42 Normally, the Latin word in question would be rendered ius, but, for the reason explained in the previous note, ius rendered in capital letters in a Latin inscription would indeed be IVS.
43 Monos is usually identified as the Greek god of pain and sarcasm, but that does not seem to be the meaning intended here, which might be more closely related to the notion of the phenomenal world as a monad.
44 Lautrec makes frequent reference to Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), whose Embarquement pour Cythère was the inspiration for a famous poem by Baudelaire, in which the embarkation for the island in question, famous for the worship of Aphrodite, became symbolic of the initiation of an erotic adventure.
45 The inclusion of the term “météorologique” [metereorological] in the subtitle pays homage to the way that weather is used in melodramas to reflect the emotions of the characters, by means of an artistic inversion of the celebrated “pathetic fallacy.”
46 Maurice Barrès (1862-1923) became famous for a trilogy of novels devoted to “the cult of the self,” which recommended urgently that people should strive to discover their “roots” in the personal and collective unconscious.
47 The French gris [grey] can also mean “drunk.” I shall not annotate the other untranslatable puns in this piece, because it would become rather tedious.
48 The literal meaning of entournures is “armholes,” but the word is more familiar in an idiomatic phrase vaguely echoed in the Baron’s full name, gêné dans les entournures, which means “in an awkward situation.”
49 Ripolin was, and still is, a well-known brand of paint originated in France.
50 “Dr. Williams’ Pink Pills for Pale People” were one of the most popular patent medicines of the late nineteenth century, marketed by the Canadian G. T. Fulford & Co. as a cure for St. Vitus’s Dance and practically every other disease under the sun.
51 Frères de l’Ut de Poitrine in French “L’ut de poitrine” was a high C that only a few tenors could hit, and which became something of a challenge for that reason; the quest was the theme of an eponymous 1853 vaudeville by Eugène Labiche, echoed in several subsequent dramatic works.
52 The camerera-mayor was the chief attendant of the Spanish queen.
53 The Compagnie Richer was the largest and most famous of the companies contracted to empty the cesspools of Paris.
54 Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1850) was the anthropologist who pioneered craniometry as a method of racial classification, popularizing his work in a series of publications individually entitled Decas craniorum, of which the volume cited here is evidently an improvised omnibus.
55 The Baron de Montyon endowed four annual prizes, one of which was the celebrated “prix de vertu,” awarded for the most conspicuous act of generosity by a Frenchman.
56 Chantecler is a verse play by Edmond Rostand, which was written with a view to the lead role being played by Benoît Coquelin, who had played Cyrano de Bergerac in Rostand’s previous and most successful play. Unfortunately, Coquelin suffered a fatal heart-attack in 1909, allegedly clutching a copy of Chantecler, and the première had to be postponed until 1910.
57 Adelbert von Chamisso’s Peter Schlemihl.
58 The Pont de l’Alma is a bridge over the Seine, named after the battle of Alma, fought in the Crimea in 1854. Its four corners are decorated with generic military statues, one of which represents a zouave.
59 A French game played on a billiard table with three balls and three corks—the ancestor of the “bar billiards” played in English pubs.
60 i.e., pink.
61 Ernest Renan (1823-1892)
62 Le bois de justice [wood of justice] was the official name of the device that became popularly—and, indeed, universally—known as the guillotine.
63 The author who eventually became better known as Han Ryner; a sampler of his work is available in translation in the Black Coat Press collection The Superhumans, ISBN 9781935558774.
64 Storks (although the term is sometimes applied to smaller wading birds).
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 Jean-Michel Ponzio.
Visit our website at www.blackcoatpress.com
ISBN 978-1-16227-009-8. First Printing. May 2011. Published by Black Coat Press, an imprint of Hollywood Comics.com, LLC, P.O. Box 17270, Encino, CA 91416. All rights reserved. Except for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The stories and characters depicted in this novel are entirely fictional. Printed in the United States of America.
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The Vengeance of the Oval Portrait Page 24