PREFACE. a I WOULD fain beg of all benevolent and kindlydisposed persons three privileges as essential to the telling of my tale. First, that I may be allowed to abstain from strategy, for I confess I am no strategist—indeed, during the whole time the siege lasted, I did not so much as possess plan of my own" for the Deliverance of Paris. The second is permission to tell my story in my own way, without invention or embellishment; and the third, that I may be relieved from the irksome responsibility of passing sentence of condemnation or approval upon what I narrate. My object is to bring forward as faithfully as I could observe it, whatever may tend to dispel the con 40X1384 ventionalities of history which efface the true human interest of things. Legends are facts from which the life and colour have faded; and I sincerely trust that the siege I have witnessed may never become legendary, that something of its original Parisian naiveté may outlive its numerous historians. LONDON, Feb., 1871. |