Henry James

by Henry James

  199.9 Jardin d’Hiver] See note 35.2–3.

  199.19–20 two matched lodges of the octroi] See note 35.4–5.

  199.23–24 Avenue of the Empress, now, so much more thinly, but of the Wood itself] The Avenue de l’Impératrice, at the time of James’s writing called Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, and since 1929 Avenue Foch.

  199.25 the Empress herself] The Spanish-born Eugénie, Empress of France, 1853–71 (born Eugénia Maria de Montijo de Guzmán, Countess of Teba, 1826–1920).

  199.29–36 baby Prince Imperial . . . Prince’s baptism at Notre Dame, the fête of Saint-Napoléon] The baptism of the only son of Napoléon III and Empress Eugenie, Napoléon Eugène Louis Jean Joseph Bonaparte (1856–1879), took place at the cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris on June 14, 1856, followed the next day with a celebration to coincide with the birthday of Napoléon Bonaparte.

  199.32 cent-gardes] French: Emperor’s bodyguards, created in 1854.

  199.38 Eugène Rougon of Emile Zola] Son Excellence Eugène Rougon (1876; His excellency Eugène Rougon), the sixth of the twenty Rougon-Macquart novels by French writer Émile Zola (1840–1902), which James said in 1876 showed “brutal indecency.”

  200.6 biggest and brightest illumination] Fireworks display.

  200.27–28 Guignol and of Gringalet . . . Polichinelle and his puppets] Puppet-show characters Guignol and his son, Gringalet; Polichinelle is the French name for Italian commedia dell’arte character Pulcinella.

  201.7 ours] French: bear.

  201.25 many-windowed premier] French: first floor, above the ground floor.

  201.39 bavards] French: chatty, garrulous people.

  202.2 marchand-de-bois] French: wood-seller.

  202.11 ouvrière] French: female worker, seamstress.

  204.5 jeune homme] French: young man.

  204.15 unmenaced, the inviolate Café Foyot] A bomb planted by anarchists exploded inside the Café Foyot on April 4, 1894.

  204.26 Les Français Peints par Eux-Mêmes] Illustrated multivolume edition (1840–42; The French painted by themselves). See also note 204.31–35.

  204.26–27 of Gavarni, of Grandville, of Henri-Monnier] Gavarni, see note 15.27; Grandville, pseudonym of French caricaturist and illustrator Jean-Ignace-Isidore Gérard (1803–1847). Henri-Monnier, see note 88.3–5.

  204.31–35 Balzac . . . exposition there of the contrasted types of L’Habituée des Tuileries and L’Habituée du Luxembourg] There were five entries by Balzac in Les Français Peints par Eux-Mêmes, but the essay on the contrasting types frequenting the Tuileries and the Jardin du Luxembourg was written by French writer and traveler Jacques Arago (1790–1855).

  204.35 serré] French: packed, clotted.

  205.15 Couture’s Romains de la Décadence, recently acclaimed] History painting (The Romans During the Decadence, 1847) by French artist Thomas Couture (1815–1879), exhibited to high critical praise at the 1847 Paris Salon.

  205.22 William Hunt] American painter (1824–1879) who taught William James, as well as James himself and the American artist John La Farge (1835–1910); see Notes of a Son and Brother, pp. 292–94.

  205.27 Edouard Frère] French painter Pierre Édouard Frère (1819–1886).

  205.29–30 Troyon, Rousseau, Daubigny, even Lambinet] French artists affiliated with the Barbizon school of landscape painters: Constant Troyon (1810–1865), Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867), Charles-François Daubigny (1817–1878), and Émile Charles Lambinet (1813–1877). The memory of a painting by Lambinet is cherished by Lambert Strether, the hero of James’s novel The Ambassadors (1903).

  205.39 beautiful Page with a Falcon] The Falconer (1844–45).

  206.36 Paul Delaroche] French painter of historical subjects (1797–1856).

  206.39–40 La Barque du Dante] Painting (1822) by French artist Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863).

  207.3 Les Enfants d’Edouard] Delaroche’s painting (The Children of Edward, 1830) depicting the sons of English king Edward IV imprisoned in the Tower of London and about to be murdered.

  207.16–17 commemorative show of Delaroche] The posthumous exhibition (1857) of Delaroche’s works at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

  207.24–25 Lady Jane Grey . . . Charles the First] Delaroche’s paintings The Execution of Lady Jane Grey (1833) and Charles I Insulted by Cromwell’s Soldiers (1836).

  207.36 Decamps] French artist Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps (1803–1860).

  210.26–32 Géricault’s Radeau de la Méduse . . . Guérin’s Burial of Atala, Prudhon’s Cupid and Psyche, David’s helmetted Romanisms, Madame Vigée-Lebrun’s “ravishing” portrait of herself and her little girl] Paintings by French artists: The Raft of the Medusa (1818–19) by Théodore Géricault (1791–1824); Burial of Atala (1808) by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson (1767–1824); possibly Psyche and Cupid (1798) by François Gérard (1770–1837), or The Abduction of Psyché (1808) by Pierre-Paul Prud’hon (1758–1823); the neoclassical depictions of Roman antiquity by Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825); one of two self-portraits by Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1755–1842) with her daughter in the collection of the Louvre.

  211.24–26 vast Veronese, at Murillo’s moon-borne Madonna, at Leonardo’s almost unholy dame] The Wedding at Cana (1563) by Italian artist Paolo Caliari, known as Veronese (1528–1588); Immaculate Conception (1678) by Spanish painter Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682); La Gioconda (c. 1503–1519) or the Mona Lisa by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), described by Walter Pater in The Renaissance (1873): “like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave.” The Murillo and Veronese figure in the first and second chapters respectively of James’s The American (1877).

  213.23 féerie] French: enchanted spectacle.

  213.25 Le Diable d’Argent] Play (The Money Devil, 1820) by French writers Armand d’Artois (1788–1867), Edmond Rochefort (1790–1871), and Emmanuel Théaulon (1787–1841).

  213.28 donnée] French: theme, subject.

  214.8 Rachel] See note 49.14–16.

  214.9–13 Mademoiselle Mars . . . Mlle. Georges . . . Déjazet and Frédéric Lemaître and Mélingue and Samson] French actors: Anne-Françoise-Hippolyte Boutet (1779–1847), known as Mademoiselle Mars; Marguerite-Joséphine Weimer (1787–1867), known as Mademoiselle George; Virginie Déjazet (1798–1875), also a theater owner; Frédérick Lemaître (1800–1876), famous for his portrayal of the criminal Robert Macaire; Étienne Marin Mélingue (1808–1875), also a painter and sculptor; Joseph-Isidore Samson (1793–1871), also a playwright.

  214.24 spectacle coupé] A performance consisting of excerpts from several plays.

  214.24–25 Mesdames Rose Chéri, Mélanie, Delaporte and Victoria (afterwards Victoria-La-fontaine)] French actors: Rose-Marie Cizos (1824–1861), known as Rose Chéri; Dinah Félix (1836–1909), known as Madame Mélanie or Madame Mélanie-Émilie, the youngest sister of the actor Rachel; Marie Delaporte (1838–1910); and Victoria Valous (1841–1918), known as Victoria Lafontaine after her marriage.

  214.27 baignoire] French: box in the lowest tier of a theater.

  214.27–28 Madame de Girardin’s Une Femme qui Déteste son Mari] Comedy (A Wife Who Hates Her Husband, first staged in 1856) by the French poet, newspaper writer, novelist, and playwright Delphine de Girardin (1804–1855).

  214.38 tenue] French: bearing.

  215.9 physique ingrat] French: unprepossessing physical appearance.

  215.18 the then still admired Ponsard, Ce qui Plaît aux Femmes] Play (1860; What pleases women) by French dramatist François Ponsard (1814–1867).

  215.22 Mademoiselle Fargeuil, the heroine?] French actor Anaïs Fargueil (1819–1896) played the role of the Countess in the 1860 production of Ponsard’s play.

  215.29–30 revendeuse] French: female retailer or secondhand dealer.

  215.37–216.1 veteran of the stage, Mademoiselle Pierson . . . a very juvenile beauty] French acto
r Blanche Pierson (1842–1919), who made her stage debut at the age of eleven.

  216.7–8 she had given all Sardou’s earlier successes the help of her shining firmness] Fargueil acted in several early plays of French playwright Victorien Sardou (1831–1908), including Les femmes fortes (1860; The strong women), Nos intimes (1861; Our intimates), and Les diables noirs (1863; The black devils).

  216.10–11 Patrie . . . Ambigu] Sardou’s historical drama Patrie (1869) was first performed at the Théâtre de l’Ambigu in Paris.

  216.34 assouplissement] French: softening-up, making supple.

  217.8 thinness of the school of Scribe] Followers of French playwright Eugène Scribe (1791–1861), author of hundreds of plays alone or in collaboration, noted for his handling of stagecraft and plot construction.

  217.10 the younger Dumas and Augier] French writer Alexandre Dumas fils (1824–1895); French playwright and poet Émile Augier (1820–1889), author of L’aventurière (1848; The adventuress); Le mariage d’Olympe (1855; Olympe’s marriage), Lions et renards (1869; Lions and foxes), and many other plays.

  218.4–5 Daudet’s lean asylum for the petits pays chauds] See note 124.13–19.

  218.33–34 Charles Fourier and in his scheme of the “phalanstery”] Utopian French social theorist Charles Fourier (1772–1837) proposed a new model of social organization made up of autonomous collectives of 1,620 people (one phalanx) living in communal buildings called “phalansteries.”

  219.7 Hawthorne’s co-operative Blithedale] In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Blithedale Romance (1852), a fictional communal experiment based largely on Brook Farm, 1841–47, cooperative near West Roxbury, Massachusetts, whose members included prominent Transcendentalists, and for a time Hawthorne himself.

  219.10 where Balzac had ended his life] At his final home in the rue Fortunée in Paris, now rue Balzac in the 8th arrondissement.

  219.23 externes] Day students.

  219.27 pensionnat] French: boarding school; a pension is a boardinghouse.

  219.35 a Daudet méridional] A person from southern France like those in Daudet’s writings.

  220.16 Talma] French actor François-Joseph Talma (1763–1826).

  220.28 mouchards] French: spies, informants.

  220.36 Le Cid] Tragedy (1637) by French playwright Pierre Corneille (1606–1684); “Nous nous levons alors” (“Then we leapt up”) is from IV.iii.27.

  221.14–15 quand même] French: all the same.

  221.34 bonnes] French: female domestic servants.

  222.19–20 the late M. Henry Houssaye, the shining hellenist and historian] French historian (1848–1911) who wrote several books on classical Greece.

  223.4 beaux jours] French: heyday, prime.

  223.10 jeunesse] French: youth.

  223.11 Castalian spring] In Greek legend, a sacred spring near Delphi whose waters possessed the power of poetic inspiration.

  223.16–17 invraisemblable] French: improbable.

  224.19 Pension Vauquer] Shabby boardinghouse, main setting in Balzac’s novel Père Goriot (1834).

  225.16 déjeuner] French: lunch.

  225.35 “Punch”] See note 38.35.

  226.13 vitrines] French: windows.

  227.28 Pradier] Swiss neoclassical sculptor James Pradier (1790–1852).

  228.34 matinal] French: of the early morning.

  229.34 en tête] French: at the head.

  230.24 chiffonier] French: ragpicker.

  230.26–31 La Dame aux Camélias . . . Fechter] Novel (1848; The lady of the camelias) and play (1852) by Dumas fils (see note 217.10); actors Eugénie Doche (1821–1900) and Charles Fechter (1824–1879) starred in the original production of the play. James’s story “The Siege of London” (1883) was inspired by his reaction against Dumas fils’s play Le Demi-Monde in 1877.

  231.15 bavardise] French: chatter.

  232.11 dragées de baptême] Sugar-coated almonds customarily given at baptisms for good luck.

  232.16–17 “Election” cake known to us in New York] Spiced cake prepared for Election Day in the United States, a tradition dating back to the early years of the nation.

  235.36 Electra of a lucidest Orestes] In Greek mythology, Electra was the sister of Orestes (see note 84.13–14). But James may be thinking of Sophocles’s Antigone (c. 441 B.C.E.), where the eponymous heroine insists on properly burying the body of her brother Polynices against the decree of the ruler, her uncle Creon.

  236.9–10 Lucy Snowe . . . Jane Eyre] Heroines of, respectively, Villette (1853) and Jane Eyre (1847) by English novelist Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855).

  237.26 “financial crisis”] The Panic of 1857, severe U.S. economic crisis linked to speculation in land and railroads, among other factors.

  239.24 haute ville] French: upper town.

  239.39 cour d’honneur] French: grand courtyard for a building.

  240.2 perron.] French: flight of steps.

  240.9–10 musée de province] French: provincial museum.

  240.29 internes] Boarding students.

  240.37 awful Mutiny in India] The Indian rebellion of 1857–58, which began with a series of mutinies by Indian soldiers of the East India Company.

  242.1 babas] Rum-soaked sponge cakes.

  242.4 C. B. Coquelin] French actor Constant-Benoît Coquelin (1841–1909); James published an essay on him in 1887.

  242.10 diseur] French: reciter.

  242.33–34 entre cour et jardin] French: between courtyard and garden.

  243.24 Men’s Wives] Title of a group of three stories (1843) by Thackeray; the characters listed at 243.25–30 are all taken from Thackeray’s fiction, sometimes appearing in more than one novel.

  243.39–40 Arthur Pendennis] Protagonist of Thackeray’s History of Arthur Pendennis (1848–50); he is also the narrator of The Newcomes and The Adventures of Philip (1862).

  245.13 ruelles] French: alleyways, narrow streets.

  245.14–15 the first Napoleon’s so tremendously mustered camp of invasion] Napoleon stationed a large army near Boulogne from 1803 to 1805 in preparation for an invasion of England that was never carried out.

  247.12 vieux temps] French: the old days.

  248.12–13 with all Matthew Arnold’s “ennui of the middle ages,”] See Arnold’s essay “Spinoza and the Bible” in Essays in Criticism, where he writes of “a street blank with all the ennui of the Middle Ages.”

  NOTES OF A SON AND BROTHER

  258.40 Tite-Live . . . Schiller and Lessing] The Roman historian Livy (59 B.C.E.–17 C.E.); German playwright and poet Johann Cristoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805); Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781), German playwright and philosopher-critic.

  259.2 talma] See note 106.16.

  259.17 causeur] French: talker, conversationalist.

  259.23–24 Rachel] See note 49.14–16.

  259.28–29 “Que ces vains ornemens, que ces voiles me pèsent!”] “How these vain ornaments, these veils weigh upon me!” From Phèdre (1677), tragedy by French dramatist Jean Racine (1639–1699), I.iii.

  259.33–34 first of his father’s Nouvelles Genevoises, La Bibliothèque de mon Oncle] Collection of short stories about Genevan life (1832; My uncle’s library) by Rodolphe Töppfer (see note 176.30–31), followed by the collection Nouvelles genevoises (1841; News from Geneva).

  261.14 magnifique gendarme] French: magnificent policeman.

  261.19 H. F. Amiel] Swiss diarist, critic, and professor at the University of Geneva Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881). His Journal was translated in 1885 by James’s friend Mary Ward, who persuaded her uncle Matthew Arnold to write an essay on him.

  261.24 Victor Cherbuliez] See note 197.8.

  262.13 Vaud] Canton in southwestern Switzerland.

  262.34 the Bâlois] People from Basel.

  263.25–28 It was the hour . . . liberation of Lombardy; the cession of Nice and Savoie were in
the air] The Austrian defeat in the Franco-Austrian War (1859; also known as the Second War of Italian Independence and the Austro-Sardinian War) resulted in the ceding of Lombardy to the Italian Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, which had been allied with France in the war. Piedmont-Sardinia, enlarged after several northern Italian states elected to join it after the war, ceded Savoy and Nice to France under the terms of the Treaty of Turin (1860).

  264.29–30 the two Cornhill Magazines] English literary monthly periodical, 1860–1975, first edited by William Makepeace Thackeray, in which were serialized numerous Victorian novels, including, as James mentions on p. 268, Framley Parsonage (1860–61) by English novelist Anthony Trollope (1815–1882). Thackeray’s own Roundabout Papers comprises essays first published in the magazine, 1860–63. One later editor (1883–1896) was English novelist James Payn (1830–1898); see James’s memorial essay on Payn in this volume, pp. 687–89.

  269.8–9 the prolonged “coming-out” of The Newcomes] Thackeray’s novel (see note 59.10) was serialized in the Cornhill Magazine from 1853 to 1855.

  270.15 Once a Week . . . George Meredith and Charles Reade and J. E. Millais and George du Maurier] The illustrated English weekly magazine Once a Week, 1859–80, featured serialized fiction by English novelist and poet George Meredith (1828–1909) and English novelist and playwright Charles Reade (1814–1884), as well as illustrations by John Everett Millais (see note 179.8–9) and James’s good friend the French-born cartoonist and writer George du Maurier (1834–1896).

  270.23 Evan Harrington] George Meredith’s novel (1860–61).

  272.36–38 Schiller’s Thirty Years’ War . . . Goethe’s Wahlverwandtschaften] Historical study (1790–92) by Schiller (see note 258.40); Elective Affinities (1809), novel by Goethe.

  273.24 Hermann and Dorothea] Narrative poem (1798) by Goethe.

  273.30 The House of the Seven Gables] See note 51.11–12.

  274.28 the Drachenfels] Hill overlooking the Rhine from nearly one thousand feet at its summit, site of castle ruins.

  275.34–35 he had solved the question simply ambulando] Latin: by walking. (Full phrase solvitur ambulando: it is solved by walking.)