The Human Arrow
Page 34
31 The Frankish knight Godefroy de Bouillon (1060-1100) was one of the leaders of the First Crusade and became the first ruler of the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Louis II, Prince de Condé (1621-1686) had the reputation of being one of the greatest of all French generals. The family’s deterioration had obviously set in by 1805, given that the French were defeated at Trafalgar.
32 Hubert Lyautey (1854-1934) was appointed Resident-General—in effect, the colonial governor—of French Morocco in 1912.
33 Santos-Dumont called his pioneering monoplanes demoiselles [damsel-flies].
34 The French politician Maurice Couyba (1866-1931) wrote numerous songs and two lyrical dramas under the name Maurice Boukay.
35 The Fête Nationale is July 14.
36 Archduke Ferdinand and his wife had been assassinated in Sarajevo by a Bosnian revolutionary on June 28. The Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia had been issued on July 23. Serbia had appealed to Russia for help and the Austrians had begun mobilizing along the Russian border on July 26. It was on the very the day here attributed to Rozal’s venture, following his take-off, that Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.
37 Célestin Hennion (1862-1915) had been appointed prefect of police in March 1913, and retired on the grounds of ill-health in September 1914. The snide reference to his protecting the amours of former President Félix Faure (1841-1899) refer to the unfortunate circumstance of the latter’s death, while engaged in sexual activities with his mistress that gave rise to countless scabrous jokes.
38 Manon (1884) and Thaïs (1894) are among the most famous operas of Jules Massenet, the former with a libretto by Henri Meilhac and the latter with a libretto by Louis Gallet. The insertion of the lyrical drama La Danseuse de Tanagra (1900) is slightly mischievous, as it was adapted from one of Champsaur’s own novels, L’Orgie Latine; he wrote the libretto in collaboration with Paul Ferrier, and the music was by Henri Hirschmann.
39 Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833) was the inventor of the first internal combustion engine, awarded a patent in 1807 after demonstrating it in front of Napoléon I, on a quasi-ceremonial occasion that must have been much like the one described here.
40 This is an obvious error, readily revealed by elementary arithmetic, although I cannot simply correct it because it is carried over into the next chapter. It should be noon in New York when Rozal lands, if he really took off at three a.m.—but if he had taken off at six a.m., it would have been broad daylight rather than dawn.
41 The actual French Minister of War at this time was Adolphe Messimy, although he was replaced on August 26 by Alexandre Millerand. Obviously, Champsaur did not want to slander a real individual by suggesting a connection with a man like Nasenberg.
42 Raymond Poincaré (1860-1934) served as President of the Republic throughout the war, having earlier restored to that position a power and influence had largely been surrendered by his immediate predecessors.
43 This remains one of the great mysteries of the war. The Schlieffen plan required von Kluck’s first army to link up with von Bulow’s second for a pincer movement intended to take Paris, but the two forces became widely separated, probably because of von Bulow’s hesitation, and von Kluck deviated from the planned route before turning round and trying to join up with von Bulow—thus exposing his flank to the French and suffering defeat at the first Battle of the Marne.
44 “Boche” originated as a reconstruction of “Alboche”, the contemptuous argot expression “boche” having originally been substituted by Frenchmen bent on insult for the second syllable of “Allemand,” and the “Al” subsequently being considered redundant.
45 Joseph Joffre had regrouped the French troops in order to make the assault on the Marne possible, but turned command over to Joseph Gallieni for the actual attack. The question of who deserved most credit for the victory was long debated.
46 The Taube [Dove] monoplane designed by Igo Etrich became the German’s first significant warplane, dominating the first few months of the war before more sophisticated fighters joined the fray. Automobil und Aviatik A.G. was Germany’s most important airplane manufacturer at the time, but its B1 and B2 models were almost exclusively used for reconnaissance.
47 In the 1917 text, this is not chapter XI of Part Three but chapter I of Part Four. The first five paragraphs of the chapter are identical in both editions, but the last two vary.
48 Les Ailes de l’homme was not Champsaur’s first contribution to the Renaissance du livre list; he had previously published Le Bandeau under that imprint. Other popular authors who produced titles for the project included Maurice Dekobra, Gaston de Pawlowski and Abel Hermant.
49 There is, of course, a difference between literature and life. Champsaur was married himself, reasonably happily, so far as anyone seems to know.
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
Villiers de l’Isle-Adam. The Scaffold; The Vampire Soul
English adaptation and introduction Copyright 2011 by Brian Stableford.
Cover illustration Copyright 2011 by JeamTag.
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