This is obviously a good French-sounding name for a citizen of Lucerne, but it is
at least a nice coincidence that the Beaufort Sea south of the Arctic Ocean, on the
northwestern coast of Canada and Alaska, was named after a contemporary of Mary Shelley's,
Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort (1774-1857).

In her account after the discovery of William's body Elizabeth had called it "a very
valuable miniature" (I:6:08).

Francis Barrett's Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers with a Critical Catalogue
of Books on Occult Chemistry (1815) was listed in the advertisement sheet attached
to Lackington's edition of Frankenstein in 1818. Revised and republished in 1888 by
Arthur Edward Waite, this work contains brief accounts of two of the young Victor
Frankenstein's favorite authors: Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus.

These were wooden balls secretly selected by those judging a trial.

Justine is the third character, after the Creature (I:4:2 and I:4:3) and Victor (I:4:5
and I:6:19), to share this appellation. Perhaps, however, she applies it with a nuanced
difference of meaning from its usage in their circumstances.

The actual events of the novel, it is surprising to realize, take place within the
next month, with Walton's last letter to Margaret Saville (III:WC:21) being dated
September 7th.

Walton here assumes the position of ministrant that Clerval held during Victor's "nervous
fever" in Ingolstadt (I:4:17), pointedly an inversion of customary gender roles. Healers
are accorded a privileged value in this novel, though by no means in the world that
encompasses its fiction. Justine Moritz's attendance on Victor's mother in her final
illness earns for her no particular credence from her judges (I:7:10), and his mother,
contracting scarlet fever from nursing Elizabeth, dies as a result of her good offices
(I:2:2)

The novel slides, seamlessly and without calling attention to itself, from Walton's
nursing Victor Frankenstein back from a state of near-death to Caroline Beaufort's
attendance on her despondent father in his decline. Such nurturing is a continual
necessity in Frankenstein and a measure of a character's capacity for sympathy.

Justine, we remember from Elizabeth's letter to Victor (I:5:4), had come to imitate
the expression and demeanor of Caroline Frankenstein. Thus, having lived with the
Frankenstein family for seven years, which is the age at which William was murdered,
she has in some sense become a surrogate for his mother who died when William was
yet an infant. Further in the paragraph, Elizabeth explicitly compares her treatment
of William as "like [that of] a most affectionate mother."

This detail, which has no effect on anyone outside the family circle, would seem intended
by Mary Shelley to insinuate a class bias into the court proceedings. Although Elizabeth
speaks of her almost as a member of the family, she is not so seen by the judges or
the populace of Geneva. Whatever the circumstance that separates her from an equality
with other family members, the important issue is the very principle of separation
by which she can be socially cast as a scapegoat.

When Walton resumes his narrative in Volume 3 (III:WC:1) his words will echo Victor's
here, as he calls the narrative a "strange and terrific story" and acknowledges that
the "tale is connected, and told with the appearance of the simplest truth," phrases
suggestive of how broadly the judging of truth is an issue in the novel.

This phrasing also introduces the complicating factor of the novel's deliberately
involuted structure. To adapt Walton's language, Victor's account of the strange tale
occurs within his own strange tale, which has already conveyed the narrative of William's
death provided by his father (as well as, in the chapter before, Elizabeth's account
of local doings). This tale will be told twice more, in the courtroom (I:7:6) and
in the Creature's autobiographical summation (II:8:33). If, in the end, readers can
assume that they are able to sift the truth from its excessive narrative elaboration,
the fact remains that in the official account Justine Moritz will be known as the
murderer, and no one in Victor's family—including Ernest, who will presumably inherit
a substantial fortune and the position that goes with it and his family's reputation
in Geneva—will ever be any the wiser.