The Translator has added some notes, which give an account of such places as are mentioned in the Memoirs, taken from the itineraries of the time, but principally from the “Geographie Universelle” of Vosgien; in which regard is had to the new division of France into departments, as well as to the ancient one of principalities, archbishoprics, bishoprics, generalities, chatellenies, balliages, duchies, seigniories, etc.
In the composition of her Memoirs, Marguerite has evidently adopted the epistolary form, though the work came out of the French editor’s hand divided into three (as they are styled) books; these three books, or letters, the Translator has taken the liberty of subdividing into twenty-one, and, at the head of each of them, he has placed a short table of the contents. This is the only liberty he has taken with the original Memoirs, the translation itself being as near as the present improved state of our language could be brought to approach the unpolished strength and masculine vigour of the French of the age of Henri IV.
This translation is styled a new one, because, after the Translator had made some progress in it, he found these Memoirs had already been made English, and printed, in London, in the year 1656, thirty years after the first edition of the French original. This translation has the following title: “The grand Cabinet Counsels unlocked; or, the most faithful Transaction of Court Affairs, and Growth and Continuance of the Civil Wars in France, during the Reigns of Charles the last, Henry III., and Henry IV., commonly called the Great. Most excellently written, in the French Tongue, by Margaret de Valois, Sister to the two first Kings, and Wife of the last. Faithfully translated by Robert Codrington, Master of Arts;” and again as “Memorials of Court Affairs,” etc., London, 1658.
The Memoirs of Queen Marguerite contained the secret history of the Court of France during the space of seventeen years, from 1565 to 1582, and they end seven years before Henri III., her brother, fell by the hands of Clement, the monk; consequently, they take in no part of the reign of Henri IV. (as Mr. Codrington has asserted in his title-page), though they relate many particulars of the early part of his life.