The Dream Killer of Paris (18 page)

1
The Baker Street Phantom
- Gallic Books

2
Gérard de Nerval, le poète et l’homme
by Aristide Marie, published by Hachette in 1914. Singleton devoured this biography, the first truly complete account of the French writer’s life. (Publisher’s note)

3 Built in 1862, the Théâtre des Nations changed its name to Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt in 1949 before being renamed Théâtre de la Ville in 1967. (Publisher’s note)

4 This is reported in Chapter XIV of Aristide Marie’s book. Nerval was the subject of a book by Eugène de Mirecourt which had been dedicated to him in cabbalistic letters and, under a sketch, had written ‘I am the other’. (Publisher’s note)

5 Juve was the ingenious policeman who hunted Fantômas in the series of the same name written by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain between 1911 and 1913. Tirauclair was the hero of
L’Affaire Lerouge
(1866) by Émile Geboriau. Chantecoq was one of the characters in
Belphégor
by Arthur Bernède, published in 1927. (Publisher’s note)

6 In fact, different police forces coexisted in France, created according to need and without any coordination between them. In particular, a war was raging between the Sûreté Générale (which became the Sûreté Nationale in 1934), which had been autonomous since 1877 and was directly attached to the Ministry of the Interior, and the Préfecture de Police in Paris. (Publisher’s note)

7 The Stavisky affair, which had come to light in December 1933, was still on everyone’s minds. Denounced by the press, the scandal of false credit bonds at Crédit Municipal in Bayonne had led to the fall of the Chautemps government. The investigation had revealed numerous fraudulent relationships between the police, the justice system and politicians. (Publisher’s note)

8 On 9 October, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Louis Barthou, was killed in an attack committed by a Croatian nationalist organisation, along with King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, whom he had gone to welcome at the port of Marseille. There was an immediate debate about failings in the police protection provided for such a high-risk visit. (Publisher’s note)

9 Charles Richet (1850–1935), a member of the Académie de Médecine, Nobel Prize winner in physiology and member of the Académie des Sciences, founded the Institut Métapsychique International (IMI) with Jean Meyer, Gustave Geley and Rocco Santoliquido. He was the Institut’s president from 1930 until his death. (Publisher’s note)

10 After the tragic death of Dr Geley in 1924, Dr Eugène Osty (1874–1938) replaced him as director of the Institut Métapsychique. (Publisher’s note)

11 From the first centuries of the Middle Ages until the Inquisition, the subject fascinated everyone. The Church Fathers had admitted the existence of such creatures and the question of whether or not children could be born from supernatural unions was debated before emperors and doctors of theology. (Publisher’s note)

12 Louis Aragon in
Entrée des succubes
; Robert Desnos in
Journal d’une apparition
; Max Ernst in
Visions de demi-sommeil
. (Publisher’s note)

13 It would appear that Monsieur de Vallemont is referring to
Rêves et hallucinations
published by Vigot Frères in 1925. (Publisher’s note)

14 It was only in the second half of the twentieth century that this was studied in more depth under the name sleep paralysis. (Publisher’s note)

15 Strangely, Fritz Lang was not credited on the Boulevard de Magenta poster. I only realised that it was the French version of
The Testament of Dr Mabuse
when I saw the opening credits. It had been filmed in parallel with the original, in the same setting but with different actors, apart from the main role. The German film was banned by the Nazi regime before its release in March 1933. (Author’s note)

16 Although in their time Lucretius, Aristotle and others described the jerky kind of movements seen during sleep, it was not until the development of electro-encephalographic recordings that the
so-called
‘paradoxical sleep’ phase, a particular period of dream activity which occurs at regular intervals during sleep, was brought to light. (Author’s note)

17 Shortly after his exile to London, I had the great honour of talking to Professor Sigmund Freud in connection with the sensational case of the Butterfly Man. From him I learnt that the Regina was less than five hundred yards from his former home at 19 Bergasse and that the hotel was used by a number of his overseas patients. If I
had been strolling near the entrance of the Votivkirche in the early evening in that autumn of 1934 I might have bumped into the great man. (Author’s note)

18 When we were correcting the proofs of
The Dream Killer of Paris
, we received a short manuscript from William H. Barnett which had also been found in his late father’s trunk. According to Mr Barnett, it is highly likely that it was the document Andrew Fowler Singleton refers to here. After consultation with the editorial committee, we sent it to a recognised expert in the authentication and dating of manuscripts. As soon as the results are known, and if they show conclusively the provenance of that text, we will immediately bring it to the public’s attention. (Publisher’s note)

First published in 2012
by Gallic Books, 59 Ebury Street,
London, SW1W 0NZ

This ebook edition first published in 2012

All rights reserved
© Gallic Books, 2012

The right of Fabrice Bourland to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as speciffcally permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

ISBN 978–1
–
908313
–
44
–
7 epub
ISBN 978
–
1
–
908313
–
45
–
4 pdf