Rigadoon (35 page)

WILD ASS'S SKIN
. A reference to Balzac's novella by that name
( La Peau de Chagrin )
.

LACQUER LOCK
( Dur-de-mèche )
. Probably Malraux.

WALKING BUST
(Buste-à-pattes)
. Probably Montherlant.

SACHS
. Maurice Sachs. Well-known figure in the art world and night life of Paris between the wars—esthete, pederast and, according to his legend, something of a crook. Often seen at Le Boeuf sur le Toit, a nightclub that had its heyday in the twenties. In 1942, hoping to escape from anti-Semitic persecution, he signed a contract to work in Germany and became a crane operator in Hamburg. Arrested and imprisoned, he was believed to have informed on a number of people. He is thought to have been killed in a bombardment.

DENTAL INSTITUTE
. One of the Paris Gestapo headquarters was located in a dental clinic.

VILLA SAÏD
. Name of a street in the fashionable 16th arrondissement of Paris. A mansion situated on it was used by the Gestapo for questioning and torturing Resisters.

L.V.F.
 Légion des Volontaires Français contre le Bolchévisme. Founded in 1941 by Brinon and Doriot. Its purpose was to recruit French volunteers to fight for the Germans in Russia. It had little success. 

BOLLORÉ
. Bolloré is the leading French paper manufacturer. The Bolloré plant is in Finistère department. Finistère = "earth's end"
( bout de terre )
.