[276] Who Dorus is has not been found out.
[277] The Appian Way, the oldest and best of all the Roman roads, leads from the Porta Cappena at Rome to Capua.
[278] The Lictors at Rome, with the fasces, always walked before the Consul or the Dictator.
[279] Some think that here a certain M. de Langlée, maréchal des camps et armées du roi, was meant. Others think it was an uncle of the minister Colbert, a M. Pussort, one of the kingʼs counsel of state; but the first was unmarried and had a very wealthy father, and the second, who was also unmarried, and a miser to boot, owed his influence wholly to his position.
[280] The original has pancartes, which our author in a note states were billets dʼenterrement.
[281] Noble homme was a title which citizens of importance took in all legal contracts, whilst men of less influence, tradesmen and artisans, were styled Honorable homme, and Messire was only reserved for persons of rank.
[282] This youth was M. le Tellier, who became Archbishop of Rheims in 1671, when he was only twenty-nine years old, but who already, before that time, received the revenues of six abbeys. (See also page [47], note 126.)
[283] Formerly six vingts, hundred and twenty—thus in the original—was as commonly used as quatre-vingt.
[284] The first two editions contained a note of La Bruyère, to say that by médailles dʼor he meant louis dʼor. This he thought no longer necessary in the other editions; he only wanted to draw attention to the fact that the “youth” received his clerical dues in golden coin, and not by a cheque on some fermier-général, who would have taken a discount for cash payment.
[285] This paragraph seems to be a hit at the fermier-général Langeois, whose daughter married the Marshal de Tourville, and whose son was married to a niece of de Pontchartrain, the contrôleur-général of the finances.