[1] This portrait is the frontispiece of the present translated edition.—Tr.
[2] Correspondance Complète de Madame la Duchesse d’Orléans, née Princesse Palatine, Mère du Régent; traduction entièrement nouvelle, par M. G. Brunet. Paris: Charpentier, 1891.
[3] Madame’s own spelling could hardly be worse; she always spells Saint-Cloud “Saint-Clou.”—Tr.
[4] Monsieur had died on the 9th of June, and the scene between Madame and Mme. de Maintenon had taken place in the interim.—Tr.
[5] Curious details as to these satirical medals will be found in a work by Klotz: Historia numorum Contumeliosorum, Attenbury, 1765. (French editor.)
[6] Madame here refers to the Lorraines, whose scandalous relations to Monsieur are matters of history.—Tr.
[7] We remember Saint-Simon’s account of Madame who “arrived howling, in full-dress.” Madame will tell us herself that she never owned a dressing-gown; and as she had nothing but “full-dress” or a riding habit, her costume on this occasion seems the best she could choose.—Tr.
[8] This appears to be the only letter contemporaneous with the deaths of the Duc and Duchesse de Bourgogne (to which it alludes) that has been preserved.—Tr.
[9] As to this tale see the “Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon, which gives Mme des Ursins own account of the affair.”—Tr.
[10] She was married in 1722 to Luis, Prince of the Asturias. See the “Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon.”—Tr.