The Three Musketeers (Translated by Richard Pevear) - Alexandre Dumas [327]
129.Hippolytus: In Act 5, Scene 6 of the tragedy Phèdre, by Jean Racine (1639–99), the tutor Theramenes describes to Theseus how the horses of his son Hippolytus shared the young man’s foreboding: Ses superbes coursiers…L’oeil morne maintenant et la tête baissée,/Semblaient se conformer à sa triste pensée (“His superb steeds…Their eyes sad now and their heads hung down, /Seemed to conform themselves to his sad thoughts”).
130.Saint-Magloire: The monks of the monastery of Saint-Magloire were removed from their location near the rue aux Ours by Catherine de Medicis in 1572 and installed on the other side of the Seine, but the buildings, including the cloister on the rue Saint-Denis, remained until 1790. The impasse Saint-Magloire was suppressed only in 1807, to make way for the boulevard Sébastopol.
131.Louis XIV would be born: See note 39. Louis XIV was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye on September 5, 1638, which would place the action of the novel at this moment in 1628. However, Dumas’s chronology remains somewhat fluid.
132.Lady Clarick: Charles Samaran, in the Garnier edition, suggests that Dumas meant to write “Clark,” and Gilbert Sigaux, in the Pléiade edition, thinks he may have meant the historical Lady Carlisle, i.e., Lucie, countess of Carlisle, wife of Lord Hay, count of Carlisle, who accompanied her husband to Paris in 1625 for the marriage of Henrietta to Charles I, and whom La Rochefoucauld mentions in his Mémoires as having been a mistress of Buckingham. But since “Lady Clarick” will do just as well as an assumed name, neither explanation seems necessary.
133.place Royale: This fine ensemble of buildings, begun at the order of Henri IV, was inaugurated in 1612, on the occasion of the double wedding of Louis XIII with Anne d’Autriche and of his sister Elisabeth with Anne’s brother, the future Philip IV of Spain. In 1800 it was renamed the place des Vosges.
134.basset, passe-dix, and lansquenet: Basset and lansquenet are card games. The latter, from the German word landsknecht, a mercenary foot soldier, came to France only at the end of the seventeenth century. Passe-dix is a dice game.
135.the Grand Châtelet: See note 100.
136.vintage of Montreuil…: The town of Montreuil is to the east of Paris, near the bois de Vincennes. Wines, generally of very poor quality, were once grown in many of the suburbs around the city; some, like the vintage of Montmartre, have recently been revived.
137.Lucullus: Lucullus (ca. 109–57 b.c.) was a Roman general who later became famous for his luxurious habits. In his life of Lucullus, Plutarch tells how Lucullus, dining alone one day, was served a meal of a single course. He summoned his steward and reprimanded him; the latter explained that, since there were no guests, he thought no great entertainment was required, but Lucullus replied, “Why, did you not know that today Lucullus dines with Lucullus?”
138.The Miser…: L’Avare, by Molière (1622–73), was first performed in 1668. Harpagon is the miser of the title.
139.Mme de Guise: Probably Henriette-Catherine de Joyeuse (1585–1656), whose first husband was Henry de Bourbon, duc de Montpensier, and who, in 1611, married Charles de Lorraine, duc de Guise.
140.Voiture…Benserade: See notes 107 and 94.
141.Don Japhet of Armenia: The comedy Don Japhet d’Arménie was the most popular play by the poet and satirist Paul Scarron (1610–60). It was first produced in 1652 and published a year later.
142.Polycrates: According to legend, Polycrates, tyrant of Samos in the sixth century b.c., tried to outwit Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, by throwing his seal ring into the sea. A few days later a fisherman offered him a fish that turned out to have the ring in its stomach.
143.nesting place: The original version of this saying comes from Molière, who asked, Où la vertu va-t-elle se nicher? (“Where will virtue find its nesting place?”). In his Paris Sketchbook of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh, William Makepeace