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TO THE READER.~[1]


When, devoted from early youth to the ambition of liberty, I beheld no
limit to the path that I had opened for myself, it appeared to me that
I was sufficiently fulfilling my destiny, and satisfying my glory, by
rushing incessantly forward, and leaving to others the care of
collecting the recollections, as well as the fruits, of my labour.

After having enjoyed an uninterrupted course of good fortune for
fifteen years, I presented myself, with a favourable prospect of
success, before the coalition of kings, and the aristocracy of Europe:
I was overthrown by the simultaneous fury of French jacobinism. My
person was then given up to the vengeance of my natural enemies, and
my reputation to the calumnies of those self-styled patriots who had
so lately violated every sworn and national guarantee. It is well
known that the regimen of my five years' imprisonment was not
favourable to literary occupations, and when, on my deliverance from
prison, I was advised to write an explanation of my conduct, I was
disgusted with all works of the kind, by the numerous memoirs or
notices by which so many persons had trespassed upon the attention of
the public. Events had also spoken for us; and many accusers, and many
accusations, had fallen into oblivion.