59 Pope Leo XIII reigned from 1878-1903. French “aristocrats” whose ancestors had bought their titles in Italy were commonly known as “papal barons.”
60 The French pompe [pump] also means pomp, in the context of funeral ceremonies; hence the first pun. French firemen were known as pompiers because of the pumps they used to supply their hoses with water. M. Thomas’ pumps however, were those used by the cesspool-emptiers whose métier was a lucrative business in Paris before and during the installation of the still-famous system of sewers, against which they fought tooth-and-nail for decades, eventually requiring stern legislation for their suppression.
61 The pun does not translate, in spite of the similarity between the English punt (in the sense of laying a bet) and Pontus, and their French equivalents pont and Pont, all the more so because pont, which also means “bridge,” was adapted in French to a crude cheating technique involving bending cards, and thus came to imply cheating at cards in general.
62 Louis Bourdaloue was a seventeenth century French Jesuit, but the word’s other connotations are aptly summed up by the fact that chamber pots are still called “bordaloos” by posy antique dealers. “Thomas” is also French argot for chamber pot, hence the synonymy.
63 The vein of toilet humor is continued here, as the end of second line is phonetically identical to “la selle,” which, in argot would make the line mean “I’m going to take a shit,” rather than taking the suburban railway line from Paris to Celle-Saint-Cloud, as the final line explains. My translations of the “songs” are a trifle free but attempt to capture the spirit while substituting English rhymes (including deliberately faulty ones in the last case) for French ones.
64 Xavier Privas and Dominique Bonnaud were among the co-founders of the Cabaret des Arts and sang in many other establishments a substantial cut above the vulgar café concert circuit.
65 On the French parimutuel horses in the same ownership are “coupled” for betting purposes.
66 The French loufoque means crazy, louffe was used as an abbreviation, although it was most common in fin-de-siècle Paris as an argot term for “pet.”
67 The singer and comedian Aristide Bruant (1851-1925), still familiar as the man in the red scarf in an oft-reproduced poster by his friend Toulouse-Lautrec, was the owner and star of the Montmartre cabaret Le Mirliton throughout the 1890s, and his comedy routines made a specialty of insulting the upper-class clients who went slumming there, in a supposedly jocular fashion, frequently referring to female socialites as “mômes” [kids, when used innocuously, but routinely applied to prostitutes] and their cavaliers as “gigolos.” The socialist statesman Aristide Briand, later to win the Nobel Peace Prize for his pacifist endeavors, was still at the beginning of his glittering career when the present story was written, but had begun the first of his six terms as Prime Minister in July 1909.
68 As an Englishman, Blight naturally speaks French very badly—an impression difficult to convey in English translation. I have done my best.
69 The signature of the caricaturist Georges Goursat (1863-1934), a great lover of the Turf.
70 An untranslatable pun—the French action also signifies a share.
71 The Baron’s speech is rendered in an atrocious eye-dialect supposedly reflective of his ethnic origin, of which I have not attempted to reproduce an English equivalent; it is of no significance to the story.
72 The French phrase monter à l’échelle [literally, climb a ladder] can also signify, metaphorically, “rise to the bait.”
73 Jacques de La Palice, or Palisse (1470-1520) was not, in fact, a writer, but merely a military man whose epitaph included the line S’il n’était pas mort, il ferait envie [if he were not dead, he would still be envied], which jokers insisted on misreading, rendering the last phrase as serait en vie [would still be alive]. The misreading was incorporated into a popular song, which made his name proverbially synonymous with stating the obvious,
74 A comté, in French, as well as signifying the equivalent of an earldom, is a kind of round cheese from the Franche-Comté.
75 i.e, the Dreyfus Affair, which began with the officer’s conviction for treason in December 1894 and became a focal point of sharply-divided political opinions for the next decade.
76 Jean de Bonnefon (1866-1928) was a journalist specializing in religious politics, who played a major role in formulating the law that formally separated the French State from the Catholic Church, orchestrated by Aristide Briand in 1905.
77 The virtuous protagonist of Ludovic Halévy’s eponymous novel of 1882 and the 1887 play adapted from it by Pierre Decourcelle and Hector Crémieux, both very popular.
78 Jules Claretie (1840-1913), formerly a very successful journalist, had been appointed director of the Théâtre-Français in 1885 and was elected to the Académie in 1888, but continued to dabble in his former profession.
79 La Scala was, in the context of this reference, a music hall in the Boulevard de Strasbourg, revitalized by Édouard Marchand in 1895, where all the great names of the café concert circuit performed.
80 Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14:3-9, Luke 7:36-50 and John 12:1-8 describe the anointing of Jesus’ feet, by an unnamed sinner in the first three accounts, and a woman named Mary—not identified as a sinner—in the last; tradition eventually conflated the characters into Mary Magdalen. The incident was obviously considered crucial by the evangelists. Jesus’ disciples suggest to him that the perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor rather than being wasted on his feet, and he replies to the effect that: “The poor will always be with you, but you will not always have me.”
81 The reader will recall that I have not attempted to reproduce the eye-dialect in which the Baron’s speech is rendered in the original, which helps to explain the archbishop’s incomprehension. The saintly individual presumably has no notion of the less savory connotations of the phrase Peau-de-Balle at this point, although he subsequently seems to become vaguely aware of a possible impropriety.
82 Inexplicably, the Abbé’s remarkable memory has failed him; Julius II convened the Lateran Council in question, and it concluded after his death under Leo X. Given that, it is perhaps not surprising that his quotation seems to be both garbled and misattributed.
83 This quotation, on the other hand, is accurate save for one minor transposition, and does indeed come from the source indicated.
84 The quotation, dating from the 11th century, also accurate and correctly attributed, and the judgment is still remembered, not very fondly, by modern chess-players.
85 Autem should be etiam and esse should be essent; otherwise the quotation from the diocesan statues is correct, as it surely ought to be. It translates, approximately, as “let them [i.e., the clergy] also avoid minor faults, which in them would be great, so that their actions may be accorded the respect of all.”
86 “In this sign shalt thou conquer”: originally the motto of the Roman Emperor Constantine I, subsequently adopted by the Knights Templar, inscribed on their standard over a red cross.
87 “Colas’ cow” was an offensive term for a Huguenot, supposedly derived from an incident in which a stray cow belonging to a peasant of that name was ill-treated by a protestant, which was featured in popular songs.
88 This pseudonym would have reminded contemporary readers of that of Léo Taxil (1854-1907), an outspoken author who was both virulently anticlerical and vitriolically anti-Masonic; his outrageous claims were supported by faked evidence, including forged papal correspondence. The title of his book, A bas la calotte! [“Down with the clergy,” the name of the ecclesiastical skullcap being adapted as a slang designation of the entire clergy] (1879) is echoed later in the story as well as in the pun that concludes this fictitious article.
89 The oblique reference is to a famous quotation from the Comte de Buffon, in his Histoire naturelle, stating that the noblest conquest of humankind was that of the horse.
90 Literally, “down with trousers!” but the cry obtained a spec
ial meaning in the 1789 Revolution, when the revolutionary mob consisted of sans-culottes. More relevant to the present citation, however, is the fact that, unlike English gamblers, who can metaphorically “lose their shirt” gambling, French punters who take a heavy loss are sometimes said to “ramasser (or prendre) une culotte” [pull up their trousers].
91 Félix Faure (1841-1899) was the President of the Republic during the last four years of his life, having been out forward for that post because he was the only man in his party who had no enemies. He died in office while allegedly being fellated by his mistress, Margaret Steinheil—which might, of course, have been a nasty rumor put about by his political opponents, but will forever remain his only claim to fame. The story is set shortly after his election, before his fall from grace.
92 The reference to the “law of separation” [of Church and State] implies that the intended comparison is to the painter and fervently anti-clerical député Étienne Dujardin-Beaumetz (1852-1913) rather than the microbiologist Édouard Dujardin-Beaumetz (1868-1947), a specialist in the study of bubonic plague who was head of plague services at the Pasteur Institute, but the author’s omission of a forename permits some ambiguity.
93 It is possible that a racecourse employee, on hearing the word “Monseigneur,” would not automatically assume that it referred to an archbishop; the word had several meanings in Parisian argot, referring to various burglar’s tools, pimps and large-capacity glasses.
94 Profonde [deep] was an argot term for a pocket.
95 The clerk is quoting—slightly mistakenly—two lines from Victor Hugo’s tragedy Ruy Blas (1838).
96 Le Sancy was one of the most successful racehorses of the 1880s, who went on to have a long career at stud, although he and his offspring had a reputation for being “mean.”
97 The daily evening newspaper called Le Monde that exists today was founded in 1944; the one featured in the story is fictitious.
98 The French term “bagne” has no precise English equivalent; it refers to a prison to which only long-term prisoners sentenced to hard labor are sent. In the late 19th century the French moved their principal bagnes to its colonies, primarily to New Caledonia and Guyana, so that they became places of long-term exile. Since the text makes the point that the first airship prisons were French, it therefore seems reasonable, as appears to have been the case within the story, that the other nations imitating that example should have borrowed the French term, which I have therefore retained.
99 The French language has now informally adopted the recently-coined English meaning of “motorail,” referring to trains for transporting road vehicles, but the authors of the present text probably improvised the term, evidently employing it to mean a small motorized railcar.
100 The song quoted is one that Maurice Rollinat used to sing in Le Chat Noir in the 1880s, when Laumann used to hang out there.
101 In 1920, the boxing champion and war hero Georges Carpentier had not yet suffered the crucial defeat by Jack Dempsey that sent his career into a steep downward spiral.
FRENCH SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY COLLECTION
105 Adolphe Ahaiza. Cybele
102 Alphonse Allais. The Adventures of Captain Cap
02 Henri Allorge. The Great Cataclysm
14 G.-J. Arnaud. The Ice Company
152 André Arnyvelde. The Ark
153 André Arnyvelde. The Mutilated Bacchus
61 Charles Asselineau. The Double Life
118 Henri Austruy. The Eupantophone
119 Henri Austry. The Petitpaon Era
120 Henri Austry. The Olotelepan
130 Barillet-Lagargousse. The Final War
103 S. Henry Berthoud. Martyrs of Science
23 Richard Bessière. The Gardens of the Apocalypse
121 Richard Bessière. The Masters of Silence
148 Béthune (Chevalier de). The World of Mercury
26 Albert Bleunard. Ever Smaller
06 Félix Bodin. The Novel of the Future
92 Louis Boussenard. Monsieur Synthesis
39 Alphonse Brown. City of Glass
89 Alphonse Brown. The Conquest of the Air
98 Emile Calvet. In A Thousand Years
40 Félicien Champsaur. The Human Arrow
81 Félicien Champsaur. Ouha, King of the Apes
91. Félicien Champsaur. The Pharaoh’s Wife
133 Félicien Champsaur. Homo-Deus
143 Félicien Champsaur. Nora, The Ape-Woman
03 Didier de Chousy. Ignis
166 Jacques Collin de Plancy. Voyage to the Center of the Earth
97 Michel Corday. The Eternal Flame
113 André Couvreur. The Necessary Evil
114 André Couvreur. Caresco, Superman
115 André Couvreur. The Exploits of Professor Tornada (Vol. 1)
116 André Couvreur. The Exploits of Professor Tornada (Vol. 2)
117 André Couvreur. The Exploits of Professor Tornada (Vol. 3)
67 Captain Danrit. Undersea Odyssey
149 Camille Debans. The Misfortunes of John Bull
17 C. I. Defontenay. Star (Psi Cassiopeia)
05 Charles Derennes. The People of the Pole
68 Georges T. Dodds. The Missing Link and Other Tales of Ape-Men
125 Charles Dodeman. The Silent Bomb
49 Alfred Driou. The Adventures of a Parisian Aeronaut
144 Odette Dulac. The War of the Sexes
145 Renée Dunan. The Ultimate Pleasure
10 Henri Duvernois. The Man Who Found Himself
08 Achille Eyraud. Voyage to Venus
01 Henri Falk. The Age of Lead
51 Charles de Fieux. Lamékis
108 Louis Forest. Someone Is Stealing Children In Paris
31 Arnould Galopin. Doctor Omega
70 Arnould Galopin. Doctor Omega & The Shadowmen
112 H. Gayar. The Marvelous Adventures of Serge Myrandhal on Mars
88 Judith Gautier. Isoline and the Serpent-Flower
163 Raoul Gineste. The Second Life of Dr. Albin
136 Delphine de Girardin. Balzac’s Cane
146 Jules Gros. The Fossil Man
57 Edmond Haraucourt. Illusions of Immortality
134 Edmond Haraucourt. Daah, the First Human
24 Nathalie Henneberg. The Green Gods
131 Eugene Hennebert. The Enchanted City
137 P.-J. Hérault. The Clone Rebellion
150 Jules Hoche. The Maker of Men and his Formula
140 P. d’Ivoi & H. Chabrillat. Around the World on Five Sous
107 Jules Janin. The Magnetized Corpse
29 Michel Jeury. Chronolysis [NO LONGER AVAILABLE]
55 Gustave Kahn. The Tale of Gold and Silence
30 Gérard Klein. The Mote in Time’s Eye
90 Fernand Kolney. Love in 5000 Years
87 Louis-Guillaume de La Follie. The Unpretentious Philosopher
101 Jean de La Hire. The Fiery Wheel
50 André Laurie. Spiridon
52 Gabriel de Lautrec. The Vengeance of the Oval Portrait
82 Alain Le Drimeur. The Future City
27-28 Georges Le Faure & Henri de Graffigny. The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (2 vols.)
07 Jules Lermina. Mysteryville
25 Jules Lermina. Panic in Paris
32 Jules Lermina. The Secret of Zippelius
66 Jules Lermina. To-Ho and the Gold Destroyers
127 Jules Lermina. The Battle of Strasbourg
15 Gustave Le Rouge. The Vampires of Mars
73 Gustave Le Rouge. The Plutocratic Plot
74 Gustave Le Rouge. The Transatlantic Threat
75 Gustave Le Rouge. The Psychic Spies
76 Gustave Le Rouge. The Victims Victorious
109-110-111 Gustave Le Rouge. The Mysterious Doctor Cornelius
96 André Lichtenberger. The Centaurs
99 André Lichtenberger. The Children of the Crab
135 Listonai. The Philosophical Voyager
157 Ch. Lomon & P.-B. Gheusi. The Last Days of Atlantis
167 Camille Mauclair. The Virgin Orient
72 Xavier Mauméjean. The League of Heroes
78 Joseph Méry. The Tower of Destiny
77 Hippolyte Mettais. The Year 5865
128 Hyppolite Mettais. Paris Before the Deluge
83 Louise Michel. The Human Microbes
84 Louise Michel. The New World
93 Tony Moilin. Paris in the Year 2000
11 José Moselli. Illa’s End
38 John-Antoine Nau. Enemy Force
156 Charles Nodier. Trilby * The Crumb Fairy
04 Henri de Parville. An Inhabitant of the Planet Mars
21 Gaston de Pawlowski. Journey to the Land of the Fourth Dimension
56 Georges Pellerin. The World in 2000 Years
79 Pierre Pelot. The Child Who Walked On The Sky
85 Ernest Perochon. The Frenetic People
161 Jean Petithuguenin. An International Mission to the Moon
141. Georges Price. The Missing Men of the Sirius
165 René Pujol. The Chimerical Quest
100 Edgar Quinet. Ahasuerus
123 Edgar Quinet. The Enchanter Merlin
The Mirror of Present Events Page 37
