19 Author’s note: “Cleveland.”
20 A name apparently derived from the Spanish phrase cama loca [crazy bed], referring to a sensory disorientation associated with drunkenness.
21 In the early 18th century the French expression tenir le bec en l’eau à quelqu’un [keeping someone’s beak in the water] meant keeping someone waiting. This fay is clearly modeled on Circe.
22 Author’s note: “Don Quixote, part I, chapter 23.”
23 Author’s note: “Voyage de Gulliver.” The first French edition of Voyages du capitaine Lemuel Gulliver en divers pays éloignés appeared in 1730, allegedly printed in The Hague, but it does not contain the full text, which had not yet been published in its entirety in England.
24 Antoine Houdar de La Motte, a member of the Académie published his Fables nouvelles in 1727, in spite of having been blind for many years: he was presumably related to François de la Motte, Baron d’Aulnoy, and was a correspondent of the Duchesse du Maine.
25 Author’s note: “Tanzaï, part 2.” [i.e., Tanzaï et Néadamé (1734) by Crébillon fils].
26 Author’s note: “Contes péruviens.” [i.e. Les Mille et une heure: Contes péruviens (1734) by Thomas-Simon Gueullette.]
27 This name is derived from coquecigrue, a word coined by Rabelais in Gargantua to describe an imaginary compound animal, and which was subsequently adopted as a term for any fanciful chimera
28 Author’s note: “Aventures d’un homme de qualité and several other romances.” The named romance is by Abbé Prévost; its first four volumes were published in 1728, and he added a further three in 1731, the last of which contained a section published separately as Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut, which became his most celebrated work, usually known simply as Manon Lescaut.
29 Author’s note: “Aventures d’un homme de qualité.”
30 Author’s note: “Cleveland.”
31 In the prose romance Les Amours de Theagene et Charicle (1626), preceded by a 1623 dramatic version, based on the Greek romance Aethiopica by Heliodorus of Emesa, which was said to be Jean Racine’s favorite book. In Bougéant’s day the story was more familiar via the 1695 opera Théagène et Chariclée by Henri Desmarets.
32 Author’s note: “Aventures d’un homme de qualité.”
33 The descriptions of these “signs” are a slight variant of the motifs well-known tales by Perrault and Madame d’Aulnoy.
34 Editor’s note: “Voyages de Cyrus.” The text cited, by Andrew Michel Ramsay, was published in 1727.
35 Editor’s note: “Repos de Cyrus.” The text cited, by Jacques Perinetti, was published in 1732.
36 Editor’s note: “Télémaque.” Les Aventures de Télémaque, by François Fénelon was written as a didactic aid while he was tutor to the Dauphin’s son, the Duc de Bourgogne, in 1689-97, but it outraged Louis XIV, who construed it, correctly, as a philosophical assault on absolute monarchy; although a few copies were printed in 1699, it was not until it was reissued posthumously—the author and the king both died in 1715—that it was widely read, becoming enormously popular and hailed as a classic, in spite of its lack of a royal prerogative to license its publication.
37 Editor’s note: “Anecdotes de la cour de Philippe Auguste.” The cited text, published in 1733, is by Marguerite de Lussan. A veiled reference had been made earlier to her Veillées de Thessalie [Evenings in Thessaly] (1735).
38 Possibly Philibert Le Roux, author of Histoire du père La Chaize: jésuite et confesseur du roi Louis XIV (1719), who had been forced to flee France in the 1690s.
39 La Princesse de Clèves (1678), attributed to Madame de La Fayette.
40 Author’s note: “Roman comique.” [i.e., Ragotin ou roman comique (1684), a comedy by Champmeslé (Charles Chevillet)]
41 Presumably the 1707 comedy by Florent Carton Dancourt, although the subsequent reference to Gil Blas suggests that Bougéant is under the impression that it was by Alain-René Lesage, the author of the novel of the same title, published in the same year.
42 The references are characters borrowed from works of Spanish picaresque fiction who were frequently adapted into broad farces by traveling performers.
43 Author’s note: “Bibliothèque des Romans.” i.e. Lenglet Du Fresnoy’s bibliography.
44 Editor’s note: “Tanzaï.” Bougéant has fused the partial title with the first two syllables of the author’s name. Bougéant could not know that Crébillon fils, who had landed in prison briefly after publishing Tanzaï et Neadame, was to go on to create an even greater scandal when he published the libidinous Le Sopha (1742).
45 Author’s note: “Privileges.” Bougéant’s book had a royal privilege enabling its licit publication; the work by Lenglet Du Fresnoy that clearly inspired it, and to which it is in part a satirical reply, did not.
46 Editor’s note: “Madame Barnevelt, by Abbé Desfontaines.” The anonymously-published Mémoires de Madame de Barneveldt (1732) is not by Abbé Pierre Desfontaines, and it is surprising that Garnier thought that it might be; it is nowadays attributed Jean Du Castre d’Auvigny. The intended significance of the initials cited by Bougéant is unclear, but it is quite possible that he believed that Madame Barnevelt was by Lenglet Du Fresnoy.
47 Editor’s note: “Mémoires d’un homme de qualité by Abbé Prévost.”
48 Editor’s note: “Hist. du, ch. des Grieux et de Manon l’Escot by the same author.”
49 Editor’s note: “Cleveland by the same.”
50 Legend reports that the corpse of Inès de Castro (1325-1355), the lover of Peter I of Portugal, was publicly crowned by him when he belatedly recognized her as his wife.
51 Editor’s note: “Abbé Prévost became a Benedictine.” In fact, Prévost was a Benedictine before writing his novels, but had fallen out with the order temporarily. He was, indeed, reconciled with his superiors in 1734, but that did not prevent him from continuing to write prolifically, albeit less scandalously.
52 Les Princesses Malabares, ou Le Célibat philosophique [The Malabar Princesses; or, The Philosophical Bachelor] (1734) is a satirical Oriental fantasy speculatively attributed at the time to various authors, including Lenglet Du Fresnoy, but nowadays reckoned to be most probably the work of Pierre de Longue.
53 This is not the large island nowadays known by that name, which was still largely unmapped in 1737, its partially-explored coasts being known as “New Holland.” This “Australia” is the imaginary Terra Australis [austral continent] hypothesized by several geographers trying to add additional symmetry to distribution of land on the world map as it was conceived prior to 1700.
54 Thetis was the mother of Achilles, whose attempt to render him invulnerable by sipping him in a magical stream was flawed in the matter of his heel.
55 Eau de Barbades [i.e., Barbados] was an alternative name for water mixed with lemon juice, although it was also sometimes applied to an alcoholized concoction reputed for its medicinal qualities.
56 The reference to Catherine Durand Bédacier (1670-1736) in association with Aulnoy and Murat is a trifle surprising, as she was best known as the author of works in the genre of salacious fake memoirs. She did however, interpolate one conte de fées, “La Fée Lubantine,” in Le Comtesse de Mortane (1700) and two more in Les Petits soupers de l’été de l’année 1699, ou Galantes aventures, avec L’Origine des fées (1702, allegedly in Amsterdam): “Le Prodige d’amour” and “L’Origine des fées,” which not only includes an account of the origin of the fays, as the offspring of Jupiter and a nymph, but also “explains” their apparent disappearance from the world. Beauchamps had probably read a 1733 reprint of the latter volume, and seems to have taken some inspiration from it.
57 Sethos, an Egyptian pharaoh mentioned by Herodotus, is the eponymous protagonist of a 1731 pseudohistorical romance with Masonic influences by Jean Terrasson, sometimes cited as a source for Mozart’s Magic Flute. He is mentioned in passing in Bougéant’s account of Romancia.
58 The reference is to th
e Rococo silversmith Thomas Germain (1673-1748)
59 The author or editor—probably the latter—inserts a footnote here in the Cabinet des fées version of the story decoding the anagrams as “Gaules” [Gaul] and “France.”
60 Louis XV was twenty-seven years old in 1737, and the country was effectively being governed by his chief Minister Cardinal de Fleury. Fleury’s diplomacy had recently enabled the concluded the War of the Polish Succession, to which the description refers in passing.
61 The French “incarnate” does not mean the same as the English word it resembles perfectly, but rather “incarnadine” or rose-red. The princess Quart-d’heure is describing is probably Elisabeth of France, the sister of Louis XIV, who was married on the same day as her brother to Philip IV of Spain.
62 The term thyas is found in Virgil’s Aeneid—a text cited elsewhere in Funestine; it is not a place name but is used as a label of a bacchanal.
63 The reference is to Anne-Théodore-Françoise de Carvoisin, Marquise d’Ussé, nowadays remembered as a correspondent of Voltaire. The philosopher spent time at the Château d’Ussé, of which she was the chatelaine in 1737, and which nowadays claims to be the château that inspired Perrault’s “La Belle au bois dormant.”
64 The quotation is from Pierre Corneille’s tragicomedy Le Cid (1636)
66 The quotation is from Jean Racine’s tragedy Phèdre (1677)
67 See the note on the Malabar princesses in the previous story.
68 Ascanius [Ascagne in French versions] is the son of Aeneas in Virgil’s Aeneid. Eucharis is one of Calypso’s nymphs in François Fénelon’s Aventures de Télémaque (1699).
69 Aglaure, featured in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is a central character in Molière’s tragicomedy Psyché (1671).
70 The Utopian novel The History of the Sevarites, or Severambi, attributed to the Huguenot Denis Vairasse d’Allais, was first published in English in 1675 before a much expanded and somewhat different French version appeared in four volumes as L’Histoire des Severambes (1677-79). Set in Terra Australis, it is a significant precursor of roman scientifique.
71 The quotation is from “La Jeune veuve,” a poem by Jean de La Fontaine
72 The lines are from Nicolas Boileau’s satirical poem “Discours au roi.”
FRENCH SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY COLLECTION
105 Adolphe Ahaiza. Cybele
102 Alphonse Allais. The Adventures of Captain Cap
02 Henri Allorge. The Great Cataclysm
14 G.-J. Arnaud. The Ice Company
152 André Arnyvelde. The Ark
153 André Arnyvelde. The Mutilated Bacchus
61 Charles Asselineau. The Double Life
118 Henri Austruy. The Eupantophone
119 Henri Austry. The Petitpaon Era
120 Henri Austry. The Olotelepan
130 Barillet-Lagargousse. The Final War
180 Honoré de Balzac. The Last Fay
193 Mme Barbot de Villeneuve. Beauty and the Beast
194 Mme Barbot de Villeneuve. The Naiads
103 S. Henry Berthoud. Martyrs of Science
189 S. Henry Berthoud. The Angel Asrael
23 Richard Bessière. The Gardens of the Apocalypse + The Seven Rings of Rhea
121 Richard Bessière. The Masters of Silence+ They Came From The Dark
148 Béthune (Chevalier de). The World of Mercury
26 Albert Bleunard. Ever Smaller
06 Félix Bodin. The Novel of the Future
173 Pierre Boitard. Journey to the Sun
92 Louis Boussenard. Monsieur Synthesis
39 Alphonse Brown. City of Glass
89 Alphonse Brown. The Conquest of the Air
98 Emile Calvet. In A Thousand Years
191 Jean Carrère. The End of Atlantis
220. Charlotte-Rose Caumont de la Force. The Land of Delights
229 Comte de Caylus. The Impossible Enchantment
40 Félicien Champsaur. The Human Arrow
81 Félicien Champsaur. Ouha, King of the Apes
91. Félicien Champsaur. The Pharaoh’s Wife
133 Félicien Champsaur. Homo-Deus
143 Félicien Champsaur. Nora, The Ape-Woman
03 Didier de Chousy. Ignis
166 Jacques Collin de Plancy. Voyage to the Center of the Earth
97 Michel Corday. The Eternal Flame
182. Michel Corday & André Couvreur. The Lynx
113 André Couvreur. The Necessary Evil
114 André Couvreur. Caresco, Superman
115 André Couvreur. The Exploits of Professor Tornada (Vol. 1)
116 André Couvreur. The Exploits of Professor Tornada (Vol. 2)
117 André Couvreur. The Exploits of Professor Tornada (Vol. 3)
67 Captain Danrit. Undersea Odyssey
184 Gaston Danville. The Perfume of Lust
149 Camille Debans. The Misfortunes of John Bull
17 C. I. Defontenay. Star (Psi Cassiopeia)
05 Charles Derennes. The People of the Pole
227 Comtesse D.L. The Tyranny of the Fays Abolished
68 Georges T. Dodds. The Missing Link and Other Tales of Ape-Men
125 Charles Dodeman. The Silent Bomb
49 Alfred Driou. The Adventures of a Parisian Aeronaut
144 Odette Dulac. The War of the Sexes
188. Alexandre Dumas & Paul Lacroix. The Man who married a Mermaid
145 Renée Dunan. The Ultimate Pleasure
10 Henri Duvernois. The Man Who Found Himself
08 Achille Eyraud. Voyage to Venus
233 Madame Fagnan. The Enchanter’s Mirror
01 Henri Falk. The Age of Lead
51 Charles de Fieux. Lamékis
154 Fernand Fleuret. Jim Click
108 Louis Forest. Someone Is Stealing Children In Paris
31 Arnould Galopin. Doctor Omega
70 Arnould Galopin. Doctor Omega & The Shadowmen
112 H. Gayar. The Marvelous Adventures of Serge Myrandhal on Mars
88 Judith Gautier. Isoline and the Serpent-Flower
185 Louis Geoffroy. The Apocryphal Napoleon
163 Raoul Gineste. The Second Life of Dr. Albin
136 Delphine de Girardin. Balzac’s Cane
146 Jules Gros. The Fossil Man
174 Jimmy Guieu. The Polarian-Denebian War 1: The Time Spiral
175 Jimmy Guieu. The Polarian-Denebian War 2: Operation Aphrodite
176 Jimmy Guieu. The Polarian-Denebian War 3: The Man From Outer Space
177 Jimmy Guieu. The Polarian-Denebian War 4: Space Commandos
178 Jimmy Guieu. The Polarian-Denebian War 5: Our Ancestors From The Future
179 Jimmy Guieu. The Polarian-Denebian War 6: Prisoners of the Past
57 Edmond Haraucourt. Illusions of Immortality
134 Edmond Haraucourt. Daah, the First Human
222 Edmond Haraucourt. Dieudonat
24 Nathalie Henneberg. The Green Gods
131 Eugene Hennebert. The Enchanted City
137 P.-J. Hérault. The Clone Rebellion
150 Jules Hoche. The Maker of Men and his Formula
140 P. d’Ivoi & H. Chabrillat. Around the World on Five Sous
29 Michel Jeury. Chronolysis [NO LONGER AVAILABLE]
55 Gustave Kahn. The Tale of Gold and Silence
30 Gérard Klein. The Mote in Time’s Eye
209 Gérard Klein. Starmasters’ Gambit
210 Gérard Klein. The Day Before Tomorrow
90 Fernand Kolney. Love in 5000 Years
87 Louis-Guillaume de La Follie. The Unpretentious Philosopher
101 Jean de La Hire. The Fiery Wheel
50 André Laurie. Spiridon
52 Gabriel de Lautrec. The Vengeance of the Oval Portrait
82 Alain Le Drimeur. The Future City
27 Georges Le Faure & Henri de Graffigny. The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (Volume 1)
28 Georges Le Faure & Henri de Graffigny. The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (Volume 2)
228 Françoise le Marchand. Florine and Boca
07 Jules Lermina. Mysteryville
25 Jules Lermina. Panic in Paris
32 Jules Lermina. The Secret of Zippelius
66 Jules Lermina. To-Ho and the Gold Destroyers
127 Jules Lermina. The Battle of Strasbourg
15 Gustave Le Rouge. The Vampires of Mars
73 Gustave Le Rouge. The Dominion of the World 1: The Plutocratic Plot
74 Gustave Le Rouge. The Dominion of the World 2: The Transatlantic Threat
75 Gustave Le Rouge. The Dominion of the World 3: The Psychic Spies
76 Gustave Le Rouge. The Dominion of the World 4: The Victims Victorious
109 Gustave Le Rouge. The Mysterious Doctor Cornelius1: The Sculptor of Human Flesh
110 Gustave Le Rouge. The Mysterious Doctor Cornelius2: The Island od Hanged Men
111 Gustave Le Rouge. The Mysterious Doctor Cornelius3: The Rochester Bridge Catastrophe
214. Marie-Jeanne L’Heritier de Villandon. The Robe of Sincerity
96 André Lichtenberger. The Centaurs
99 André Lichtenberger. The Children of the Crab
135 Listonai. The Philosophical Voyager
157 Ch. Lomon & P.-B. Gheusi. The Last Days of Atlantis
225 Mademoiselle de Lubert. Princess Camion
197 Maurice Magre. The Marvelous Story of Claire d’Amour
197 Maurice Magre. The Call of the Beast
198 Maurice Magre. Priscilla of Alexandria
199 Maurice Magre. The Angel of Lust
200 Maurice Magre. The Mystery of the Tiger
201 Maurice Magre. The Poison of Goa
202 Maurice Magre. Lucifer
203 Maurice Magre. The Blood of Toulouse
204 Maurice Magre. The Albigensian Treasure
205 Maurice Magre. Jean de Fodoas