The Mysterious Fluid
Page 29
95 An artist who signed himself E. Mougeot produced several images of saints in the early 1900s, but I cannot find any record of his being in communication with any of them.
96 Because the French monde means “social stratum” as well as “world,” tous les mondes [all the worlds], in the context of literary marketing conventionally implies “all sections of society.”
97 It was Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) who made “Que sais-je?” into a celebrated motto; Pierre Charron (1541-1603) merely took over responsibility for his intellectual heritage after his death.
98 When the former of these two contrasted phrases (“like to cure like”) was advanced in the early 19th century as the fundamental principle of homeopathy, the latter (“contrast [against] contrariety”) was suggested, tongue-in-cheek, as the tacit principle of classical medicine.
99 A thaumatrope is an optical instrument for illustrating the persistence of vision, by means of which two rapidly alternating images seem to fuse into one.
100 The substitution of an o for the more usual u in columbarium emphasizes the reference to a dovecot (i.e., a set of pigeon-holes), but the Latin columbarium was a metaphorical adaptation of the term to a vault with recesses in which cinerary urns were placed.
101 [There is] nothing new under the sun.
102 The quotation is from La Rôtisserie de la reine Pédauque (1892; tr. as At the Sign of the Reine Pedauque).
103 René du Mesnil de Maricourt (1829-1893), the grandson of Louis XVI’s most devoted courtier, Baron François Hue, published the item of futuristic fiction in question, La Commune en l’an 2073, in 1874. As its title implies, its primary purpose is political.
104 The author inserts a footnote here that I have moved a short distance to the end of the chapter.
105 “When Will the Earth be Full?” in the July 1901 issue. What follows is not a quotation but a summary; the tables are accurate but the five-point digest of the argument simplifies a discourse that is far more elaborate.
106 Although this point may seem contradictory to the others in the context of this summary, Schooling’s article does call attention to the deceleration of the rate of population increase in several European nations, especially France. Vibert was not the only Frenchman note of that statistic, but he went into the matter in sufficient depth to produce his own analysis of La Dépopulation de France in 1903.
107 This assertion may seem odd, but it must be remembered that Vibert was writing at a time when it was still widely assumed that there was some crucial kind of “vital spirit” or “vital spark” differentiating living matter from inert matter, and it is the non-existence of that independent spark of life that the microbiologist is really proclaiming. Nowadays, of course (whether we believe it or not) we are well used to the notion that life is merely a complex chemical phenomenon without any quasi-magical vitalistic supplement, and that the judgment in question applies to us as well as to single-celled creatures of various sorts.
108 The term bâtonnets, which I have translated literally as “rods,” is nowadays applied to rod-like bacteria, but the microscopes of 1900 had considerable difficulty distinguishing bacteria. The objects seen in blood to which the speaker is referring, as he implies himself, are more likely to have been blood cells and platelets (and are highly unlikely to have been dividing at all).
109 This is one of the points at which the text seems slightly confused, perhaps because at least one line, and possibly more, has been omitted by the printer.
110 Louis-Paul Cailletet (1832-1913) was one of two physicists who succeeded independently in liquefying oxygen in 1877 (the other was Raoul Pictet).
111 The author inserts a footnote: “Since the closing of the Exposition, I have moved my shop next door to my factory in the Rue Mouffetard, for the sake of economy.”
112 Chiné is a fabric, but the word’s literal meaning is “clouded.”
113 Picrates explode when struck.
114 Olympe Audouard (1832-1890) was a successful writer and editor, who founded the Revue cosmopolite as well as the humorously-inclined Le Papillon. Only one of her numerous books touches on the occult, but she was and still is famous for her pioneering militant feminism—an aspect of her achievement that Vibert (whose strident egalitarianism does not seem to extend to women) fails to mention.
115 Edmond Blanc (1856-1920) was the foremost French owner and breeder of racehorses of his era; he founded Saint-Cloud racecourse.
116 The physicist Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac made a famous balloon ascent in 1804 with Jean-Baptiste Biot, in order to measure the temperature and humidity of the atmosphere at various altitudes; they succeeded in taking measurements all the way up to 6400 meters.
117 The vent d’Autan, a south or south-westerly wind affecting the south of France, is said to drive people mad.
118 The French aérophile and the English “aerophile” were both used in the 19th century to signify a lover of ballooning, but Vibert seems to be using the word to refer to measuring devices rather than individuals, no human having got anywhere near an altitude of 15,000 meters in 1901.
119 Vibert is presumably referring to “absolute zero”, which is actually -273oC
120 Li-Hung-Chang (Li Hong Zhang in modern orthography) was a leading statesman and diplomat of the Qing Empire. His reputation in China is equivocal, to say the least, as he lost all his military engagements with foreign powers and helped put a stop to the Boxer rebellion—for which reason he was and is far more highly esteemed in the West. He toured Europe and the USA in 1896.
121 The famous educator Octave Gréard (1828-1904).
122 The leader of the “expedition” in question was, indeed, a dentist named Anthony Varicle, who really did make an (unsuccessful) attempt to use balloons to supply the Klondyke miners—but he did not set off from the Gare Saint-Lazare, being already resident in the Yukon.
123 Maurice Mallet was one of the leading French airship-constructors; the company he founded in 1896 still exists, somewhat transfigured, as Zodiac Aerospace. He was not involved in Varicle’s scheme.
124 Félix Potin was France’s largest mass-distribution retailer in the 1890s.
125 The historian Charles-Alexandre Geoffroy de Grandmaison (1858-1931)
126 The verse is, of course, in Medieval French; it is carefully rhymed, but its scansion is uncertain. As it is the meaning that is important (where it is clear—the chronological element is peculiar) I have made no attempt to reproduce the rhyme-scheme.
127 The author inserts a footnote: “The author will already have realized that this was written during the Dreyfus affair, when Zola was in London.”
128 The building is still there, at 71 West 23rd Street, but it no longer seems vast.
129 The vegetable thus forced is chicory.
130 The politician Émile Girardin (1802-1881); I can find no record of the quotation in question.
131 In fact, and as the text subsequently confirms, the deposits that have almost completely blocked the channel in the uppermost of the Pont du Gard’s three levels over the centuries are mostly calcium carbonate.
132 The microbiologist Charles Chamberland (1852-1908) invented a porcelain filter in 1884, sometimes co-credited to Louis Pasteur, whose pores were smaller than bacteria, and which could therefore filter infectious organisms out of water.
133 At the end of the 19th century, the word “medicine” and its French equivalent were often used, much as “physick” had earlier been employed, as a euphemism for “laxative,” laxatives being among the most popular quack medicines—perhaps the only ones, barring the placebo effect, that occasionally did more good than harm. They featured in a lot of jokes, tall stories and urban legends.
134 The publisher P.-J. Hetzel was a well-known Republican, but the reference to “the Comte” de Grammont is presumably to Henri Delmas de Grammont (1830-1892), mistakenly awarded the title by virtue of confusion with the 17th century Comte de Grammont whose supposed memoires were written by Antoine Hamilton. The Comte de Pistois
and the Marquis de la Lance remain elusive, although there is an Italian title Conde di Pistoia, whose name might be rendered in the former style in French.
135 The Marquis Auguste de Belloy (1815-1871) had, indeed, died long before this story was written.
136 The Strasbourg printer named Zeitner who invented the capital U and J in 1629 did so because he could not concern himself solely with Latin texts, in which they had previously been rendered I and V, being forced to contend with vernacular languages.
137 It is worth noting that the contemporary controversy regarding the pronunciation of the Latin letter in question is reflected en passant in a mock-scholarly essay by Alphonse Allais’ protégé Gabriel de Lautrec, which Lautrec reprinted in his collection Poèmes en prose (1898). A translation can be found in the Black Coat Press sampler of Lautrec’s work, The Vengeance of the Oval Portrait, q.v. By “pronouncing u,” as opposed to “pronouncing ou,” Vibert is, of course, referring to the guttural pronunciation found in English words such as but and gun, as opposed to the pronunciation featured in mute and dune, so his comment about the German and English languages is disingenuous.
138 Lex Duodecimum Tabularum was the founding document of Roman law.
139 This is a trifle exaggerated; Alphonse Hardon did work for de Lesseps on the Suez canal, but his job was a routine matter of hiring of native laborers.
140 Gallica currently produces only one reference to a painter named Goubot active in the relevant period, whose name was Claude, not Jean. How fast notoriety fades!
141 Both of these charitable institutions had been founded in the 18th century; the former pioneered night shelters for the homeless.
142 This (perfectly accurate) quotation is from Octave Mirbeau’s rave review of Émile Zola’s Fécondité (1899; tr. as Fruitfulness), which appeared in the November 29, 1899 issue of L’Aurore.
143 There is a commune called Poullaouen in Finistère, in Brittany, near to the other places named, but it never had a Baron.
144 As Vibert’s delusion still seems to be common, it is probably worth reminding the reader that the contemporaries in question were absolutely right and presumably knew exactly why, being able to count.
145 Molière’s farcical study of hypochondria.
146 The French matinée means “morning,” the deceptive theatrical meaning having been derived to distinguish early performances from evening performances.
147 I have been obliged to improvise here, as there is no English equivalent of the French relevée.
148 The plant in question is now known as Victoria amazonica.
149 I can find no evidence of this, or of any Danish botanist called Schumacker; John Lindsay’s specimens had been provided by Robert Schomburgk, and it is possible that Vibert is misremembering what he had read.
150 The author inserts a footnote: “Thus far, alas, I do not know Edward’s inclinations with regard to my project.”
151 The first Hague Peace Conference of 1899, summoned by Tsar Nicholas II and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, to which 26 nations sent delegates, inevitably foundered on the rock of irreconcilable international differences, thus setting a precedent that remains inviolate to this day, but it did establish the Hague Tribunal.
152 I cannot identify Dr. Héricourt any more accurately, nor the M. Perry subsequently cited, but Jean-Marie Thévenet Le Boul’s idea of moving platforms was widely-reported and much-discussed at the time, although nothing came of it.
153 Presumably Émile Gautier, the editor of La Science Française, a diehard promoter and occasional writer of future war fiction.
154 I have not been able to find any further data on James Judge or Mr. Hicks, who are understandably immune to Google searches, but Eugène Turpin (1848-1927) remains famous and Edmund Zalinski (1849-1909) actually managed so set up the Pneumatic Dynamite Gun Company to manufacture and market his device, although not many were sold.
155 I have translated bombes d’éclairage as “flash-bombs” to emphasize that the term “flares” had not yet been devised, although that is, of course, what is being described. Edward Wilson Very (1847-1910) was working for the U.S. Navy at the time on the development of his hand-held flare-gun.
156 The famous dancer Cléo (i.e., Cleopatra) de Mérode was actually born in Paris to an Austrian father, but her family name was Belgian in origin, and she became permanently and disastrously linked with that country when King Leopold fell in love with her after seeing her dance in 1896, occasioning gossip that ruined her reputation (his was already irreparable).
157 The French mineur means “minor” as well as “miner.”
158 There is a musical piece with this title, but Vibert is, of course, speaking metaphorically, as in the conventional phrase “coiffing Sainte Catherine,” whose implication is identical.
159 The French action signifies “share [in a joint-stock company]” as well as “deed.”
FRENCH SCIENCE FICTION COLLECTION
Henri Allorge. The Great Cataclysm
G.-J. Arnaud. The Ice Company
Richard Bessière. The Gardens of the Apocalypse
Albert Bleunard. Ever Smaller
Félix Bodin. The Novel of the Future
Alphonse Brown. City of Glass
Félicien Champsaur. The Human Arrow
Didier de Chousy. Ignis
C. I. Defontenay. Star (Psi Cassiopeia)
Charles Derennes. The People of the Pole
Alfred Driou. The Adventures of a Parisian Aeronaut
J.-C. Dunyach. The Night Orchid; The Thieves of Silence
Henri Duvernois. The Man Who Found Himself
Achille Eyraud. Voyage to Venus
Henri Falk. The Age of Lead
Charles de Fieux. Lamékis
Arnould Galopin. Doctor Omega
Edmond Haraucourt. Illusions of Immortality
Nathalie Henneberg. The Green Gods
Michel Jeury. Chronolysis
Octave Joncquel & Théo Varlet. The Martian Epic
Gustave Kahn. The Tale of Gold and Silence
Gérard Klein. The Mote in Time’s Eye
André Laurie. Spiridon
Gabriel de Lautrec. The Vengeance of the Oval Portrait
Georges Le Faure & Henri de Graffigny. The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (2 vols.)
Gustave Le Rouge. The Vampires of Mars
Jules Lermina. Mysteryville; Panic in Paris; The Secret of Zippelius
José Moselli. Illa’s End
John-Antoine Nau. Enemy Force
Henri de Parville. An Inhabitant of the Planet Mars
Gaston de Pawlowski. Journey to the Land of the Fourth Dimension
Georges Pellerin. The World in 2000 Years
Henri de Régnier. A Surfeit of Mirrors
Maurice Renard. The Blue Peril; Doctor Lerne; The Doctored Man; A Man Among the Microbes; The Master of Light
Jean Richepin. The Wing
Albert Robida. The Clock of the Centuries; Chalet in the Sky
J.-H. Rosny Aîné. Helgvor of the Blue River; The Givreuse Enigma; The Mysterious Force; The Navigators of Space; Vamireh; The World of the Variants; The Young Vampire
Marcel Rouff. Journey to the Inverted World
Han Ryner. The Superhumans
Brian Stableford (anthologist) The Germans on Venus; News from the Moon; The Supreme Progress; The World Above the World; Nemoville
Jacques Spitz. The Eye of Purgatory
Kurt Steiner. Ortog
Eugène Thébault. Radio-Terror
C.-F. Tiphaigne de La Roche. Amilec
Théo Varlet. The Xenobiotic Invasion
Paul Vibert. The Mysterious Fluid
English adaptation and introduction Copyright 2011 by Brian Stableford.
Cover illustration Copyright 2011 by Yoz.
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ISBN 978-1-61227-020-3. First Printing. June 2011. Published by Black Coat Press, an imprint of Hollywood Comic
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