ALL CAPITALS. Unless otherwise indicated, translations are from the
French. The spelling and punctuation of the Graham's Magazine
periodical text have generally been followed, except that certain
inconsistent contractions (e.g., "do n't" or "do'nt" for "don't") have been
silently regularized.}

{I have annotated the edition--identified by {curly brackets}--to
translate most of the French words and expressions which Cooper
frequently employs, to define occasional now-obsolete English words,
and to identify historical names and other references. Cooper frequently
alludes, in the beginning of the work, to events and persons involved in
the French Revolution of 1830, which he had witnessed while living in
Paris, and about which the beginning of the plot revolves.}



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A POCKET-HANDKERCHIEF


CHAPTER I.

{Chapter numbers inserted from non-periodical editions of
"Autobiography."}

Certain moral philosophers, with a due disdain of the flimsy foundations
of human pride, have shown that every man is equally descended from a
million of ancestors, within a given number of generations; thereby
demonstrating that no prince exists who does not participate in the
blood of some beggar, or any beggar who does not share in the blood
of princes. Although favored by a strictly vegetable descent myself, the