Pot Luck
Page 49
84 Pope: since November 1860 the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate had debated the Emperor’s speech opening each parliamentary session. The reference here is to the debate in February 1862 on the Roman question, which opposed the partisans of Italian unification, with Rome as capital, and their Catholic adversaries, who defended the temporal power of the Pope (the policy of the party in the Catholic Church that favoured enhancing the Pope’s power and authority being called ‘ultramontanism’). Napoleon III, anxious to secure the Catholic vote, had despatched a French force to Rome in April 1849. The French troops fought their way into the city and ejected the Republicans. A French garrison remained there to guarantee the territorial rights of the restored Pope. When the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in 1861, Rome remained outside it and became a magnet for patriotic Italians, led by Garibaldi (see note to p. 215).
85 Orleanist: supporter of the Orléans branch of the former French royal family and of its claim to the throne of France through descent from the younger brother of Louis XIV.
Mexican Expedition: French troops fought in Mexico from 1862 to 1865 in support of the Archduke Maximilian as emperor of that country. In 1867 Maximilian was captured and executed and a republic was set up in Mexico.
88 Benediction of the Poniards: this is a famous scene from Giacomo Meyerbeer’s opera The Huguenots, with a libretto by Eugène Scribe and Émile Deschamps (1836).
93 Revue des Deux Mondes: a generally conservative intellectual review, founded in 1829.
131 red ribbon: the emblem of the Legion of Honour.
143 … benedicimus: ‘Bless, O Lord our God, this wedding-ring which we bless in Thy name …’
155 modern society: an allusion to Émile Augier’s Le Fils de Giboyer, first performed at the Comédie Française on 1 December 1862.
162 streets of Paris: this passage anticipates the themes of The Ladies’ Paradise, which describes Octave’s creation of the first great Parisian department store.
176 Mignon yearning for Heaven: an engraving based on a famous painting of 1839 by Ary Scheffer (1795–1858).
Fountain of Vaucluse: a famous spring 28 kilometres from Avignon.
181 Zémire et Azor: a comic opera by André Grétry, with a libretto by Jean-François Marmontel, first performed in 1771.
208 ‘… real life’: Zola’s veneration for Balzac (whom he saw as a forerunner of Naturalism) contrasts with his contempt for the escapist literature represented, so he thought, by George Sand.
215 seriously: the parliamentary elections under discussion took place on 31 May 1863. The candidates for the second constituency of Paris, which encompassed the Palais-Royal and the Place Gaillon districts (in which the action of Pot Luck takes place), included Thiers and Dewinck. Dewinck, the sitting member, was the government’s candidate; but in the event the prominent veteran politician Adolphe Thiers was elected. Thiers became a forceful critic of Napoleon III’s handling of European problems, and after the fall of the Empire became President (1871–3) of the Third Republic.
‘… heart!’: Garibaldi attempted to seize Rome in August 1862 but was wounded in the foot and captured by Italian troops at Aspromante before making contact with the French. See note to p. 215.
Roman question: see note to p. 84.
226 ‘… like that!’: a precise echo of the phrase used by Madame Josserand: see p. 22.
269 Public Instruction: as a diocesan architect, Campardon is responsible to the Ministry of Public Instruction and Religion—an amalgamation of Public Instruction and Ecclesiastical Affairs.
304 Foyot’s: one of the most famous restaurants in Paris—in the Rue de Toumon, on the corner of the Rue de Vaugirard.
353 Mazas: a prison in Paris, built in 1850.
366 The Life of Jesus: Ernest Renan’s rationalistic study of the life of Jesus, published in 1863, created a scandal by denying miracle or mystery of any kind; Jesus himself was treated as a historical figure personifying resistance to state authority.
Rouher: Eugène Rouher replaced Billault as leader of the government in the Chamber of Deputies on 18 October 1863. He was the model for Eugène Rougon, the protagonist of Zola’s novel about the political system of the Second Empire, His Excellency Eugène Rougon.