Book Four

To Confide is Sometimes to Deliver Into a Person's Power

 

Chapter One: One Mother meets Another Mother

 

Montfermeil is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris.

 

Polyphemus is a savage, man-eating cyclopes in Homer's Odyssey.

 

Caliban is a half-human, half-monster in Shakespeare's The Tempest.

 

Valenciennes lace is a type of lace.

 

Notable quotes:
This book's title: "To Confide is Sometimes to Deliver Into a Person's Power"

"There is a throng of institutions in the old social order, which one comes across in this fashion as one walks about outdoors, and which have no other reasons for existence than the above."

"…with that animal and celestial expression that is peculiar to maternity."

"…nothing could be more charming than this caprice of change which had made of a chain of Titans the swing of cherubim."

"She thought that, above this inn, she beheld the mysterious HERE of Providence."

 

Definitions that elude me:

• Caprice: a sudden and unaccountable change of mood or behavior

• Fichu: a small triangular shawl, worn around a woman's shoulders and neck

• Languishing: failing to make progress or be successful

• Simpering: affectedly coy or ingratiating

• Perambulate: walk or travel through or around a place or area, especially for pleasure and in a leisurely way

 

Chapter Two: First Sketch of Two Unprepossessing Figures

 

Clelie is a heroic romance novel by Madeleine de Scudéry that follows a female character.

 

Lodoïska is a heroic comedy opera.

 

Mademoiselle de Scuderi is one of ETA Hoffman's most famous and well-written novellas because of its engaging plot, intriguing descriptions of life, and its openness to interpretation.

 

Madame Bournon-Malarme was an author, but that's about all I know about her.

 

Madame de Lafayette anonymously published La Princesse de Cléves, France's first historical novel.

 

Madame Bethélemy-Hadot was a prolific novelist and playwright.

 

Still on the hunt for the identity of Magaera.

 

Pamela, a novel composed of a series of letters, follows the story of a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl as she deals with the unwanted advances of an older man.

 

Ducray-Duminil, was, you guessed it, a French novelist, poet, and songwriter that wrote largely for children and young adults.

 

Notable quotes:

"Both were susceptible, in the highest degree, of the sort of hideous progress which is accomplished in the direction of evil. There exist crab-like souls which are continually retreating towards the darkness, retrograding in life rather than advancing, employing experience to augment their deformity, growing incessantly worse, and becoming more and more impregnated with an ever-augmenting blackness."

"In them she drowned what brains she possessed."

 

Definitions that elude me:

• Substratum: an underlying layer or substance; a foundation or basis of something

• Blackguard: a person, particularly a man, who behaves in a dishonorable or contemptible way

• Impunity: exemption from punishment or freedom from the injurious consequences of an action (don't judge me for having to look that on up, plz)

• Eddy: a circular movement of water, counter to a main current, causing a small whirlpool; verb- (of water, air, or smoke) move in a circular way

 

Chapter Three: The Lark

 

Martin Dumollard was a French serial killer that was guillotined in 1862.

 

Definitions that elude me:

• Remittance: a sum of money sent, especially by mail, in payment for goods or services or as a gift