correctness of them, and the fidelity of their likenesses; no doubt
their execution leaves much to be desired.

Both her task and mine (to the future publication of which this
autobiography is but an introduction) have been performed with the
minutest care and conscientiousness; no time or trouble have been
spared. For instance, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew alone, which we
were able to study from seventeen different points of view, cost us no
less than two months' unremitting labor.

As we reached further and further back through the stream of time, the
task became easier in a way; but we have had to generalize more, and
often, for want of time and space, to use types in lieu of individuals.
For with every successive generation the number of our progenitors
increased in geometrical progression (as in the problem of the nails in
the horseshoe) until a limit of numbers was reached--namely, the sum of
the inhabitants of the terrestrial globe. In the seventh century there
was not a person living in France (not to mention Europe) who was not in
the line of our direct ancestry, excepting, of course, those who had
died without issue and were mere collaterals.

[Illustration: "THE MAMMOTH."]

We have even just been able to see, as in a glass darkly, the faint
shadows of the Mammoth and the cave bear, and of the man who hunted and
killed and ate them, that he might live and prevail.

The Mammoth!

We have walked round him and under him as he browsed, and even _through_