Dangerous Liaisons
Page 46
* I should also indicate here that I have suppressed or changed the names of all persons mentioned in these letters, and that if among the names I have invented are found any belonging to any living person that would only be an error on my part from which no consequence should be drawn.
* A pupil at the same convent.
† A tourière3 in the convent.
* The words roué and rouerie, now happily falling into disuse in polite society, were very much in vogue at the time these letters were written.
† To understand this passage one needs to know that the Comte de Gercourt had left the Marquise de Merteuil for the Intendante de — who, in her turn, had given up the Vicomte de Valmont for him. It was after this that the attachment between the Marquise and the Vicomte began. As that affair took place long before the events related in these letters I thought it best to suppress all correspondence related to it.
* La Fontaine.
* Evidence of the deplorable taste for punning beginning to be in fashion at that time and since become so widespread.
* So as not to try the reader’s patience a large part of the daily correspondence between these two young ladies has been suppressed. Only the letters deemed necessary to an understanding of events appear. For the same reason all of Sophie Carnay’s letters and several written by other characters have also been suppressed.
* Madame de Volanges’s mistake shows that, in common with other rogues, Valmont never betrayed his accomplices.
* The Chevalier already mentioned in Madame de Merteuil’s letters.
* The letter has not been discovered. There is some reason to believe the evening referred to is the one proposed in Madame de Merteuil’s note and mentioned in Cécile Volanges’s preceding letter.
* Does Madame de Tourvel not then dare say this was on her own orders?
* Letters between Cécile Volanges and the Chevalier Danceny continue to be omitted because they are of little interest and throw no light on events.
* See Letter 35.
* Piron, Métromanie.21
* Those who have never had the opportunity of feeling the value of a word or expression hallowed by love will find this sentence meaningless.
* This letter has not been found.
* The reader will have guessed a long time ago from Madame de Merteuil’s behaviour in what little respect she held religion. This whole paragraph should perhaps have been omitted; on the other hand it was thought that while showing the effects, we should not neglect to make people aware of their causes.
* Probably Rousseau in Émile, but this is not an exact quotation and Valmont’s application of it here is quite wrong. Would Madame de Tourvel have read Émile?
* The letter from Cécile Volanges to the Marquise has been omitted since it contains only the same facts as the above letter but with fewer details. The letter to the Chevalier Danceny has not been found. We shall see the reason for this in Letter 63 from Madame de Merteuil to the Vicomte.
* Gresset, Le Méchant, Comédie.7
* Monsieur Danceny is not being totally honest. He had already confided in Monsieur de Valmont before this happened. See Letter 57.
* Reference to a passage in a poem by Monsieur de Voltaire
* Racine, the tragedy of Britannicus.
* Mademoiselle de Volanges having shortly afterwards changed confidante, as we shall see by the ensuing letters, none of those which she continued to write to her friend in the convent will be found here. They would provide no further information for the reader.
* This letter has not been found.
* It is not known whether this line, like the one above, ‘Her arms still open though her heart is closed’, are quotations from little-known works, or whether they form a part of Madame de Merteuil’s prose. What inclines us to the latter view is the multitude of errors of this nature which may be found in the whole of this correspondence. Those of the Chevalier Danceny are the only exception to this. Perhaps as he sometimes read poetry his ear was more attuned and he was able to avoid the error more easily.
* We shall learn later in Letter 152 not Monsieur de Valmont’s secret, but its nature, more or less. And the reader will understand why we have not been able to clarify it further.
* See Letter 74.
* See Letter 70.
* Some readers may not know that a macédoine is a medley of several games of chance, among which each player has the right to choose when it is his turn to deal. It is one of the novelties of our day.
* Commanding officer of the regiment in which Monsieur de Prévan was serving.
* Danceny does not know what this is. He is simply repeating Valmont’s words.
* Voltaire, Comédie de Nanine.
* A village halfway between Paris and Madame de Rosemonde’s chateau.
* Still the same village, halfway to Paris.
* Regnard, Folies amoureuses.
* Rousseau, La Nouvelle Héloïse.
* Rousseau, La Nouvelle Héloïse.
* This letter has not been found.
* On ne s’avise jamais de tout! Comédie.
* See Letter 109.
* Letters 120 and 123.
* De Belloy, Tragedy of the Siege de Calais.
* Letters 47 and 48.
* Marmontel, Conte moral d’Alcibiade.
* Because nothing in the ensuing correspondence was found which could resolve this doubt, we have decided to suppress Monsieur de Valmont’s letter.
* This box contained all the letters relative to her affair with Monsieur de Valmont.
* Letters 81 and 85 in this collection.
* It is from this collection of letters, from the one handed over at the death of Madame de Tourvel, and from letters also entrusted to Madame de Rosemonde by Madame de Volanges that the present collection has been assembled. The originals remain in the hands of the heirs of Madame de Rosemonde.
* This letter remained unanswered
* For reasons of our own, and because of other considerations that we shall always believe it our duty to respect, we are obliged to stop here.