seeing her own face in the mirror of another lady, exclaimed, "Who
is this?". Whatever my friends tell me when they see me now, I am
inclined to think proceeds from the partiality of their affection.
I am sure that you yourself, when you consider more impartially
what you have said, will be induced to believe, according to
these lines of Du Bellay:

"C'est chercher Rome en Rome,
Et rien de Rome en Rome ne trouver."

('Tis to seek Rome, in Rome to go,
And Rome herself at Rome not know.)

But as we read with pleasure the history of the Siege of Troy,
the magnificence of Athens, and other splendid cities, which
once flourished, but are now so entirely destroyed that scarcely
the spot whereon they stood can be traced, so you please yourself
with describing these excellences of beauty which are no more,
and which will be discoverable only in your writings.

If you had taken upon you to contrast Nature and Fortune, you
could not have chosen a happier theme upon which to descant,
for both have made a trial of their strength on the subject of
your Memoirs. What Nature did, you had the evidence of your own
eyes to vouch for, but what was done by Fortune, you know only
from hearsay; and hearsay, I need not tell you, is liable to
be influenced by ignorance or malice, and, therefore, is not
to be depended on. You will for that reason, I make no doubt,
be pleased to receive these Memoirs from the hand which is most
interested in the truth of them.

I have been induced to undertake writing my Memoirs the more
from five or six observations which I have had occasion to make
upon your work, as you appear to have been misinformed respecting
certain particulars. For example, in that part where mention is
made of Pau, and of my journey in France; likewise where you
speak of the late Marechal de Biron, of Agen, and of the sally
of the Marquis de Camillac from that place.

These Memoirs might merit the honourable name of history from the
truths contained in them, as I shall prefer truth to embellishment.
In fact, to embellish my story I have neither leisure nor ability;
I shall, therefore, do no more than give a simple narration of
events. They are the labours of my evenings, and will come to
you an unformed mass, to receive its shape from your hands, or
as a chaos on which you have already thrown light. Mine is a
history most assuredly worthy to come from a man of honour, one
who is a true Frenchman, born of illustrious p