1. On 27 January 1889 the controversial general Georges Boulanger was elected to a Paris seat in the Chamber of Deputies by a large majority. Great numbers of his supporters took to the street, demanding that Boulanger should occupy the Palais de l’Elysée and depose President Carnot. Boulanger refused, however, to stage a coup. Roulin was a Boulangist (cf. letter 667).

2. The repetitions are Sunflowers in a vase (F 455 / JH 1668 ) and Sunflowers in a vase (F 458 / JH 1667 ); the earlier versions are Sunflowers in a vase (F 456 / JH 1561 ) and Sunflowers in a vase (F 454 / JH 1562 ).

3. These two versions of Augustine Roulin (‘La berceuse’) are F 508 / JH 1671 and F 506 / JH 1670 .

4. In 1886 an advanced weapon designed by the Frenchman Nicolas Lebel had been put on the market: a bolt action rifle that became known as a ‘fusil Lebel’.

5. After his third banishment, Henri Rochefort had joined the general’s nationalistic, conservative movement. Van Gogh’s remark that Rochefort and Boulanger would prefer the cemetery to the throne no doubt refers to the fact that Boulanger had expressly said that he did not want to seize upon the revolt as a means of coming to power, but would rather be chosen by the people at regular elections.

6. The Roulins, the Ginouxs of the Café de la Gare and the charwoman, Thérèse Balmoissière, were all supportive of Van Gogh. He was on less good terms with his immediate neighbours, Mr and Mrs Crévoulin, whom he mockingly compares in letter 657 with the Buteaux in Zola’s La terre. A short while later they signed the petition to have Van Gogh committed (see letter 750).

7. For the portraits of the Roulin family, see letter 723, n. 2.

8. Van Gogh here refers to letter 743.

9. The third version of the Berceuse is Augustine Roulin (‘La berceuse’) (F 505 / JH 1669 ). See Hoermann Lister 2001, p. 72.

10. A reference to Daudet’s Tartarin de Tarascon and Tartarin sur les Alpes; see letter 583, n. 9.