Book Seventh

 

Chapter One: Sister Simplice

 

Lazaristes are a Roman Catholic society founded by Vincent de Paul.

 

The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin is another religious order of friars within the Catholic Church.

 

Ursuline is a Roman Catholic order of women founded in Italy, and was the first institute dedicated to the education of girls.

 

A drover is someone that drives animals (e.g. sheep or cattle) over long distances.

 

The Carmelites are yet another Roman Catholic order.

 

Serge is a type of woolen cloth--denim's weave is similar.

 

Definitions that elude me:

• Imperturbable: unable to be upset or excited; calm

 

Chapter Two: The Perspicacity of Master Scaufflaire

 

A fleming is a person native to Flanders (north Belgium).

 

A cabriolet is a light, two-wheeled carriage with a hood, drawn by one horse.

 

Notable quotes:
       "...he resumed with that careless air which the Flemings understand so well how to mingle with their shrewdness…"

 

Definitions that elude me:

• Perspicacity: the quality of having a ready insight into things; shrewdness

 

Chapter Three: A Tempest in a Skull

 

Alighieri is Dante.

 

For context, the definition of transformation is "a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance," and the definition of transfiguration is "a complete change of form or appearance into a more beautiful or spiritual state."

 

Notable quotes:
       "It sometimes seems, on supreme occasions, as though people moved about for the purpose of asking advice of everything that they may encounter by change of place."

 

Definitions that elude me:

• Fecundate: make fruitful; or fertilized

• Precipitate: adj.; done, made, or acting suddenly or without careful consideration

• Malediction: a magical word or phrase uttered with the intention of bringing about evil or destruction; a curse

• Lassitude: a state of physical or mental weariness; lack of energy

 

Chapter Four: Forms assumed by Suffering during Sleep

 

Chapter Five: Hindrances

 

A postillion is a person who rides the leading left-hand horse of a team or pair drawing a coach or carriage, especially when there is no coachman.

 

Notable quote:
       "To travel is to be born and to die at every instant; perhaps, in the vaguest region of his mind, he did make comparisons between the shifting horizon and our human existence: all             the things of life are perpetually fleeing before us; the dark and bright intervals are intermingled; after a dazzling moment, an eclipse; we look, we hasten, we stretch out our                   hands to grasp what is passing; each event is a turn in the road, and, all at once, we are old; we feel a shock; all is black; we distinguish an obscure door; the gloomy horse of life,             which has been drawing us halts, and we see a veiled and unknown person unharnessing amid the shadows."

 

Chapter Six: Sister Simplice put to the Proof

 

Reminder that the faubourgs are the suburbs, particularly of Paris.

 

Chapter Seven: The Traveller on his Arrival takes Precautions for Departure

 

Chapter Eight: An Entrance by Favor

 

Chapter Nine: A Place where Convictions are in Process of Formation

 

The Romantic school of thought, a natural response to the Enlightenment, flourished after Napoleon's second exile, and was associated with literature and music. https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/becoming-modern/romanticism/romanticism-in-france/a/romanticism-in-france

 

The Satanic school was a phrase created by the disapproving Robert Southey to describe the works of authors such as Lord Byron and Shelley as "characterized by a Satanic spirit of pride and audacious impiety." https://www.britannica.com/art/Satanic-school

 

It seems as if "Quotidienne" is French for "daily, commonplace, or mundane."

 

The historical definition of an oriflamme is "a scarlet banner of knight's standard"; the literary definition is "a principle or ideal that serves as a rallying point in a struggle."

 

Theramenes was an Athenian statesman that was executed without trial following political turmoil. You can read more about him here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theramenes (because I have no idea what Hugo is getting at).

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Definitions that elude me:

• Sonorous: (of a person's voice or other sound) imposingly deep and full

• Paucity: the presence of something only in small or insufficient quantities or amounts; scarcity

• Autonomasia: the use of a word of common or general signification for the name of a particular thing, as in "he has gone to town" for "he has gone to London"

• Obduracy: unmoved by persuasion, pity, or tender feelings; stubborn; unyielding; stubbornly resistant to moral influence

 

Chapter Ten: The System of Denials

 

A turnkey is a jailer.

 

Interesting that Brevet hung his head when confronted with his inability to take oath; Je-ne Dieu, Chneildieu raised his.

 

Notable quotes:

       "He was one of those wretched men whom nature has sketched out for wild beasts, and on whom society puts the finishing touches as convicts in the galleys."

 

Definitions that elude me:

• Ingenuousness: free from reserve, restraint, or dissimulation; candid; sincere. Artless; innocent; naïve

• Inauspicious: not conductive to success; uncompromising

• Ignominious: deserving or causing public disgrace or shame

• Augury: a sign of what will happen in the future; an omen (it seems as if I will never remember this definition)

 

Chapter Eleven: Champmathieu more and more Astonished

 

Notable quotes:
       "The galleys make the convict what he is…"

 

What a book. What. A. Book.

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Proceed to Book Eighth >