Revolution, she extracted from the first part of Ten
Years Exile, the historical passages and general reflections which
entered into her new design, reserving the individual details for
the period when she calculated on finishing the memoirs of her life,
and when she flattered herself with being able to name all the
persons of whom she had received generous proofs of friendship,
without being afraid of compromising them by the expressions of her
gratitude.

The manuscript confided to my charge consisted therefore of two
distinct parts: the first, the perusal of which necessarily offered
less interest, contained several passages already incorporated in
the Considerations on the French Revolution; the other formed a sort
of journal, of which no part was yet known to the public. I have
followed the plan traced by my mother, by striking out of the first
part of the manuscript, all the passages which, with some
modifications, have already found a place in her great political
work. To this my labour as editor has been confined, and I have not
allowed myself to make the slightest addition.

The second part I deliver to the public exactly as I found it,
without the least alteration, and I have scarcely felt myself
entitled to make slight corrections of the style, so important did
it appear to me to preserve in this sketch the entire vividness of
its original character. A perusal of the opinions which she
pronounces upon the political conduct of Russia, will satisfy
every one of my scrupulous respect for my mother's manuscript; but
without taking into account the influence of gratitude on elevated
minds, the reader will not fail to recollect, that at that time
the sovereign of Russia was fighting in the cause of liberty and
independence. Was it possible to foresee that so few years would
elapse before the immense forces of that empire should become the
instruments of the oppression of unhappy Europe?

If we compare the Ten Years' Exile with the Considerations on the
French Revolution, it will perhaps be found that the reign of
Napoleon is criticized in the first of these works with greater
severity than in the other, and that he is there attacked with an
eloquence not always exempt from bitterness. This difference may be
easily explained: one of these works was written after the fall of
the despot, with the calm and impartiality of the historian; the
other was inspired by a courageous feeling of resistance to tyranny;
and a