Money (Oxford World’s Classics) (67 page)

Third Party
: the party of Thiers and Émile Ollivier, which accepted the Empire but wanted to reduce the personal power of the Emperor. After the elections of 1869 the Third Party became a decisive factor in the Assembly, with its 116 Deputies as against the republicans’ thirty seats and the monarchists’ forty. In January 1870 Napoleon III asked Ollivier to form a ministry, and Ollivier drew up the new Constitution of the Empire which was enthusiastically approved by a referendum of May 1870.

tea-hour
: at that time in Parisian society tea was drunk, if at all, some time after dinner.

Peter the Hermit and St Louis
: Peter was an eleventh-century priest from Amiens, believed to have been one of the leaders of the First Crusade. The canonized King Louis IX of France led two crusades in the thirteenth century.

proposed release
: that is, of the two hundred thousand old shares.

anticipatory balance-sheet
: one of the charges made against the Union Générale bank was the anticipatory use in the balance-sheet of profits not yet made.

Mazas
: the Mazas prison, inaugurated in 1841, near where the Gare de Lyon now stands.

‘It’s the will of God’
: the cry: ‘Dieu le veut’ (‘God wills it’) was the old Crusader battle-cry.

Sodom … Nineveh
: all three cities described in the Bible as destroyed by God for their sinfulness. As ‘The Whore of Babylon’, Babylon became a Christian allegorical figure of evil, described, in the Book of Revelation, in terms that chime with Zola’s reference here, as the Whore ‘with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication’.

the Invalides
: originally the Hôtel Royal des Invalides, this celebrated Paris monument was built in the 1670s by Louis XIV to house war-wounded soldiers.

Germany … show
: the Exhibition of 1867 particularly stressed industry and its products, though military weapons were not intended to be included; the Krupp cannon attracted a great deal of attention because they were made of steel; they would later prove their worth against the French bronze cannon.

catastrophe of Mexico
: see note to p. 6.

Europe district
: in the eighth arrondissement of Paris, a
quartier
where the streets bear the names of major European cities: Rue de Berne, de Londres, de Madrid, etc.

the Roman question
: the conflict over the status of the Vatican and the Papal States, with Garibaldi’s army threatening Rome and Napoleon III being pressed by the Catholics to protect the Pope. The Emperor had temporized, thinking the situation would resolve itself.

September Convention of 1864
: see note to p. 97.

Henri V
: Henri, Comte de Chambord, grandson of Charles X who abdicated
in 1830, was never officially proclaimed Henri V but was the legitimist pretender to the throne of France from 1844 to 1883.

white … cuirassier
: Bismarck became a centre of attention during his stay in Paris; portraits of him proliferated—always in his ceremonial white uniform.

treaties of alliance
: after Sadowa Bismarck had united much of northern Germany under the Prussian crown, and had also made secret agreements with the southern states.

Luxembourg
: a diplomatic dispute over the status of Luxembourg almost led to war in May 1867, but was resolved by the (Second) Treaty of London.

plaster … staircase
: prostitutes were in the habit of renting new apartments in which the plaster was not yet dry, thus acquiring the nickname of
filles du plâtre
(‘plaster girls’).

charity
: the same pretext is used by Count Muffat and his father-in-law for their visit to Nana’s dressing-room in
Nana
, the ninth novel of the Rougon-Macquart series.

19 January reforms
: in his move towards a more liberal style of government Napoleon III, in a letter of this date in 1867, affirmed the right of interpellation (see note to p. 213), and called for relaxation of the laws of public assembly and of government censorship of the Press. These concessions were opposed by Rouher (the model for Rougon), who resigned in protest and was later replaced by Émile Ollivier.

diamond medallion
: this episode recalls an event of 1867, when Émile Ollivier, leader of the Third Party, gave Rouher a drubbing in the House, accusing him of acting as ‘vice-emperor’ and diluting and restraining the Emperor’s liberal intentions. Next day the Emperor sent Rouher an encouraging letter and the diamond medal of the Legion of Honour.

our Bible
: Marx’s
Capital: Critique of Political Economy
was published in Germany in 1867. Its analysis of capitalism was meant to demonstrate the economic laws of the capitalist mode of production, based on the exploitation of the worker, a system that was to be superseded by the socialist mode of production. Two further volumes were added, mainly from manuscripts, by Friedrich Engels after Marx’s death. The three volumes are known collectively as
Das Kapital
, regarded as a bible by many generations of socialists.

Gothic characters
: most German books in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were printed in
Fraktur
, a typeface based on Gothic characters.

army law
: a new military law was passed on 14 January 1868, instituting five years’ active service, keeping the system of drawing lots for conscription, and maintaining the rules by which conscripts could arrange for replacements.

telegraph gallery
: commenting on the later frenzy of speculation in 1881, Frederick Brown remarks: ‘The Bourse was Grand Opera for ladies with
lorgnettes perched in a gallery above the trading floor’ (
For the Soul of France: Culture Wars in the Age of Dreyfus
(New York: Knopf, 2010), 70).

quoters
: that is, the men who record the quotations on the Stock-Exchange list.

carrying over
: an arrangement by which the purchaser of stocks has the cost of his purchase ‘carried over’ by the broker, that is, not immediately settled. Ultimate responsibility for payment of such purchases, if the purchaser defaults, falls upon the agent, in this case Mazaud.

sixty … there
: the authorized stockbrokers.

Austerlitz … Marengo
: the battle in December 1805 near Austerlitz in Moravia in which the Emperor Napoleon I defeated the Russo-Austrian army under Tsar Alexander I and the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I, and which is regarded as one of Napoleon’s greatest victories; and the hard-fought battle of Marengo on 14 June 1800, in which Napoleon, then First Consul, defeated the Austrians near Alexandria in Italy. It was followed by the signing of the Convention of Alexandria, by which the Austrians moved out of north-west Italy. This victory helped to consolidate Napoleon’s power.

Mentana
: Garibaldi’s army was defeated at Mentana by French Papal troops, including three companies of Zouaves, under General de Failly. Napoleon III had hoped this intervention on behalf of the Pope would appease the clerical party, but they resented the fact that the annexed Papal States had not been restored to the Vatican, while King Victor-Emmanuel resented France’s intervention and regarded Italy as released from any further obligation towards France.

accommodation bills
: bills of exchange between lender and borrower, evidencing the raising of credit. The ‘accommodated’ party is able to raise money for the term of the bill.

bankers … bills of credit
: bankers had granted credit by carrying over the bills, that is, discounting them.

Grouchy did not arrive
: Napoleon had sent General Grouchy in pursuit of part of the retreating Prussian army. Following the route indicated in his orders, Grouchy continued his pursuit despite hearing the sound of cannon-fire from Waterloo. He won a battle over the Prussians on 18 and 19 June 1815, but by then Napoleon had lost the Battle of Waterloo. Grouchy was widely blamed in France for his failure to rush to Napoleon’s aid.

fixed-term purchases
: purchases agreed, payable on a future settlement date.

the big banks
: in January 1882 the big Paris banks came to the aid of the Union Générale (Zola’s model for Saccard’s Universal Bank) to give the Paris money market and the Parisian brokers some breathing-space and a chance to stop things getting out of control.

Third Party
: Zola had here written ‘tiers état’ (‘third estate’, i.e. the common people of France) but clearly meant ‘le tiers parti’. The ‘tiers parti’ was
sometimes jokingly called ‘le Thiers parti’. See note to p. 8.

the assets
: that is, the assets of the bank, available to creditors.

Conciergerie
: a former prison and palace near Notre-Dame on the Île de la Cité. A part of the Palais de Justice, prisoners awaiting trial would be held here before being sent to prison if convicted. During the French Revolution hundreds of prisoners, including Marie-Antoinette, were held here before being guillotined. The Conciergerie was decommissioned in 1914 and opened to the public as a national monument.

publisher
: Jordan’s novel follows the same course as those of his creator, from newspaper serial to publication.

‘posting’
: this involves first demanding payment within five days, then forcing sale of any shares owned by the debtor, and finally ‘posting’ up in the Stock Exchange the debtor’s failure to meet his engagements. See note to p. 10.

gambling-exemption
: as forward buying was not at that time officially recognized, the debt was a gambling debt in the eyes of the law, and payment could not be legally enforced.

periodic epidemic
: Zola’s view of the periodicity of economic crises is similar to the economic theory of business cycles developed by Juglar (1819–1905). See Christophe Reffait, ‘Zola et la Crise’,
Cahiers naturalistes
, 86 (2012), 285–94.

that event
: harking back to theories of Prosper Lucas, see note to p. 136.

Mentana
: see note to p. 289.

Léonide
: the Count’s note was made out to Léonie, before she adopted the more ‘distinguished’ name of ‘Léonide’ as a prostitute.

provinces
: the Prussians did indeed gain Alsace and part of Lorraine in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War.

Magistrates’ Court
: this court (
Police correctionnelle
) deals with offences more serious than misdemeanours but less than major crimes.

free defendants … twenty-four hours
: this was what had happened in the case of Bontoux and Feder after the crash of the Union Générale in December 1882.

jackal
: literally ‘lynx’ (French
loup-cervier
).

Taurus passes …
full steam
: what had been Hamelin’s ‘dream’ became a reality with the Anatolian Railway, built in the 1890s by German Empire banks and companies, connecting Constantinople, Ankara, and Konya, and later the construction of the Baghdad Railway between 1903 and 1940. On account of its strategic importance the railway was a focus for international disputes, involving at various times Germany, Turkey, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, and the United States.

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