Testimony of this character, of the highest order, and at first hand, provides the means by which all other testimony ought to be verified .-- The footnotes at the bottom of the pages indicate the condition, office, name, and address of those decisive witnesses.

For greater certainty I have transcribed as often as possible their own words.

In this way the reader, confronting the texts, can interpret them for himself, and form his own opinions; he will have the same documents as myself for arriving at his conclusions, and, if he is pleased to do so, he may conclude otherwise.

As for allusions, if he finds any, he himself will have introduced them, and if he applies them he is alone responsible for them.

To my mind, the past has features of its own, and the portrait here presented resembles only the France of the past.