FOOTNOTES:
[1] Danceny is ignorant of what this means was; he merely repeats Valmont’s expression.
[2] Voltaire: Nanine.
[3] A village half-way between Paris and the château of Madame de Rosemonde.
[4] The afore-mentioned village, half-way on the road.
[5] La Nouvelle Héloïse.
[6] La Nouvelle Héloïse.
[7] “L’amour y pourvoira.” Regnard: Les Folies amoureuses.
[8] This letter has not been recovered.
[9] From the comedy, “On ne s’avise jamais de tout!”
[10] See letter the hundred and ninth.
[11] Letters the hundred and twentieth and hundred and twenty-second.
[12] “Plus je vis d’étrangers, plus j’aimai ma patrie”. Du Belloi’s tragedy of Le Siège de Calais.
[13] Letters the forty-sixth and forty-seventh.
[14] Marmontel: Conte moral d’Alcibiade.
[15] It is because we have discovered nothing in the subsequent correspondence which can solve this doubt that we have decided to suppress M. de Valmont’s letter.
[16] This casket contained all the letters relating to her adventure with M. de Valmont.
[17] Letters the eighty-first and eighty-fifth of this collection.
[18] It is from this correspondence, from that handed over in the same way on the death of Madame de Tourvel, and from the letters alike confided to Madame de Rosemonde by Madame de Volanges, that the present collection has been formed, the originals of which remain in the hands of Madame de Rosemonde’s heirs.
[19] This letter was left unanswered.
[20] Private reasons and considerations, which we shall ever make it a duty to respect, force us to halt here.
We cannot, at this moment, give our reader the continuation of Mademoiselle de Volanges’ adventures, nor acquaint him with the sinister events which culminated the misfortunes, or completed the punishment, of Madame de Merteuil.
Perhaps some day it will be in our power to complete this work; but we can give no undertaking in this matter: and, even were we able to do so, we should still deem it our duty first to consult the taste of the public, which has not our reasons for taking an interest in this narration.