Endnotes
Matters were getting embroiled with Rome. ↩︎
Welcome. ↩︎
Votre Grandeur. ↩︎
Grandeur. ↩︎
Patois of the French Alps: chat de maraude, rascally marauder. ↩︎
Pride. ↩︎
Fishmarket. ↩︎
Du Jardin du Roi. ↩︎
Potato. ↩︎
Badajoz is my home, And Love is my name; To my eyes in flame, All my soul doth come; For instruction meet I receive at thy feet. ↩︎
Give us back our father from Ghent, Give us back our father. ↩︎
Mon calme. ↩︎
Liège is a jest on Li’ge: a cork-tree.
Pau is a jest on peau: skin. ↩︎
Glaces. ↩︎
Glaces or ices. ↩︎
She belonged to that circle where cuckoos and carriages share the same fate; and a jade herself, she lived, as jades live, for the space of a morning (or jade). ↩︎
An ex-convict. ↩︎
A bullet as large as an egg. ↩︎
Walter Scott, Lamartine, Vaulabelle, Charras, Quinet, Thiers. ↩︎
This is the inscription: D. O. M. cy a été écrasé par malheur sous un cahriot, Monsieue Bernard de Brye Marchand a Bruxelle Le [illegible] Fevrier 1637. ↩︎
A heavy rifled gun. ↩︎
“A battle terminated, a day finished, false measures repaired, greater successes assured for the morrow—all was lost by a moment of panic, terror.” Napoleon, Dict’es de Sainte H’l’ne. ↩︎
Five winning numbers in a lottery ↩︎
Philosophe. ↩︎
Literally “made cuirs;” i.e., pronounced a t or an s at the end of words where the opposite letter should occur, or used either one of them where neither exists. ↩︎
Lawyer Corbeau, perched on a docket, held in his beak a writ of execution; Lawyer Renard, attracted by the smell, addressed him nearly as follows, etc. ↩︎
This is the factory of Goblet Junior:
Come choose your jugs and crocks,
Flowerpots, pipes, bricks.
The Heart sells Diamonds to every comer.On the boughs hang three bodies of unequal merits:
Dismas and Gesmas, between is the divine power.
Dismas seeks the heights, Gesmas, unhappy man, the lowest regions;
the highest power will preserve us and our effects. If you repeat this verse, you will not lose your things by theft.The Good Quince. ↩︎
Instead of porte coch’re and porte b’tarde. ↩︎
Town-Hall. ↩︎
Jesus-my-God-bandy-leg’down with the moon! ↩︎
Chicken: Slang allusion to the noise made in calling poultry. ↩︎
Louis XVIII is represented in comic pictures of that day as having a pear-shaped head. ↩︎
Tuck into your trousers
the shirttail that is hanging out.
Let it not be said that patriots
have hoisted the white flag.In order to reestablish the shaken throne firmly on its base,
soil (Des solles), greenhouse and house (Decazes) must be changed.Suspendu: suspended.
Pendu: hung. ↩︎
L’Aile: wing. ↩︎
The slang term for a painter’s assistant. ↩︎
If Caesar had given me
glory and war,
and I were obliged to quit
my mother’s love,
I would say to great Caesar,
“Take back thy sceptre and thy chariot;
I prefer the love of my mother.”Whether the sun shines brightly or dim,
the bear returns to his cave.I am hungry, father.
I have no food.
I am cold, mother.
I have no clothes.
Shover,
Lolotte!
Sob,
Jacquot!The peephole is a Judas in French. Hence the half-punning allusion. ↩︎
Our love has lasted a whole week,
but how short are the instants of happiness!
To adore each other for eight days was hardly worth the while!
The time of love should last forever.You leave me to go to glory;
my sad heart will follow you everywhere.A democrat. ↩︎
Thanks. ↩︎
King Bootkick
went a-hunting after crows,
mounted on two stilts.
When one passed beneath them,
one paid him two sous.In olden times, fouriers were the officials who preceded the Court and allotted the lodgings. ↩︎
Scouts. ↩︎
A game of ninepins, in which one side of the ball is smaller than the other, so that it does not roll straight, but describes a curve on the ground. ↩︎
From April 19 to May 20. ↩︎
Love. ↩︎
Drum. ↩︎
Merlan: a sobriquet given to hairdressers because they are white with powder. ↩︎
Black bread. ↩︎
Larton savonné. ↩︎
The scaffold. ↩︎
What’s the matter with that? ↩︎
Argot of the Temple. ↩︎
Argot of the barriers. ↩︎
The Last Day of a Condemned Man. ↩︎
Vous trouverez dans ces potains-là, une foultitude de raisons pour que je me libertise. ↩︎
But where are the snows of years gone by? ↩︎
Six stout horses drew a coach. ↩︎
It must be observed, however, that “mac” in Celtic means “son.” ↩︎
Here is the theatre
Of the little archer (Cupid).Smoke puffed in the face of a person asleep. ↩︎
Je n’entrave que le dail comment meck, le daron des orgues, peut atiger ses mémes et ses momignards et les locher criblant sans “tre agit” lui-meme. ↩︎
Dog. ↩︎
This isn’t New Year’s day,
To peck at pa and ma.My arm so plump,
My leg well formed,
And time wasted.Paris. ↩︎
At night one sees nothing,
by day one sees very well;
the bourgeois gets flurried
over an apocryphal scrawl,
practice virtue, tutu, pointed hat!Chien: dog, trigger. ↩︎
Here is the morn appearing.
When shall we go to the forest,
Charlot asked Charlotte.Tou, tou, tou,
for Chatou,
I have but one God, one King, one half-farthing, and one boot.And these two poor little wolves were as tipsy as sparrows
from having drunk dew and thyme
very early in the morning.Tou, tou, tou,
for Chatou,
I have but one God, one King, one half-farthing, and one boot.And these two poor little things
were as drunk as thrushes in a vineyard;
a tiger laughed at them in his cave.Tou, tou, tou,
for Chatou,
I have but one God, one King, one half-farthing, and one boot.The one cursed, the other swore.
When shall we go to the forest?
Charlot asked Charlotte.Tou, tou, tou,
for Chatou,
I have but one God, one King, one half-farthing, and one boot.There swings the horrible skeleton
of a poor lover who hung himself.At the Bunch of Corinth Grapes. ↩︎
She astounds at ten paces, she frightens at two,
a wart inhabits her hazardous nose;
you tremble every instant lest she should blow it at you,
and lest, some fine day, her nose should tumble into her mouth.Matelote: a culinary preparation of various fishes. Gibelotte: stewed rabbits. ↩︎
Treat if you can, and eat if you dare. ↩︎
ami: friend. ↩︎
Bip’de sans plume: biped without feathers’pen. ↩︎
Municipal officer of Toulouse. ↩︎
Do you remember our sweet life,
when we were both so young,
and when we had no other desire in our hearts
than to be well dressed and in love?When, by adding your age to my age,
we could not count forty years between us,
and when, in our humble and tiny household,
everything was spring to us even in winter.Fair days! Manuel was proud and wise,
Paris sat at sacred banquets,
Foy launched thunderbolts,
and your corsage had a pin on which I pricked myself.Everything gazed upon you. A briefless lawyer,
when I took you to the Prado to dine,
you were so beautiful that the roses
seemed to me to turn round,and I heard them say: Is she not beautiful!
How good she smells! What billowing hair!
Beneath her mantle she hides a wing.
Her charming bonnet is hardly unfolded.I wandered with thee, pressing thy supple arm.
The passersby thought that love bewitched
had wedded, in our happy couple,
the gentle month of April to the fair month of May.We lived concealed, content, with closed doors,
devouring love, that sweet forbidden fruit.
My mouth had not uttered a thing
when thy heart had already responded.The Sorbonne was the bucolic spot
where I adored thee from eve till morn.
’Tis thus that an amorous soul applies
the chart of the Tender to the Latin country.O Place Maubert! O Place Dauphine!
When in the fresh springlike hut
thou didst draw thy stocking on thy delicate leg,
I saw a star in the depths of the garret.I have read a great deal of Plato, but nothing of it remains by me;
better than Malebranche and then Lamennais
thou didst demonstrate to me celestial goodness
with a flower which thou gavest to me,I obeyed thee, thou didst submit to me;
oh gilded garret! to lace thee! to behold thee
going and coming from dawn in thy chemise,
gazing at thy young brow in thine ancient mirror!And who, then, would forego the memory
of those days of aurora and the firmament,
of flowers, of gauze and of moire,
when love stammers a charming slang?Our gardens consisted of a pot of tulips;
thou didst mask the window with thy petticoat;
I took the earthenware bowl
and I gave thee the Japanese cup.And those great misfortunes which made us laugh!
Thy cuff scorched, thy boa lost!
And that dear portrait of the divine Shakespearee
which we sold one evening that we might sup!I was a beggar and thou wert charitable.
I kissed thy fresh round arms in haste.
A folio Dante served us as a table
on which to eat merrily a centime’s worth of chestnuts.The first time that, in my joyous den,
I snatched a kiss from thy fiery lip,
when thou wentest forth, dishevelled and blushing,
I turned deathly pale and I believed in God.Dost thou recall our innumerable joys,
and all those fichus changed to rags?
Oh! what sighs from our hearts full of gloom
fluttered forth to the heavenly depths!My nose is in tears,
my friend Bugeaud,
lend me thy gendarmes
that I may say a word to them.
With a blue capote
and a chicken in his shako,
here’s the banlieue, co-cocorico.On beholding Lafayette,
The gendarme repeats:—
Let us flee! let us flee!
Let us flee!Love letters. ↩︎
Blunders. ↩︎
The bird slanders in the elms,
And pretends that yesterday,
Atala Went off with a Russian,
Where fair maids go.
Lon la.My friend Pierrot, thou pratest,
because the other day Mila
knocked at her pane and called me.
Where fair maids go.
Lon la.The jades are very charming,
their poison which bewitched me
would intoxicate Monsieur Orfila.
Where fair maids go.
Lon la.I’m fond of love and its bickerings,
I love Agnes, I love Pamela,
Lise burned herself in setting me aflame.
Where fair maids go.
Lon la.In former days when I saw the mantillas
of Suzette and of Z’ila,
my soul mingled with their folds.
Where fair maids go.
Lon la.Love, when thou gleamest in the dark
thou crownest Lola with roses,
I would lose my soul for that.
Where fair maids go.
Lon la.Jeanne, at thy mirror thou deckest thyself!
One fine day, my heart flew forth.
I think that it is Jeanne who has it.
Where fair maids go.
Lon la.At night, when I come from the quadrilles,
I show Stella to the stars,
and I say to them: “Behold her.”
Where fair maids go.
Lon la.But some prisons still remain,
and I am going to put a stop
to this sort of public order.
Where fair maids go.
Lon la.Does anyone wish to play at skittles?
The whole ancient world fell in ruin,
when the big ball rolled.
Where fair maids go.
Lon la.Good old folks, let us smash with our crutches
that Louvre where
the monarchy displayed itself in furbelows.
Where fair maids go.
Lon la.We have forced its gates.
On that day, King Charles X
did not stick well and came unglued.
Where fair maids go.
Lon la.Men are ugly at Nanterre,
’Tis the fault of Voltaire;
And dull at Palaiseau,
’Tis the fault of Rousseau.I am not a notary,
’Tis the fault of Voltaire;
I’m a little bird,
’Tis the fault of Rousseau.Joy is my character,
’Tis the fault of Voltaire;
Misery is my trousseau,
’Tis the fault of Rousseau.I have fallen to the earth,
’Tis the fault of Voltaire;
With my nose in the gutter,
’Tis the fault of …Cygnes. ↩︎
Signes. ↩︎
Steps on the Aventine Hill, leading to the Tiber, to which the bodies of executed criminals were dragged by hooks to be thrown into the Tiber. ↩︎
Brigands. ↩︎
Empty-Pocket. ↩︎
Cutthroat. ↩︎
Mustards. ↩︎
From casser, to break: break-necks. ↩︎
Jeanne was born at Foug’re,
a true shepherd’s nest;
I adore her petticoat,
the rogue.Love, thou dwellest in her;
For ’tis in her eyes
that thou placest thy quiver,
sly scamp!As for me, I sing her,
and I love, more than Diana herself,
Jeanne and her firm
Breton breasts.In allusion to the expression, coiffer Sainte-Catherine: to remain unmarried. ↩︎
Thus, hemming in the course of thy musings,
Alcippus, it is true that thou wilt wed ere long.Tirer le diable par la queue: to live from hand to mouth. ↩︎
Triton trotted on before, and drew from his conch-shell
sounds so ravishing that he delighted everyone!A Shrove-Tuesday marriage
will have no ungrateful children.A short mask. ↩︎
Pantinois. ↩︎
In allusion to the story of Prometheus. ↩︎
Academy of Sciences. ↩︎
Un fafiot s’rieux. Fafiot is the slang term for a bank-bill, derived from its rustling noise. ↩︎
He sleeps. Although his fate was very strange,
he lived. He died when he had no longer his angel.
The thing came to pass simply, of itself,
as the night comes when day is gone.