Sodom and Gomorrah IV p 78-90

p 78 | "Monsieur" [Philippe I, Duc d’Orléans, brother of Louis XIV, 1640–1701]. From Wikipedia:" During the reign of his brother he was known simply as Monsieur, the traditional style at the court of France for the younger brother of the king. Unabashedly effeminate and preferentially homosexual, he nonetheless fulfilled his dynastic duty by marrying twice and begetting several children.  

p 79 | ..."my little Coburgs..."= The House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

p 82 | Standish, Hélène (1847-1933). Proust met her (née Hélene de Prusse des Cars) for the first time in 1912. The Doudeauvilles were a branch of the La Rochefoucauld family, hence highly aristocratic. (Sturrock notes)

p 83 | Tiepolo red... ; collar of rubies

ruby collar

by Tiepolo

p 83 | viaticum :: the Catholic Eucharist given to a person in danger of death as part of the last rites; literally, "provisions for a journey."

p 86 | School of Political Sciences (École Libre des Sciences Politiques): Ecole des Sciences Politiques: a private institution, founded in 1871, to teach law. economics, and history, which quickly came to specialize in training future senior civil servants. It was nationalized in 1945 as the Institut des Etudes Politiques. (Sturrock notes)

p 87 | Desert Fathers=Christian hermits, ascetics, and monks who lived mainly in the Scetes desert of Egypt starting around 3rd century C.E.

p 87 | Racine's famous tragedies, Athalie and Esther. Neither of the two tragedies has a homosexual theme; the "race" Racine is concerned with in both plays is the Jews. The quotations are from Esther, as modified by Proust. (Sturrock notes)

p 87 | Temple at Jerusalem; throne-room at Susa. In 1912, the Comtesse Blanche de Clermont-Tonnerre gave a famous "Persian" party, the decor of which reproduced that of the walls of the recently discovered throne room in the ancient palace of Suze, in Tunisia. (Sturrock notes)

p 89 | Proust and Racine

d'Annunzio

p 89 |  Gabriele D'Annunzio (Italian writer, 1863-1938), with a reputation as a womanizer.

p 90 | Alexander Pavlovich Isvolsky (1856-1919), Russian ambassador in Paris (1910-17), involved in Anglo-Russian Alliance.

p 90  Ibsen died in 1906, and his appearance contemporary with Isvolsky is implausible. (Sturrock notes)

p 90 | Le Gaulois (French daily newspaper); founded 1868, was famous before 1914 for its social coverage, which took readers away from Le Figaro—the paper it merged with in 1928. (Sturrock notes)

Sodom and Gomorrah IV p 70-77

p 70 | ..."the supple form of a winged victory."  Whist card game.

p 71 | ... "Harmony in Black and White" by Whistler ; Maltese cross

p 72 | ... "tilting at windmills"= attacking imaginary enemies

p 73 |  Nuncio (also papal nuncio)= an ecclesiastical diplomat (like an ambassador), a representative of the Holy See to a state; usually an archbishop. Duc d'Aiguillon (but which one?)

p 76 | Hubert Robert (1733-1808), French painter of ruins &  views & landscapes & fountains. See some works here, a bit of erotic symbolism here

p 77 | Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia (1847–1909), the second son of Tsar Alexander II; he spent long periods in Paris with his wife, Maria Pavlovna, who appears in the final volume of the novel (Sturrock notes).

Sodom and Gomorrah IV p 55-66

p 55 | A French cour d'assises or Assize Court is a criminal trial court with limited jurisdiction to hear cases involving defendants accused of major felonies or indictable offences, or crimes in French, and one of the few to be decided by jury trial.

p 56 | Hyperthermia is overheating of the body.Heat stroke (or sun stroke) is a form of hyperthermia. Sudation = sweating.

p 58 | The Quai d’Orsay is part of the left bank of the Seine, as well as the name of the street along it. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs is located there and is often called the "Quai d'Orsay."

p 59 | La Presse was founded in 1836 by Émile de Girardin as a popular conservative enterprise. While other papers depended heavily on subscription & close party affiliation, La Presse was sold by street vendors. Street-arabs are homeless children who survive by begging and stealing; urchins. Jacobin: During the French Revolution, a supporter of left-wing revolutionary opinions.

p 61 | Bourbonesque refers to the House of Bourbon, a European royal house (family) of French origin.

p 62 | Bernhard von Bülow (1849–1929), was a German statesman who served as Chancellor of the German Empire (1900-09) and married an Italian, Maria Beccadelli di Bologna, Marchesa di Altavilla, Principessa di Camporeale (1848-1929). Pincio: hill terrace in Rome.

p 62 | ..."eminent French diplomat... John Sturrock 518 writes that this is Maurice Paléologue  (1859–1944), a French diplomat, historian, and essayist. Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orléans (Princess Palatine) was described as stolid and mannish, with the stamina to hunt all day. She walked too rapidly for most courtiers to keep up, save the king.

p 66 | References to Act 2 of Wagner's opera Tannhäuser.

Dresden china plates

Sodom and Gomorrah IV p 44-52

Licensed CC BY-SA 2.5

p 45 | Luxor obelisk on the Place de la Concorde

p 45 |Crescent moon & star (here, Venus)







p 46 | Ushers assist visitors by formally showing the way in a large building or to their appropriate seats. From the French huissier, ushers were servants or courtiers who showed visitors in and out of meetings in large houses or palaces.  Avenue Gabriel.

p 47-48 | French military painter Édouard Detaille, 1848-1912. The Dream is his 1888 (Le Rêve) painting that shows soldiers asleep on a battlefield dreaming of military glory.

p 50-51 | Thomas Henry Huxley, 1825–95, English biologist (comparative anatomist), known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for advocating the theory of evolution. Grandfather of Aldous Huxley, 1894–1963, English writer, perhaps best known for his dystopian novel Brave New World. A humanist, pacifist, & satirist, he later became deeply concerned that humans might become subjugated through the sophisticated use of the mass media or mood-altering drugs, or tragically impacted by misunderstanding or the misapplication of increasingly sophisticated technology.

p 51 | François de Malherbe, French poet, 1555-1628.

p 51 | ... dancing the Boston...": a type of waltz. Cotillion dance & favors.

p 52 | ... draught of honeydew"; or l'eau de mélisse

Sodom and Gomorrah IV p 28-44

p 29 | convolvulus: climbing morning glory plant with tendrils

p 30 | Saturn... as in Saturnalia?

p 30 | cross-dressing in 19th century Paris




p 32 | Rob Roy... Diana Vernon : two characters in Sir Walter Scott's 1817 novel Rob Roy.

sterile jellyfish on the beach

p 34 | ... cases where inversion is curable...

p 35 | urticaria = hives;

p 36 | Griselda;  Andromeda; Argonauts;

p 36 | Athénaïs Michelet: a French natural history writer; girandole = showy branching, e.g., fireworks, candelabra; vanilla = "...Blooming occurs only when the flowers are fully grown. Each flower opens up in the morning and closes late in the afternoon on the same day, never to re-open. If pollination has not occurred meanwhile, it will be shed. The flowers are self-fertile but need pollinators to perform this task. The flowers are presumed to be pollinated by stingless bees and certain hummingbirds, which visit the flowers primarily for nectar. Hand pollination is the most reliable method in commercially grown Vanilla." (Wikipedia)

Vanilla

p 39 | Lythrum salicaria (purple loosestrife); Primula veris (English Cowslip / primrose); infusoria (ciliates, protozoa, etc.); everything about plant reproductive morphology; hermaphrodite plants and animals

p 40 | Dioecious species have the male and female reproductive structures on separate plants.

p 42 | ... two angels posted at the gates of Sodom...: from Genesis 19: 1-29.

p 43 | Genesis 13:16 = "... other verse of Genesis..."

p 44 | Zionist movement=a nationalist movement that supports the creation of a Jewish homeland in the territory defined as the Land of Israel...Zionism emerged in the late 19th century in central & eastern Europe as a national revival movement, and soon after, most leaders of the movement associated the main goal with creating the desired state in Palestine, which was then an area controlled by the Ottoman Empire.(Wikipedia)

Sodom and Gomorrah IV p 22-28

p 22 | "Socrates was... ". Maybe. There was a teacher/student thing, an active/passive thing, a bisexual thing. Here's an overview.
p 23 | A Masonic Lodge, often termed a Private Lodge or Constituent Lodge, is the basic organisational unit of Freemasonry.
p 25 | Sons of the Indre...":  i.e., natives of the département of the Indre, in central France.
p 26 | Union of the Left (Union des Gauches) was formed from a merger between two radical groups in 1885, another in 1899 in response to the Dreyfus Affair. {Sturrock, note 17}
p 26 | The Schola Cantorum de Paris is a private music school, founded in 1894.
p 27 | Potin's : local grocery Proust would have known. In 1864 a shop was opened on the Boulevard Malesherbes.
p 28 | Saint-Simonianism: French political & social movement in the early 19th century, inspired by the ideas of Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon (1760–1825). He was has been as a utopian socialist, the founder of sociology and a "prescient madman," who thought the growth of industrialization & scientific discovery would profoundly change society.
p 28 | Galatea: in mythology, a sea nymph who loved the shepherd Acis. The giant Polyphemus crushed him under a rock. 

Sodom and Gomorrah IV p 1-21

Sodom and Gomorrah (The Cities of the Plain)

p 1 | "...rose-pink campanile..." (bell tower; this one is Giotto's in Florence); coach-house = carriage house;  eyrie or aerie: large nest of a bird of prey, especially an eagle, typically built high in a tree or on a cliff.

p 2 | pollination

the chapel at Combray

 

 

 

 

 

 p 2 | Excellent essay on Count Robert de Montesquiou (above), who was a partial model for the Baron de Charlus...

p 7 | "... Beethoven's questioning phrases..." In Hammerklavier’s Adagio Sostenuto or the Sixteenth Quartet?

p 10 | Boer War (Second)

p 12 | Fanlight = window  transom

p 12 | pregnancy (of Nero) in the Golden Legend.

p 13 | Caliph of Baghdad dressed as a merchant 

p 14 | Gare d'Orléans; Orléans is about 83 miles ssw of Paris.

p 15 | Cathedral of Orléans

real penholder

stereoscope

 

 

 

 

 

p 15 | optical penholder  (stereoscope)

p 15 | ophthalmia = inflammation of the conjunctiva or the eyeball;

Centaur

p 15 | Diane  de Poitiers, mistress of King Henri II of France. Her Renaissance house in Orleans was destroyed in June 1940. {Sturrock, note 10}

p 16 | mantle in gules (heraldry); "I have three popes in my family": possibly an allusion to three Renaissance popes from the Medici family in Florence from whom Charlus is supposedly descended: Leo X, Clement VII, and Leo XI. {Sturrock, note 11}

p 18 | "... word dear to the ancient Greeks...";  Athena: the goddess who protects Ulysses in both the Iliad & the Odyssey. In Book XIII of the Odyssey, she finally reveals herself to him, having earlier appeared in the guise of an adolescent. {Sturrock, note 12}

nymph

p 19 | Mene, Tekel, Upharsin (the writing on the wall); prophetic words written on the wall by the fingers of a man's hand during King Belshazzar's fatal feast in Babylon. They were interpreted by the prophet Daniel to mean that Belshazzar's reign, and indeed his life, were over (see Daniel 5). {Sturrock, note 13}

p 20 | A nymph in Greek & Latin mythology is a minor female nature deity usually associated with a specific location or landform. Not goddesses, nymphs are seen as divine spirits who animate nature, often shown as beautiful, young nubile maidens who dance and sing. Ephebes are young adolescent men of (military) training age.

p 20 | Original sin and racial predestination.

p 21 | ... honour precarious, liberty provisional, ... position unstable, ... the poet one day feted in every drawing room & applauded in every theatre in London, and the next driven from every lodging... (Oscar Wilde?, Wilde was convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years' hard labor, 1895-97.)

p 21 | turning the mill like Samson....

p 21 | "two sexes shall die... " Vigny poem, Proust's meaning, timing, connection to Baudelaire are all discussed beginning on page 18 of Proust's Lesbianism by Elisabeth Ladenson; a line from Alfred de Vigny's poem "La Colere de Samson", where Samson becomes disillusioned with women following his betrayal by Delilah. {Sturrock, note 14}

The Guermantes Way III p 784-87

p 784 | "... I could scarcely see into our courtyard, but I caught a glimpse of several others, and this though of no practical use to me, diverted me for a time..."

p 785 | coach-house (converted now)

p 787 | coins of the Order of Malta (wiki); Order of St. John in Jerusalem ; Grand Masters of the Order; Knights of Cypress & Rhodes; Knights Templar.

p 787 | House of Lusignan, Kings of Cyprus

The Guermantes Way III p 779-84

p 779 | French nobility hierarchy etc. (Almanach de Gotha)
p 780 | Anne Geneviève de Bourbon, Duchesse de Longueville (1619-75); Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé 
p 780 | Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia (1828–1885); Franco-Prussian War of 1870
p 780 | Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, also known as Madame de Pompadour (1721-64)
p 780 | Egeria or Egeria (mythology) ?
p 781 | "... Types of mind are so varied..."

"As I scarcely ever go out, I read a great deal. I have had sent me the works of Baudelaire, which have made me furious. Baudelaire was crazy! He died in a hospital, after having written some verses which attracted the good opinion of Victor Hugo, and which possessed no other merit than that of being immoral. Now they are making him out to be a man of genius, who was misunderstood!" [Title: Letters to an Unknown; Author: Prosper Mérimée)

p 783 | "how many quarterings one has..." In heraldry, a method of joining several coats of arms together in one shield.

p 783 | Joseph de Cléron, Comte d'Haussonville (1809–84), French politician & historian; his wife, Louise d'Haussonville.
p 783 | Mme Delessert (Mérimée's mistress)
p 784 | Elie Charles de Tallyrand, Prince of Chalais (b. 1809)

 

The Guermantes Way III p 735-41

Sabran

Tallien

p 735 | Choiseul & Mme de Praslin; Lucinge / Duc de Berry
p 735 | Mme Tallien (also here) and Mme de Sabran

p 735 | "The Prince d’Agrigente having asked why Prince Von had said, in speaking of the Duc d’Aumale   [Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Aumale (1822–97) was a son of Louis-Philippe], ‘my uncle,’ M. de Guermantes had replied: “Because his mother’s brother, the Duke of Wurttemberg [Duke Alexander of Württemberg (1804–81)], married a daughter of Louis-Philippe [Princess Marie of Orléans (1813–1839), who was a daughter of Louis-Philippe].” 

Memling

Carpaccio

p 735 | ... reliquary painted by Carpaccio or Memling 

p 735-36 | ... [German] castle called Fantaisie...

p 736 | Balzac's La Comédie humaine; Eugène de Rastignac; Laurence de Cinq-Sygne

p 736 | Romanesque architecture

p 737 | A miller usually refers to a person who operates a mill, a machine to grind a cereal crop to make flour. Milling is among the oldest of human occupations. Milling existed in hunter-gatherer communities, and was important to the development of agriculture. The materials are often foodstuffs, esp. grain. Non-food substances needed in a fine, powdered form, such as building materials, may be processed by a miller; A poem by Jean de La Fontaine: The Miller, His Son And The Ass.

p 738 | Inverted commas: Quotation marks or inverted commas (also called quotes or speech marks) are punctuation marks surrounding a quotation, direct speech, or a literal title or name. They can also be used to show a different meaning of a word/phrase other than the one typically associated with it & are often used to express irony.

p 739 | verb. sap., Latin, abbreviation for verbum sapienti sat est ("a word is enough to the wise;" Proust wrote: "à demi-mot...").

p 741 | Chouan rising: A Royalist uprising in 12 French départements against the French Revolution, the First French Republic, and even under the Empire. It played out in 3 phases, from 1794 until 1800.

The ultimate reference book: The Almanach de Gotha, here at Wikipedia