The Brotherhood of Consolation

Letters of Two Brides

The Muse of the Department

A Prince of Bohemia

A Man of Business

The Unconscious Humorists

Popinot, Jean-Jules

Cesar Birotteau

Honorine

The Commission in Lunacy

The Middle Classes

Tours-Minieres, Bernard-Polydor Bryond, Baron des

Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life

Troisville, Guibelin, Vicomte de

The Chouans

Jealousies of a Country Town

The Peasantry

Vernisset, Victor de

Beatrix

Cousin Betty

Vissard, Charles-Amedee-Louis-Joseph Rifoel, Chevalier du

The Chouans

notes

1

The Mont-de-Piete and its branches are pawn-shops under control of the government. – TR.

2

Chauffeurs. This name applies to royalists who robbed the mail-coaches conveying government funds, and levied tribute on those who bought the confiscated property of emigres at the West. When the Thermidorian reaction began, after the fall of Robespierre, other companies of royalists, chiefly young nobles who had not emigrated, were formed at the South and East under various names, such as “The Avengers,” and “The Company of Jehu,” who stopped the diligences containing government money, which they transmitted to Brittany and La Vendee for the support of the royalist troops. They regarded this as legitimate warfare, and were scrupulous not to touch private property. When captured, however, they were tried and executed as highwaymen. – TR.

3

The National domain was the name given to the confiscated property of the emigres, which was sold from time to time at auction to the highest bidder. – TR.

4

The Country Doctor. Little, Brown & Co., Boston.

5

Balzac’s description of plica polonica does not agree with that given in English medical dictionaries and cyclopedias. But as the book was written at Wierschovnia, Poland, in 1847, when he was attended by a celebrated Polish physician, and as, moreover, he was always so scrupulously accurate in his descriptions, it is fair to suppose that he knew of some form of the disease other than that given in the books. His account probably applies to the period before it takes the visible form described in the books.