still strong, to give a narrative of the remarkable circumstances of
her flight, and of the persecution which had rendered that step in a
manner a duty. She resumed, therefore, the history of her life at
the year 1810, the epoch of the suppression of her work on Germany,
and continued it up to her arrival at Stockholm in 1812: from that
was suggested the title of Ten Years' Exile. This explains also,
why, in speaking of the imperial government, my mother expresses
herself sometimes as living under its power, and at other times, as
having escaped from it.

Finally, after she had conceived the plan of her Considerations
on the French Revolution, she extracted from the first part of Ten
Years Exile, the historical passages and general reflections which
entered into her new design, reserving the individual details for
the period when she calculated on finishing the memoirs of her life,
and when she flattered herself with being able to name all the
persons of whom she had received generous proofs of friendship,
without being afraid of compromising them by the expressions of her
gratitude.

The manuscript confided to my charge consisted therefore of two
distinct parts: the first, the perusal of which necessarily offered
less interest, contained several passages already incorporated in
the Considerations on the French Revolution; the other formed a sort
of journal, of which no part was yet known to the public. I have
followed the plan traced by my mother, by striking out of the first
part of the manuscript, all the passages which, with some
modifications, have already found a place in her great political
work. To this my labour as editor has been confined, and I have not
allowed myself to make the slightest addition.