17. notre reine. The queen of France at this time was Marie Leczinska, daughter of Stanislas I Leczinski (1677-1766), king of Poland.
19. rivale: i.e. for the love of her husband.
[6], 11. la Grange-Batelière: a street in the northern part of Paris, just north of the Boulevard Montmartre. The name was originally “Grange Bataillière,” and is supposed to have designated the site of a champ de Mars or military drill field of the ninth century. In the eighteenth century the rue de la Grange-Batelière was one of the most fashionable in Paris.
19. le dernier règne: the Regency.
24. Régent: Philippe II, duc d’Orléans. He was regent of France from the death of Louis XIV, in 1715, till the majority of Louis XV, in 1723. The Regency was a period of financial difficulties and immorality.
27. Il souffle et il cuit: ‘He blows (with a blowpipe) and melts.’
[7], 2. Voltaire (1694-1778), one of the greatest French authors of the eighteenth century.
3. le bourgeois gentilhomme. An allusion to the famous comedy of this name by Molière (1622-1673).
4. maître de philosophie. M. Jourdain, the “bourgeois gentilhomme” of Molière, engaged a “master of philosophy” and various other tutors to train him for the aristocratic society which he desired to cultivate.
7. il n’avait garde d’oublier: ‘he was careful not to forget.’