NOTES TO PROLOGUE.
[This prologue is an afterthought, having been written to provide a part for Mme. de Caylus, a niece of Mme. de Maintenon. It is never spoken on the stage, and rarely, if ever, read in French schools. It is here given for the sake of completeness only.]
3 ce lieu, of course is St. Cyr.
9 un roi, Louis XIV.
13 à sa porte, St. Cyr being in the vicinity of Versailles, the king's residence.
15 cet ouvrage, the founding of this institution.
24 Louis XIV. supported foreign missions in the East and in the Nouveau Monde.
31-32 Allusion is here made to the Augsburg League (1687), in which Austria joined Sweden, Saxony, etc., for the purpose of opposing Louis XIV. Its leading spirit was the protestant William of Orange.
36 The pope Innocent III. was accused by Louis XIV. of aiding the anti-Roman designs of William of Orange,
48 Allusion to the taking of Philippsburg, Mannheim and Frankenthal, in the preceding year.
49 un fils. The Grand Dauphin had conducted the above campaign, with the great engineer Vauban.