Le Retour du Roi, traduit par F. Ledoux

Some tentative thoughts on translation choices that have caught my attention as I've been dipping occasionally into the tome.

• Bag End becomes Cul de Sac, which seems to make the mildly subtle philological joke sadly explicit.
• Frodo Baggins (aka Underhill) is Frodon "Sacquet, ou dois-je dire monsieur Soucolline?" (p. 425). 
• Adding the "n" to Frodo makes sense, and "Soucolline" is fairly literal.  
• I had not expected "Sacquet," but it makes sense to coordinate with the name of his hobbit-hole.  
• There's no entry for "Sacquet" in either of my dictionaries, so it may be an invented name, like "Baggins."
• Sackville-Baggins becomes Sacquet de Besace (p. 548).  
• My Langenscheidt's Standard Dictionary defines "besace" as "f † double sack; fig. être réduit à la ~ be reduced to beggary."  (I believe the † indicates an obsolete term.)  This saying actually provides some additional resonance with respect to Lobelia's coveting silver spoons and the high-status Bag End property, and even gives an extra class-related kick to the concept of leaving the washing-up for her (cf. Ruane and James 128 [emphasizing the sexist and classist overtones of leaving the washing-up for an elderly and less affluent female relative]).
• Butterbur is Poiredebeurré, which brings to mind a buttered pear.
• Bill Ferny is Bill Fougeron.  Apparently fougère means "fern." 
• Wormtongue is Langue de Serpent, so the translator went with snake rather than worm/dragon.  
• My Larousse de Poche defines "serpent" as "n. m. Reptile sans pieds : serpent à sonnettes. Objet qui serpente : des serpents de feu. Fig. Personne perfide. Mus. Instrument à vent."
• Now, when Saroumane addresses him disrespectfully, it is as "Serpent" (p. 471) rather than "Worm" -- not as degrading, somehow, since a snake still has a bite even if the poison sacs have been removed. 
• Initially, I thought "Gandalf l'Oiseau des Tempêtes" (p. 22) replaced the implied sneering echo of épouvantail with (at best) sheer melodrama and (at worst) a storm petrel.  
• I'm still not sure that "oiseau des tempêtes" has any of the connotations of "stormcrow," as my dictionaries do not define that term under "oiseau" or "tempête." 
• What gives me some pause now is that, when I look up "petrel" in the English section of Langenscheidt's, I see "orn. pétrel m; stormy ~ oiseau m des tempêtes; fig. émissaire m de discorde."  But ultimately, I think they're telling the French about the purported figurative connotations of the English term "stormy petrel," rather than revealing anything about the French term "oiseau des tempêtes."
• (My Larousse de Poche defines "épouvantail" as "n. m. Mannequin mis dans les champs pour effrayer les oiseaux.  Fig. Objet de terreur.")
• The mighty Shadowfax has become Gripoil, a paltry grey-haired substitute imho.

References

Larousse de Poche.  Washington Square Press, Inc., 1967.

Ruane, Abigail E., and Patrick James.  The International Relations of Middle-Earth.  University of Michigan Press, 2012.

Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel.  Le Retour du Roi.  Translated by Francis Ledoux, Vol. III, Pocket, 2002.

Urwin, Kenneth.  Langenscheidt’s Standard French Dictionary: French-English, English-French.  Langenscheidt, 1988.