Certain things I had noticed at Court now became imbued with new meanings. The Chevalier de Lorraine – lord of the lands over which the ox-carts passed en route to Haguenau – has long been the most senior of Monsieur's lovers, and the most cruel and implacable of Madame's tormentors. In theory he is a vassal of the Holy Roman Emperor, of which Lorraine is still a tributary state, but in practice he has become completely surrounded by France – one cannot enter or leave Lorraine without traveling over territory that is ruled from Versailles. This explains why he spends all his time in the French Court instead of Vienna.