The Captive V pp 369-91

p 382 | Thomas Couture (1815-79): French history painter & teacher.

Romans during the Decadence (1847)

 p 383 | Georges Enesco (Romanian violinist, 1881–1955); also a composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher, often considered Romania's most important musician. Lucien Capet (French violinist, 1873–1928); Jacques Thibaud (French violinist, 1880–1953). 

p 383 | Étienne Pierre Théodore Rousseau (1812–67) was a French painter of the Barbizon school (realism in art).

p 385 | Angelus: The Angelus (Latin for "angel") is a Catholic devotion commemorating the Incarnation... called the "prayer of the devotee", traditionally recited three times daily: 6:00 am, noon, and 6:00 pm.... The Angelus is usually accompanied by the ringing of the Angelus bell, which is a call to prayer and to spread good-will to everyone. The angel referred to in the prayer is Gabriel, a messenger of God who revealed to Mary that she would conceive a child to be born the Son of God.

p 386 | florilegium=a collection of literary extracts; an anthology.

p 386 | Auguste Vacquerie (French writer, 1819-95); Paul Meurice (French writer, 1818-1905); Victor Hugo (1802–85).

p 387 | "...not in the least timorous..." = not showing or suffering from nervousness, fear, or a lack of confidence.


p 389 | beadle=A beadle is a church leader. Often, a beadle serves as an usher or manages charities for the church. The noun beadle isn't used very often in American English, though it's still fairly common in Britain, where beadles hold symbolic or ceremonial jobs in parishes or at universities.

p 389 | sursum corda (Latin: "Lift up your hearts" or literally, "Hearts lifted").

p 390 | The Most Serene House of Condé was a French princely house and a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon. The name of the house was derived from the title of Prince of Condé that was originally assumed around 1557 by the French Protestant leader, Louis de Bourbon (1530–1569), uncle of King Henry IV of France, and borne by his male-line descendants. 

p 390 | ... wearing a ruff... : An item of clothing worn in Western Europe from the mid-16th century to the mid-17th century, primarily. The ruff, worn by men, women and children, evolved from the small fabric ruffle at the drawstring neck of a shirt or chemise. This changeable piece of cloth could be laundered separately while keeping the wearer's doublet from becoming soiled at the neckline.

p 391 | Man proposes, but God disposes is a translation of the Latin phrase Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit from Book I, chapter 19, of The Imitation of Christ by the German cleric Thomas à Kempis.

The Captive V pp 351-69

p 355 | Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707–88) was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopedist.

p 355 | A tea dance, also called a thé dansant (French for "dancing tea"), is a summer or autumn afternoon or early-evening dance from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., sometimes preceded in the English countryside by a garden party.

p 356 | A l'ombre d'un petit bois de pins qui couvre la partie supérieure de la grande ile, s'élève le Chalet, café-restaurant tenu par les glaciers Poiré-Blanche. (In the shade of a small pine forest that covers the top of the large island, stands the Chalet, café and restaurant run by Poiré Blanche glaciers [makers of ices].

p 365 | "... fall of Gaeta..." : The Siege of Gaeta was the concluding event of the war between the Kingdom of Sardinia & the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, part of the unification of Italy. It started on November 5, 1860 and ended February 13, 1861, in Gaeta (today's Southern Lazio, Italy).

p 365 | From Manet, Wagner, and the Musical Culture of Their Time by Therese Dolan (p 33): "...The third act found little favor with the majority and the end of the opera was greeted with loud sifflements, the hissing and whistling that were the characteristic French show of disdain. Jules Janin reported that Princess Metternich broke her fan against the railing of the loge where she was seated because she pounded it in such fury at the hostile reaction of the audience." This was at the Paris debut of Wagner's Tannhäuser on March 13, 1861.

Caroline Bonaparte

p 365 | Maria Carolina Murat (1782–1839), better known as Caroline Bonaparte (a younger sister of Napoleon I), was also the Queen of Naples.

p 366 | Duras=Duchesse de Duras, 1st wife of the Duc de Duras.

p 367 | In Wagner's Die Meistersinger Von Nurnberg, the character Beckmesser is "the pedantic town clerk and master of "Die Meistersinger." ... Beckmesser can't actually create beauty himself; all he can do is find flaws, judging the new by the old..." From a music review by Edward Rothstein, New York Times, 1/24/93. 

p 369 | Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737–1814) was a French writer and botanist.

The Captive V pp 310-351

Nijinsky

p 314 | History of the Ballets Russes

p 316 | Jean Jaurès (French politician & historian, 1859–1914) was a French Socialist leader.

p 320 | rhino-gomenol: a decongestant & antiseptic ointment which Proust himself frequently used.


p 327 | Aristide Bruant (1851–1925) was a French cabaret singer, comedian, and nightclub owner.

p 328 | Maria Sophie in Bavaria (Queen of Naples, 1841–1925) was the last Queen consort of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. 

Empress Elisabeth of Austria and Duchesse d'Alençon were her sisters. Her niece, Elisabeth of Bavaria, Queen of Belgium (1876–1965) married Albert I (1875–1934), who reigned as King of the Belgians from 1909 to 1934. 

p 331 | Norns:  in Norse mythology, female beings who rule the destiny of gods and men. They roughly correspond to other controllers of humans' destiny, the Fates, elsewhere in European mythology.

p 334 | Sibyl: certain women of antiquity reputed to possess powers of prophecy or divination or supposed to utter the oracles and prophecies of a god.

p 337 | Kinderszenen ("Scenes from Childhood"), Opus 15, by Robert Schumann, is a set of 13 pieces of music for piano written in 1838. "Child Sleeps" and "Poet Speaks" are two titles from the work. Hear samples at this link.

p 339 | The Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, is a cornerstone work of High Renaissance art.

p 350 | Song to the Evening Star & Elizabeth’s Prayer, both from Wagner's 1845 opera Tannhäuser. Tristan, Rhinegold, and the Mastersingers are other operas by the German composer, Richard Wagner, 1813-83.

p 351 | "...Pas d'Armes du Roi Jean.... the Contemplations...": Early vs later works by French author Victor Hugo, 1802-85.

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