1. The print Before the accident after the drawing by Charles Maurin was printed as a ‘Supplément’ in Le Courrier Français of 16 September 1888. The engraver was ‘SGap’. There are three copies in the estate, one with drawing pin holes (inv. nos. t*1419-1 with drawing pin holes, t*1419-2 and t*1419-3). Ill. 2245

. Cf. also letter 685.

2. There were three public gardens ‘jardins publics’ abutting the place Lamartine (see letter 604, n. 2). The night café that Van Gogh painted (see letter 676) was the Café de la Gare at 30 place Lamartine. The Café du Prado (no. 13) and the Café de l’Alcazar (no. 17) were also in the square. See L’indicateur arlésien 1887 and 1888. Next door to Van Gogh’s house, in the left-hand side of the premises at no. 2 place Lamartine, was the grocer’s shop run by François Damase and Marguerite Crévoulin.

3. Van Gogh means his sum of the expenses for furniture in letter 681. By ‘yesterday’ he must mean the day of posting; he wrote the letter a day earlier (see Date).

a. Read: ‘paillasse’ (palliasse).

4. A louis was a coin worth 20 francs.

5. Evidently Theo’s dissatisfaction with the situation at work, which was already a subject of discussion in April 1888, was unchanged. Cf. letter 600, n. 5.

6. In 1832 Delacroix travelled with a French government delegation to the Sultanate of Morocco. See Johnson 1981-1989, vol. 1, p. xxi. See also letter 598, n. 11.

7. Path in the public garden (F 470 / JH 1582

). In his previous letter (681) Van Gogh had finished another painting of the park: The public garden (‘The poet’s garden’) (F 468 / JH 1578

8. Van Gogh had enclosed a large paint order with letter 677, and in letter 680 he had asked for 5 metres of canvas from Tasset’s.

9. Van Gogh means Henry Moret, who was staying in Pont-Aven. See letter 664, n. 2. He probably confused his name with Charles Maurin’s because of the illustration he had just received (see n. 1 above).

10. From 1872 to 1880 Gauguin had worked as a stockbroker for various banks and financial institutions in Paris. See Wildenstein 2001, pp. 574, 578-582.

11. Vincent had asked Theo to find out from Tanguy whether it would be possible to supply more coarsely ground paint; see letter 677.

12. Charles Morice’s ‘La truie bleue’ (The blue sow) appeared in Le Courrier Français 5 (16 September 1888), no. 38, pp. 5, 8. The story is about a Parisian who encounters a sow in women’s clothing in the street. He is astonished by this, but closer examination of this extraordinary phenomenon serves only to reveal that the animal has the same characteristics as an elegant woman. He flirts with her a little, before waking out of what turns out to be a daydream. He recalls one detail that underlines his preference for the sow over the woman: a sow cannot talk. The fact that Van Gogh mentions Agostina Segatori in this connection is telling; he evidently didn’t have fond memories of their affair (see letter 571, n. 2).

13. Milliet had been on leave in Northern France and had visited Theo on his way there; see letter 652, n. 9. See letter 685 for the Japanese prints he brought back with him. Vincent had asked for them in letter 677.