34: carrousels, «tourneys».
35: Or il faut que, «Now, if I go out but for an hour.»
36: Toison d'or. The order of the Golden Fleece was founded at Bruges in 1429, by Philip, Duke of Burgundy, the husband of Isabella of Portugal. It numbered originally thirty-one knights, pledged to defend the faith, as the Argonauts had been pledged to seek the golden fleece. Saint Simon tells us that this order and that of the Garter were the only ones compatible with the French order of the Holy Ghost. The marriage of Philip's grand-daughter to Maximilian of Austria in 1477, transferred the grand-mastership to the house of Hapsburg.
37: Féal, an old word, equivalent to fidèle.
38: En ton palais. The preposition dans is regularly used before a defined noun, that is, a noun with an adjective or adjectival phrase. But dans would increase the line by one syllable, so that this is a proper place for the exercise of poetic license.
39: Pour l'aller dire, would, in correct prose, be pour aller le dire, but the same reason and the same permissible license have prevailed here as in the preceding line.
40: Figuère, Span. Figueras, a fortified city in Catalonia, near the French border.
41: Note, in this scene, the indifference of Don Carlos to the subject of his grandfather's memory, contrasted with the piety of Don Ruy Gomez.
42: Aix-la-Chapelle, German Aachen, Latin Aquis granum. Pronounce Aix like ex. In its minster (la chapelle, whence the name) Charlemagne is buried. It was here that the emperors were crowned, up to Ferdinand I, who acceded in 1558.
43: Spire, German Speyer, celebrated for its cathedral, in which many of the emperors are buried.