The front of the notebook contains a 5-line note of authentification signed [? Edmund] 'De Goncourt' with the De Goncourt bookplate beneath. According to this note, the Du Barry letter was 'partie de la correspondence amoureuse de la favorite de Louis XV avec Lord Seymour, ambassadeur de l' Angleterre en France. Elle m' a été donnée par Barriere qui possedait toute la correspondence ....' But Claud Saint-André observes that Henry Seymour (1729-1805) 'was not, as has been stated by the Goncourts, the English ambassador in France, but a member of the illustrious house of Somerset, possessed of considerable property in the West of England', then married to his second wife, the Countess Louise de Ponthon from Normandy. His liaison with Madame du Barry was short and broken off because he was unwilling to share her favours (cf. A King's Favourite, 1915, pp. 224-26).