[Footnote 15: Louis XV. was the most licentious king that ever sat on çoisRenéthe throne of France.--T.]
[Footnote 16: Élie Duc Decazes (1780-1860), Prefect of Police (July 1815), Minister of the General Police (September 1815), peer of France, with the title of count (September 1816), Minister of the Interior (1818), and President of the Council (1819). In 1820, he left office to take up the Embassy in London, with the title of duke, and retained it till 1822. In 1834, he succeeded the Marquis de Sémonville as Grand Referendary of the Chamber of Peers.--B.]
[Footnote 17: Anne Jacoby Comtesse de Balbi (_circa_ 1758-1842), _née_ de Caumont La Force, lady-in-waiting to the Comtesse de Provence, later Joséphine Queen of France (1780), a favourite of the Comte de Provence, later Louis XVIII., until the Comte d'Avaray supplanted her at Coblentz.--T.]
[Footnote 18: Zoé Victoire Comtesse de Cayla (1785-1852), _née_ Talon du Boullay-Thierry, favourite to Louis XVIII. from 1819 till the King's death in 1824.--T.]
[Footnote 19: Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Duc de Richelieu (1585-1642), governed France without interruption from 1623 to 1642.--T.]
[Footnote 20: Jules Cardinal Mazarin (1602-1661) succeeded Richelieu as Prime Minister, remaining in power, with two short intervals, until the day of his death. Each of the two cardinals, therefore, governed France for nineteen years.--T.]
[Footnote 21: Murat was born near Cahors, the Duc Decazes near Libourne, both in Gascony.--T.]
[Footnote 22: M. Decazes had been private secretary to Madame Mère under the Empire.--B.]
[Footnote 23: M. Decazes had married, in 1805, a daughter of the Comte Muraire, First President of the Court of Appeal. She died in the following year. In August 1818, he married Mademoiselle de Sainte-Aulaire, grand-daughter, through her mother, of the last reigning Prince of Nassau-Saarbrück. In consideration of this marriage, the King of Denmark gave him the title of duke, with the domain of Glücksbjerg.--B.]
[Footnote 24: Marie Princeteau (1787-1879), _née_ Decazes, sister to the Duc Decazes, and for some time favourite of Louis XVIII. For an obvious reason, she, Madame de Balbi and Madame de Cayla are better described as the King's favourites than as his mistresses.--T.]