[458] Vittorio Fossombroni (1754-1844), Foreign Minister and Premier to the Grand-duke Ferdinand. He continued in office until his death at the advanced age of ninety years.—T.
[459] In the spring of 1832, when the cholera was raging most fiercely, the Duc de Noailles was introduced to Madame Récamier. He was at once adopted by her and M. de Chateaubriand. The latter prized very highly the judgment and political feeling, the reason and the upright character of the young peer of France, who had just made a brilliant first speech in the tribune of the Upper House, and who, seventeen years later, was to become his successor in the French Academy. In the month of September 1836, Chateaubriand went to spend a few days with M. de Noailles at the Château de Maintenon, and he wrote a chapter which he intended to form part of his Memoirs. This chapter, however, was not inserted there; the manuscript was given by the author to Madame Récamier. Madame Lenormant has published it in Vol. II. of her Souvenirs et correspondence tirés des papiers de Madame Récamier, pp. 453 et seq., and it is reprinted here as forming a natural and essential complement of the Memoirs.—B.
[460] I omit four lines of verse.—T.
[461] Bianca Capello, Grand-duchess of Tuscany (circa 1548-1587), was originally an Italian adventuress, the mistress of Francis de' Medici, Grand-duke of Tuscany, whom she married, in 1578, when he became a widower. She was recognised as Grand-duchess in 1579.
[462] Cf. Vol. I., p. 120, n. 2.—T.
[463] Cf. Marot: La Cimetière; VIII.: De Messire Jean Cotereau, chevalier, seigneur de Maintenon; IX.: De luy mesmes; and X.: De luy encores.—T.
[464] Mademoiselle d'Aubigné, Madame de Maintenon's niece and adopted daughter, married the Duc de Noailles in 1698.—T.
[465] Adrien Maurice Maréchal Duc de Noailles (1678-1766), after distinguishing himself in the Spanish War of Succession, was created a grandee of Spain by Philip V. (1712) and a duke and peer of France by Louis XIV, became President of the Board of Finance under the Regency (1715) and did much to avert the disasters consequent upon John Law's "System." He returned to military service in 1733, won his marshal s baton at the Siege of Philippsburg and forced the the Germans to evacuate Worms in 1734. In 1743 he was defeated by George II. at Dettingen. In 1745, he was sent to Spain as Ambassador and, later, became a member of the Home Administration. The Maréchal Duc de Noailles is the ancestor of the two present branches of the Noailles family, the Ducs de Noailles and the Ducs de Mouchy, Princes de Poix.—T.
[466] The Aqueduct of Segovia, presumed to be of the time of Trajan, forms a great bridge, 937 feet long, and consisting of 320 arches in two tiers. The tallest arches, in the middle of the lower tier, are 102 feet high. It is built of large blocks of arches, somewhat rounded at the edges and assembled without cement.—T.
[467] Cf. Comtesse de la Fayette: Mémoires de la cour de France pour les années 1688 et 1689; the opening pages: