The eleventh Mansion of the Moon, called Azobra— Barrett, p. 155.
“Some say that vampires have two hearts.”— Information from Radu Florescu and Raymond T. McNally, The Complete Dracula: Two Books in One! Combining “Dracula, a Biography of Vlad the Impaler,” and the bestseller “In Search of Dracula” (Acton, MA: Copley, 1985), p. 95.
Some of the later descriptions of Milena floating in her bath are inspired by Bonnard paintings.
DOROTEJA
What is done with cristallium etcetera— Dr. G. Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic (The Hague: Martinius Nijhoff, Centrale Drukkerij N.V., Nijimegen, 1948), p. 235 (The Holy Drink against elf-tricks). Since I have moved this spell to Bohemia, I changed elves to goblins.
“This is my help against the evil late birth…”— Ibid., pp. 196, 199 (Against Miscarriage; original reads “this as my help…”).
Rite of washing in silver-water on New Year’s Day— Bogatyrëv, p. 42.
Churchgoing of dead souls on Holy Saturday— Ibid., p. 68.
The dead woman who returned to bite her husband’s finger— Ibid., p. 120.
THE JUDGE’S PROMISE
Epigraph: “And finally let the Judge come in…”— The Malleus Maleficarum, p. 231.
The incident in Neinstade (which supposedly took place in 1603)— Elaborated after Summers, The Vampire in Europe, p. 201.
“the ill-fated Bohemian rectangle”— Phrase quoted in Joseph Wechsberg, Prague, the Mystical City (New York: Macmillan, 1971), p. 1.
Police work of Frederick the Great and the Police President of Berlin (both actually in the early nineteenth century)— Clive Emsley, Policing and Its Context 1750–1870 (New York: Schocken Books, 1983), pp. 99–100.
Location of the Golem’s corpse and Dr. Faustus’s residence— Wechsberg, pp. 5, 38.
Travails of Bohemian linen-weavers— Jaroslav Pánek, Oldrich Tuma et al., A History of the Czech Lands (Charles University in Prague: Karolinum Press, 2009), p. 292.
Description of the second medallion of the sun— Information from Shah, pp. 46–47.
“And though it was sore grief to us to hear such things of you, inspector…”— Tweaked a trifle from The Malleus Maleficarum, pp. 255–56 (formula uttered to a penitent relapsed heretic).
Characteristics of various demons— Shah, pp. 86–88.
Definition of Abnahaya— Barrett, p. 156.
The witch’s purpose in digging up a dead man’s head— Ibid., p. 108.
“The Romanians say that a vampire can go up into the sky…”— Information from Summers, The Vampire in Europe, p. 306.
The myth of a secret tunnel from Prague’s Jewish Ghetto to Jerusalem— Wechsberg, p. 29.
The witch-events of Saint John’s Day— Bogatyrëv, p. 76.
“this sort of creature does not give anything for nothing.”— Shah, p. 80 (Grimorium Verum, oldest known version 1517).
JUNE EIGHTEENTH
Epigraph: “So long as there is an Emperor…”— Joan Haslip, The Crown of Mexico: Maximilian and His Empress Carlota (New York: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston, 1972 repr. of 1971 English ed.), p. 367.
Various information on Maximilian’s life and career was obtained from Haslip, and Jasper Ridley, Maximilian and Juárez (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1992).
Maximilian’s aspirations: a castle and garden by the sea— Haslip, p. 113. Some of my descriptions of Miramar are a trifle anachronistic, since the place was merely a “bungalow” when he and Charlotte lived there (Ridley, p. 185).
“Owing to some radical defect in the Mexican character…”— R. Lockwood Tower, ed., A Carolinian Goes to War: The Civil War Narrative of Arthur Middleton Manigault (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1992 pbk. repr. of 1983 ed.; orig. ms. prob. bef. 1868), p. 322 (Appendix II: The Mexican War Service of Arthur Middleton Manigault).
Maximilian’s china blue eyes and beautiful teeth— Information from J. J. Kendall, Late Captain H.M. 44th and 6th Regiments, and subsequently in the Service of His late Majesty, the Emperor of Mexico, Mexico Under Maximilian (London: T. Cautley Newby, 1871), p. 157. According to a German observer, however, the Emperor’s “chief defect is his ugly teeth, which he shows too much as he speaks” (Haslip, p. 235).
“Matters ran on pretty well for the first two years…”— Kendall, p. 185.
“No Mexican has such warm feelings for his country and its progress as I.”— Charles Allen Smart, Viva Juárez: A Biography (New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1963), p. 357 (said in 1865).
Ten-year serfdom for negroes— Ridley calls this “particularly ironic” (p. 216) since Maximilian had just abolished peonage. The new decree was for the convenience of ex-Confederate colonists.
“We see nothing to respect in this country…”— Haslip, p. 268.
“If necessary, I can lead an army…”— Ibid., p. 302.
Details of Maximilian’s last days and execution— Ridley, pp. 262–77, Haslip, pp. 484–98.
“I am here because I would not listen to this woman’s advice” and Maximilian’s reply— Slightly reworded from Haslip, p. 494.
Curtopassi scissoring away his signature— Thus Haslip. According to Ridley (p. 265), it was Lago.
Descriptions of retablos— After text and illustrations in Elizabeth Netto Calil Zarur and Charles Muir Lovell, eds., Art and Faith in Mexico: The Nineteenth-Century Retablo Tradition (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001). The votive caption in my text is invented.
Description of the Holy Child of Atocha— After two illustrations in Zarur and Lovell, pp. 108–9.
“in France it was no longer permissible to be mistaken.”— Haslip, p. 196.
The reality of Princess Salm-Salm’s seduction attempt, which is reported in several biographies of the Emperor, does not convince Ridley, who asserts (pp. 266–67) that it “sounds like the gossip of an officers’ mess.”
The various discontents of Charlotte— Haslip proposes (p. 127) that “Maximilian, who was neither very virile nor highly sexed and who was only attracted by the novel and exotic, found that with Charlotte he could no longer function as a man.”
“You must stay here for the night…”— Haslip, p. 487.
The gardener’s daughter in Cuernevaca— Ridley, p. 171. According to Haslip, she was the gardener’s wife. Concepción Sedano is said to have given birth to Maximilian’s son in August 1866 and died “of grief” the following year. The son might have been a man who was shot as a spy in France during World War I.
The slave-girls of Smyrna— Ridley, p. 50.
Reading material of Miramón and Maximilian— Ridley, pp. 270–71.
First dream: Description of Maximilian’s embalmed corpse— After an illustration in Gilbert M. Joseph and Timothy J. Henderson, eds., The Mexico Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), p. 268 (letter from Empress Carlota to Empress Eugénie, 1867).
Details of Maximilian’s postmortem journey: The Novara, the hearse in Trieste; the marble tomb in Vienna— Gene Smith, Maximilian and Carlota: A Tale of Romance and Tragedy (New York: William Morrow, 1973), pp. 284–85.
“Anything is better than to sit contemplating the sea at Miramar…”— Haslip, p. 361.