apart by four horses. It was also Henri III. who had debauched Marie de Clèves, the first wife of the same Prince de Condé.
P. 103: May very well refer to Henri de Lorraine, Duc de Guise, assassinated at Blois.
P. 103: Most probably refers to Marguerite de Valois, the king of Navarre, the Duc d'Anjou and the St. Bartholomew.
P. 105: Louis de Béranger du Guasi, one of Henri III.'s favorites, assassinated in 1575 by M. de Viteaux. His epitaph is in the Manuscrit français 22565, fo 901o (Bibliothèque Nationale). Brantôme, who boasts of being a swordsman, forgets that D'Aubigné was also one.
P. 105: A small town of Brittany (Dep. Ille-et-Vilaine), 14 miles from St. Mâlo. Has a cathedral of 12th and 13th centuries; the bishopric was suppressed in 1790.
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.)
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.)
P. 108: 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.
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.
P. 109: Another embellished passage. Faustina had died before
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