Jean Rouaud - Of Illustrious Men

9 Carte du Tendre. The region of the tender sentiments, as mapped out by Mlle de Scudéry and members of her salon in the era of Louis XIV; she introduced it into her novel Clélie.

17 Pont-Aven. A small town southeast of Concarneau on the south Breton coast, where the river Aven opens out into a tidal estuary. Here an innovative school of painting acquired prominence in the last decade of the nineteenth century; its leading light was Paul Gauguin.

22 Médor. Roughly the equivalent of “Rover” for us; apparently comes from Medoro, the faithful Moor lover of Angelica, in Ariosto’s poem Orlando Furioso (1532).

29 Ys. A legendary city buried on the seabed off Finistère. The city had stood by the water’s edge, protected by a dike. Now the dike included floodgates to which none but the king held the key, but one night the king’s daughter stole the key when her father was asleep and opened these gates, leaving the city — and her own lover — engulfed. On certain clear mornings, so the legend tells, the cathedral can be seen breaking the surface of the water. The legend inspired Lalo’s opera Le Roi d’Ys and Debussy’s piano prelude La Cathédrale Engloutie.

32 Procopius. Early sixth-century Byzantine historian. His work includes an account of wars waged by the Emperor Justinian the Great against the Ostrogoths and Vandals.

35 Anne of Brittany. Anne (1477–1514) inherited the dukedom of Brittany at the age of twelve and later defended its independence. In 1491 she married Charles VIII of France. He died in 1498, and in the next year she married Louis XII. This marriage “confirmed the union of Brittany and France,” although the region was only finally incorporated into France in 1532 by François I, Anne’s son-in-law.

38 Jeanne Hachette. Fifteenth-century heroine who was in the forefront of the defense of Beauvais when it was under siege by Charles the Bold. Her weapon was an axe.

38 Sully. Maximilien de Bethune, Due de Sully (15 59-1641), Superin-tendant of Finance under Henri IV, decreased taxation and reformed the corrupt system of collection. He declared that “Plowing and grazing are the two breasts of France.”

38 The Battle of Fontenoy. Fought in 1745 near Tournai in Belgium during the War of the Austrian Succession, by the English and Dutch under the Duke of Cumberland against the Franco-Irish forces commanded by Marshal Saxe. At a crucial moment “the English officers saluted and called out to the French, Tire, gentlemen!’ ‘No, Sir, after you!’ replied Count d’Auteroche (following Marshal Saxe’s orders).” So the English did fire first, but they nevertheless lost the battle.

38 The Bridge of Areola. Located in Italy, province of Verona, on the river Alpone. After a difficult victory over the Austrians, Napoleon, flag in hand, led the assault on the Bridge of Areola on November 15,1796.

38 The Duke of Aumale. The fourth son of Louis-Philippe, he served as an officer in Algeria and was involved in the abduction of Abd-el-Kader’s retinue, May 1843.

38 Léon Gambetta (1838–1882). One of the founders of the Third Republic, and prime minister 1881–1882. During the Franco-Prussian War he organized the Resistance, escaping from Paris by balloon in October 1870 when the capital fell to the enemy, and continuing the fight from Tours.

40 “ Les Trente Glorieuses. ” Every French person can tell you what “Les Trois Glorieuses” are — the three days’ fighting, July 27, 28, and 29,1830, that culminated in the July Revolution — but I have found only one, Thierry Naudin, who knows what “Les Trente” are: “The term was coined by the economist-sociologist Jean Fourastie, based on ‘Les Trois Glorieuses.’ Les Trente Glorieuses refers to the 194 5-197 5 period of continuing economic growth in France when the country reconstructed itself, industry was modernized, and demographic expansion went hand in hand with considerable improvements in living standards.”

42 The postman Cheval. Ferdinand Cheval, 1836–1924, the son of a peasant, started his working life as a baker’s apprentice, then became an agricultural laborer, and in 1867 a postman, moving to Hauterives (Drôme) in 1869. On his thirty-three-kilometer rounds he began collecting stones; in 1879 he bought some land outside the village, and from then until 1912, with the stones he had gathered, he built the extraordinary edifice that came to be known as “Le Palais Idéal.” (His spirit probably had something in common with that of Antonio Gaudi.) Le Palais Idéal was classified as a historic monument by Andre Malraux in 1969, and now receives on average 120,000 visitors a year. In February 1994 it was announced that the local Hauterives council was to buy the postman Cheval’s monument from his descendants for 7.5 million francs.

43 André Le Nôtre; (1613–1700). The gardens designed by this man (who was also an engineer and town planner) include those of Versailles and, in London, St. James’s Park, Kensington Gardens, and Greenwich Park.

51 Tres de mayo. A day of executions in Madrid in 1808, during the Peninsular War. Goya commemorated it in 1814 with his paintings of both The Second of May 1808 and The Third of May 1808.

65 grande gueule. A big mouth or show-off.

67 Vaux-le-Vicomte. Castle built between 1656 and 1659 for Louis XIV’s unscrupulous treasurer Fouquet, who didn’t enjoy it for long because from 1661 the last nineteen years of his life were spent in prison. The park is considered one of Le Notre’s most perfect creations.

76 Le Cirque de Gavarnie. Said to be the most beautiful amphitheater in the Pyrenees.

76 Bertrand du Guesclin (?1315–1380, born near Dinan). Man of war, from a noble but poor family, who served the kings of France and made a good job of chasing the English out of various regions. A popular hero, his legendary exploits are celebrated in poems and songs.

81 Baron Gros. Antoine Gros, 1771–1835, was a student of Jacques-Louis David. His 1799 painting of Napoleon crossing the Bridge of Areola (now in the Louvre) is familiar to every French schoolchild.

100 Les Mystères de Paris. Written in 1842–1843 by Eugène Sue.

101 les fusillés de Chdtâaubriant. Châteaubriant, northeast of Nantes, is a small town where the German army of occupation set up a camp for French political prisoners. Following the assassination of a high-ranking German officer, twenty-seven of these prisoners were shot as hostages on October 22,1941.

104 “Tiens voilá du boudin.” Rallying call used by the French Foreign Legion on any and every occasion. Here, the implication is that the enemy are slyly being referred to as German sausages.

104 Richelieu’s cats. Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642) liked to surround himself with a lot of cats.

121 Captain Charcot. Jean Baptiste Etienne Auguste Charcot, 1867–1936, was a scientist and explorer who commanded the French Antarctic expeditions of 1903–1905 and 1908–1910, the latter in the Pourquoi-Pas, “one of the best fitted out and most up-to-date vessels that ever put out on such a quest.” Nevertheless, in 1936 it broke up on the reefs inside a fjord in Greenland, and Charcot and all but one of his crew perished. (Jean B. E. A. Charcot was the son of Jean Martin Charcot, the doctor who made discoveries in pathology, hysteria, hypnosis, etc., and taught Freud.)

123 Judex. A character in early twentieth-century popular detective fiction who kept popping up here and there when least expected (a bit like Fantomas and Zorro). Judex was written in 1917 by Arthur Berhede (1871–1937), but the character achieved fame through the series of films made by Louis Feuillade (1874–1925). “Feuil-lade’s film series on Judex is listed as one of the major movie events of 1917” (Thierry Naudin).