Editing Volume 3/Book 2/Chapter 2

Les Mis&eacute;rables, Volume 3: Marius, Book Second: The Great Bourgeois, Chapter 2: Like Master, Like House<br />
(Tome 3: Marius, Livre deuxi&egrave;me:  Le grand bourgeois, Chapitre 2: Tel ma&icirc;tre, tel logis)

==General notes on this chapter==

==French text==

 
Il demeurait au Marais, rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, n&ordm; 6. La maison
&eacute;tait &agrave; lui. Cette maison a &eacute;t&eacute; d&eacute;molie et reb&acirc;tie depuis, et le chiffre
en a probablement &eacute;t&eacute; chang&eacute; dans ces r&eacute;volutions de num&eacute;rotage que
subissent les rues de Paris. Il occupait un vieil et vaste appartement
au premier, entre la rue et des jardins, meubl&eacute; jusqu'aux plafonds de
grandes tapisseries des Gobelins et de Beauvais repr&eacute;sentant des
bergerades; les sujets des plafonds et des panneaux &eacute;taient r&eacute;p&eacute;t&eacute;s en
petit sur les fauteuils. Il enveloppait son lit d'un vaste paravent &agrave;
neuf feuilles en laque de Coromandel. De longs rideaux diffus pendaient
aux crois&eacute;es et y faisaient de grands plis cass&eacute;s tr&egrave;s magnifiques. Le
jardin imm&eacute;diatement situ&eacute; sous ses fen&ecirc;tres se rattachait &agrave; celle
d'entre elles qui faisait l'angle au moyen d'un escalier de douze ou
quinze marches fort all&eacute;grement mont&eacute; et descendu par ce bonhomme. Outre
une biblioth&egrave;que contigu&euml; &agrave; sa chambre, il avait un boudoir auquel il
tenait fort, r&eacute;duit galant tapiss&eacute; d'une magnifique tenture de paille
fleurdelys&eacute;e et fleurie faite sur les gal&egrave;res de Louis XIV et command&eacute;e
par M. de Vivonne &agrave; ses for&ccedil;ats pour sa ma&icirc;tresse. M. Gillenormand avait
h&eacute;rit&eacute; cela d'une farouche grand'tante maternelle, morte centenaire. Il
avait eu deux femmes. Ses mani&egrave;res tenaient le milieu entre l'homme de
cour qu'il n'avait jamais &eacute;t&eacute; et l'homme de robe qu'il aurait pu &ecirc;tre.
Il &eacute;tait gai, et caressant quand il voulait. Dans sa jeunesse, il avait
&eacute;t&eacute; de ces hommes qui sont toujours tromp&eacute;s par leur femme et jamais par
leur ma&icirc;tresse, parce qu'ils sont &agrave; la fois les plus maussades maris et
les plus charmants amants qu'il y ait. Il &eacute;tait connaisseur en peinture.
Il avait dans sa chambre un merveilleux portrait d'on ne sait qui, peint
par Jordaens, fait &agrave; grands coups de brosse, avec des millions de
d&eacute;tails, &agrave; la fa&ccedil;on fouillis et comme au hasard. Le v&ecirc;tement de M.
Gillenormand n'&eacute;tait pas l'habit Louis XV, ni m&ecirc;me l'habit Louis XVI;
c'&eacute;tait le costume des incroyables du Directoire. Il s'&eacute;tait cru tout
jeune jusque-l&agrave; et avait suivi les modes. Son habit &eacute;tait en drap l&eacute;ger,
avec de spacieux revers, une longue queue de morue et de larges boutons
d'acier. Avec cela la culotte course et les souliers &agrave; boucles. Il
mettait toujours les mains dans ses goussets. Il disait avec autorit&eacute;:
''La R&eacute;volution fran&ccedil;aise est un tas de chenapans''.

 
==English text==

 
He lived in the Marais, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, No. 6. He owned the
house. This house has since been demolished and rebuilt, and the number
has probably been changed in those revolutions of numeration which the
streets of Paris undergo. He occupied an ancient and vast apartment on the
first floor, between street and gardens, furnished to the very ceilings
with great Gobelins and Beauvais tapestries representing pastoral scenes;
the subjects of the ceilings and the panels were repeated in miniature on
the arm-chairs. He enveloped his bed in a vast, nine-leaved screen of
Coromandel lacquer. Long, full curtains hung from the windows, and formed
great, broken folds that were very magnificent. The garden situated
immediately under his windows was attached to that one of them which
formed the angle, by means of a staircase twelve or fifteen steps long,
which the old gentleman ascended and descended with great agility. In
addition to a library adjoining his chamber, he had a boudoir of which he
thought a great deal, a gallant and elegant retreat, with magnificent
hangings of straw, with a pattern of flowers and fleurs-de-lys made on the
galleys of Louis XIV. and ordered of his convicts by M. de Vivonne for his
mistress. M. Gillenormand had inherited it from a grim maternal
great-aunt, who had died a centenarian. He had had two wives. His manners
were something between those of the courtier, which he had never been, and
the lawyer, which he might have been. He was gay, and caressing when he
had a mind. In his youth he had been one of those men who are always
deceived by their wives and never by their mistresses, because they are,
at the same time, the most sullen of husbands and the most charming of
lovers in existence. He was a connoisseur of painting. He had in his
chamber a marvellous portrait of no one knows whom, painted by Jordaens,
executed with great dashes of the brush, with millions of details, in a
confused and hap-hazard manner. M. Gillenormand's attire was not the habit
of Louis XIV. nor yet that of Louis XVI.; it was that of the Incroyables
of the Directory. He had thought himself young up to that period and had
followed the fashions. His coat was of light-weight cloth with voluminous
revers, a long swallow-tail and large steel buttons. With this he wore
knee-breeches and buckle shoes. He always thrust his hands into his fobs.
He said authoritatively: "The French Revolution is a heap of blackguards."


==Translation notes==

==Textual notes==
===incroyables du Directoire / Incroyables of the Directory===

The Incroyables were known for extravagant fashion that mimicked the style of the anti-Jacobin Muscadin street gangs formed following the end of the Terror.  The Incroyables, along with female counterparts, the Merveillueses, celebrated the new government, the Directoire, with decadent gatherings; their elegant or outlandish fashions, pieces of which recalled pre-revolution French aristocratic style, were in part a reaction to the austerity measures imposed on clothing and fashion during The Terror.<ref>http://www.blastmilk.com/decollete/guillotine/fashion/incroyables-et-merveilleus.php</ref><ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incroyables_and_Merveilleuses</ref>

==Citations==
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