PREFACE. แ I WOULD fain beg of all benevolent and kindlydisposed persons three privileges as essential to the telling of tale. my 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 a 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 |