The publishers of these letters have requested me to write a preface.

In vain I have told them, that if prefaces have not gone out of date, the sooner they do, the better it will be for the public; in vain I have despairingly suggested that there must be something which would serve their purpose, kept in type at their printers, commencing, "At the request of--perhaps too partial--friends, I have been induced, against my own judgment, to publish, &c., &c., &c.;" they say that they have advertised the book with a preface, and a preface from me they must and will have.

Unfortunately I have, from my earliest childhood, religiously skipped all introductions, prefaces, and other such obstructions, so that I really do not precisely know how one ought to be written; I can only, therefore, say that-- These letters are published for the very excellent reason that a confiding publisher has offered me a sum of money for them, which I was not such a fool as to refuse.

They were written in Paris to the _Daily News_ during the siege.

I was residing there when the war broke out; after a short absence, I returned just before the capitulation of Sedan--intending only to remain one night.