[63] P. 107:
◆To take a journey to Saint-Mathurin was a proverbial expression which meant that a person was mad. Henri Estienne says that this is a purely imaginary saint; be that as it may, he was credited with curing madmen, and the satirical songs of the time are full of allusions to that healing power. (See Journal de Henri III, 1720 edition, t. II., pp. 307 and 308.)
[64] P. 108:
◆Lalanne proves by a passage from Spartianus that this anecdote is apocryphal, or that at least Brantôme has embellished it for his own needs. (Dames, tom. IX., p. 116.)
◆Hadrian (P. Aelius Hadrianus), 14th in the series of Roman Emperors, A. D. 117–138, succeeded his guardian and kinsman Trajan. His wife, Sabina, here mentioned, was a grand-daughter of Trajan’s sister Marciana.
[65] P. 109:
◆Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (“The Philosopher”) succeeded Antonius Pius as Emperor in A. D. 168. Died 180. His wife Faustina (as profligate a woman as Messalina herself) was daughter of Pius. Author of the famous Meditations. His son Commodus, who succeeded him as Emperor, was a complete contrast in character to his father, being vicious, weak, cruel and dissolute.
◆Another embellished passage. Faustine had died before Antoninus Commodus was emperor. Moreover, she was only washed (sublevare, says the text) with the blood of the gladiator. (J. Capitolin, Marc-Antoine le Philosophe, Chap. xix.)
[66] P. 113:
◆A discreet and veiled allusion to the amours of Marguerite de Valois and of the Duchess de Nevers with La Môle and Coconas. Implicated in the affair of Field Marshals de Cossé and de Montmorency, La Môle, a Provençal nobleman, and Coconas, a Piedmontese, were beheaded on the square of Grève towards the end of April, 1574, and not killed in battle as Brantôme tries to insinuate. The two princesses, mad with despair, transported the bodies in their carriages to the place of burial, at Montmartre, and kept the heads, which they had had embalmed. (Mémoires de Nevers, I., p. 75, and Le Divorce satirique.)