he has left, by listening to his conversation, by appealing to his
memories, by questioning his contemporaries, by recording the impressions
of his sometime pupils. I have endeavoured to assemble all these data, in
order to authenticate them, and have also gleaned many facts among his
manuscripts (Introduction/2.), and have had recourse to all that portion of
his correspondence which fortunately fell into my hands.

This correspondence, to be truthful, does not appear at any time to have
been very assiduous. Fabre, as we shall see in the story of his life
(Introduction/3.), disliked writing letters, both in his studious youth and
during the later period of isolation and silence.

On the other hand, although he wrote but little, he never wrote with
difficulty or as a mere matter of duty. Among all the letters which I have
succeeded in collecting there are scarcely any that are not of interest
from one point of view or another. No frivolous narratives, no futile
acquaintances, no commonplace intimacies; everything in his life is
serious, and everything makes for a goal.

But we must set apart, as surpassing all others in interest, the letters
which Fabre addressed to his brother during the years spent as schoolmaster
at Carpentras or Ajaccio; for these are more especially instructive in
respect of the almost unknown years of his youth; these most of all reveal
his personality and are one of the finest illustrations that could be given
of his life, a true poem of energy and disinterested labour.

I have to thank M. Frédéric Fabre, who, in his fraternal piety, has
generously placed all his family records at my disposal, and also his two
sons, my dear friends Antonin Fabre, councillor at the Court of Nîmes, and
Henri Fabre, of Avignon, for these precious documents; and I take this