Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.

Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to the corresponding illustrations.

The illustrations at the beginnings of the chapters are decorative. They are not illustrated letters, but simple line drawings within “L”-shaped borders.

The text uses “OrlÉans” and “Orleans” with about equal frequency, so both have been retained here. Other frequent omissions of accent marks have been corrected only when there was a predominant pattern to their usage.