and catches him by the hair to stop him.
122.Bucephalus: The warhorse of Alexander the Great.
123.M. de Créquy: Charles de Blanchefort (1578–1638), duc de Créquy, was a maréchal de France.
124.two sons of Aymon…: In the thirteenth-century chivalric romance Les quatre fils d’Aymon (“The Four Sons of Aymon”), also known as Renaud de Montauban, the magical steed Bayard is able to carry all four sons at once.
125.my sister Anne: An allusion to the story Barbe-Bleue (“Blue-beard”), one of the Contes de ma mère l’Oye (“Tales of My Mother Goose”) by Charles Perrault (1628–1703). Barbe-Bleue has already killed his first six wives; the seventh, who waits to be rescued by her brothers while her sister Anne watches from a tower, keeps asking, “Anne, sister Anne, do you see anyone coming?” and Anne replies, “No, I see only the sun dusting up and the grass thrusting up.”
126.Croesuses: Croesus (ca. 560–46 b.c.), the last king of Lydia in Asia Minor, became proverbial for his wealth. His kingdom was subsumed by the Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great (ca. 558–28 b.c.).
127.Archimedes: See note 47. The value of the pistole varied between ten and eleven livres, which means that d’Artagnan’s calculation is not very accurate.
128.joining the musketeers: Yet, as