and my kindred." [1]

The author states that the work is not in his own handwriting, but in
that of his secretary, to whom he dictated during eleven years four
hours each day, two in the morning, and two in the afternoon--and that
he commenced his formidable task in the year 1664, when he was living in
retirement in his Commanderie of St. Eugène in Limousin; and, despite
his advanced age, "in possession of all his faculties as perfectly as
when he had only reached his twenty-fifth year."

It is but recently that the present proprietor of the Memoirs, rightly
judging that the time has elapsed in which the disclosures of the
chronicler in question could conduce to the injury of any one connected
with him, has consented to permit of their perusal; and that only by a
few literary friends, all of whom have been astonished by their
extraordinary variety of information, marvellous detail, and intimate
acquaintance, not only with the principal events of the seventeenth
century (the writer having lived to the patriarchal age of ninety-six
years), but also with the leading actors in each of them.

In conclusion, I may say that these volumes are, through the kindness of
MM. d'Inguimbert and de la Plane, enriched by numerous curious extracts
from these unpublished Memoirs, no part of which has previously
appeared in print.

LONDON, _May_ 1852.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This curious manuscript is at present the property of the Comte