62 Literally “according to the art,” but used to mean “in the customary manner.”
63 The official executioner in Paris at the turn of the century was Anatole Deibler, who had taken over the position from his father. He was unemployed between 1906 and 1909 when exercise of the death penalty was suspended by the President of the Republic, but the latter was forced to recall him to duty by the public outcry following a particularly nasty murder committed by Albert Soleilland. The narrator is harking back to an earlier epoch, but the story’s original readers would have been in the midst of the controversy.
64 Cuisinage is not, in fact, good French, and although the examining magistrate is presumably deriving it from cuisine, much as an English policeman might refer to letting a suspect “stew,” the narrator is obviously aware of its similarity to the English cozenage (i.e,. fraud)—hence the insult in the remark about the thing being typical of the justice system.
65 Tsar Nicholas II was the instigator of the first Hague Peace Conference of 1899, as a result of which moves were made to found a “Peace Palace” there, for which the industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie was persuaded to provide the finance ($1,500,000) in 1903. (It is now the location of the International Court of Justice, where one of the authors of the most recent Balkan bloodbath is currently in the meshes of a procedural system that would probably have astonished Pierre Labrique almost as much as e-harmony would have astonished clients of the Milner Institute.)
66 Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898) painted several famous murals, including one in the Sorbonne and one in the Panthéon.
67 The protagonist is represented a Scotsman—or, as the original subtitle has it, “the chief of a Scottish clan”—even though Ballanche is clearly talking about himself, because “Clan Hebal” is an anagram of Ballanche.
FRENCH SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY COLLECTION
02 Henri Allorge. The Great Cataclysm
14 G.-J. Arnaud. The Ice Company
61 Charles Asselineau. The Double Life
23 Richard Bessière. The Gardens of the Apocalypse
26 Albert Bleunard. Ever Smaller
06 Félix Bodin. The Novel of the Future
39 Alphonse Brown. City of Glass
40 Félicien Champsaur. The Human Arrow
Félicien Champsaur. Ouha, King of the Apes
03 Didier de Chousy. Ignis
67 Captain Danrit. Undersea Odyssey
17 C. I. Defontenay. Star (Psi Cassiopeia)
05 Charles Derennes. The People of the Pole
68 Georges T. Dodds. The Missing Link and Other Tales of Ape-Men
49 Alfred Driou. The Adventures of a Parisian Aeronaut
-- J.-C. Dunyach. The Night Orchid;
-- J.-C. Dunyach. The Thieves of Silence
10 Henri Duvernois. The Man Who Found Himself
01 Henri Falk. The Age of Lead
51 Charles de Fieux. Lamékis
31 Arnould Galopin. Doctor Omega
70 Arnould Galopin. Doctor Omega & The Shadowmen
57 Edmond Haraucourt. Illusions of Immortality
24 Nathalie Henneberg. The Green Gods
29 Michel Jeury. Chronolysis
55 Gustave Kahn. The Tale of Gold and Silence
30 Gérard Klein. The Mote in Time’s Eye
50 André Laurie. Spiridon
52 Gabriel de Lautrec. The Vengeance of the Oval Portrait
Alain Le Drimeur. The Future City
27-28 Georges Le Faure & Henri de Graffigny. The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (2 vols.)
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
15 Gustave Le Rouge. The Vampires of Mars
73 Gustave Le Rouge. The Plutocratic Plot
74 Gustave Le Rouge. The Transatlantic Threat
75 Gustave Le Rouge. The Psychic Spies
76 Gustave Le Rouge. The Victims Victorious
72 Xavier Mauméjean. The League of Heroes
78 Joseph Méry. The Tower of Destiny
Louise Michel. The Human Microbes
Louise Michel. The New World
11 José Moselli. Illa’s End
38 John-Antoine Nau. Enemy Force
04 Henri de Parville. An Inhabitant of the Planet Mars
21 Gaston de Pawlowski. Journey to the Land of the Fourth Dimension
56 Georges Pellerin. The World in 2000 Years
79 Pierre Pelot. The Child Who Walked On The Sky
60 Henri de Régnier. A Surfeit of Mirrors
33 Maurice Renard. The Blue Peril
34 Maurice Renard. Doctor Lerne
35 Maurice Renard. The Doctored Man
36 Maurice Renard. A Man Among the Microbes
37 Maurice Renard. The Master of Light
41 Jean Richepin. The Wing
12 Albert Robida. The Clock of the Centuries
62 Albert Robida. Chalet in the Sky
69 Albert Robida. The Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul
46 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The Givreuse Enigma
45 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The Mysterious Force
43 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The Navigators of Space
48 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. Vamireh
44 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The World of the Variants
47 J.-H. Rosny Aîné. The Young Vampire
24 Marcel Rouff. Journey to the Inverted World
09 Han Ryner. The Superhumans
20 Brian Stableford. The Germans on Venus
19 Brian Stableford. News from the Moon
63 Brian Stableford. The Supreme Progress
64 Brian Stableford. The World Above the World
65 Brian Stableford. Nemoville
80 Brian Stableford. Investigations of the Future
42 Jacques Spitz. The Eye of Purgatory
13 Kurt Steiner. Ortog
18 Eugène Thébault. Radio-Terror
58 C.-F. Tiphaigne de La Roche. Amilec
53 Théo Varlet. The Xenobiotic Invasion (w/Octave Joncquel)
16 Théo Varlet. The Martian Epic; (w/André Blandin)
59 Théo Varlet. Timeslip Troopers
54 Paul Vibert. The Mysterious Fluid
English adaptation and introduction Copyright 2012 by Brian Stableford.
Cover illustration Copyright 2012 by Mandy.
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ISBN 978-1-61227-106-4. First Printing. August 2012. Published by Black Coat Press, an imprint of Hollywood Comics.com, LLC, P.O. Box 17270, Encino, CA 91416. All rights reserved. Except for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The stories and characters depicted in this novel are entirely fictional. Printed in the United States of America.