--Ed.

Therefore, my Lady, as this work is about to be exposed to the doubtful
judgment of so many thousands of men, may it please you to take it under
your protection and into your safe keeping; for, whereas you are the
natural and legitimate heiress of all the excellencies, ornaments, and
virtues which enriched the author while she adorned by her presence the
surprise of the earth, and which now by some marvellous ray of divinity
live and display themselves in you, it is not possible that you should
be defrauded of the fruit of the labour which justly belongs to you, and
for which the whole universe will be indebted to you now that it comes
forth into the light under the resplendent shelter of your divine and
heroic virtues.

May it therefore please you, my Lady, to graciously accept of this
little offering, as an eternal proof of my obedience and most humble
devotion to your greatness, pending a more important sacrifice which I
prepare for the future.

Peter Boaistuau, surnamed Launay, To the Reader.(1)

1 This notice follows the dedicatory preface in the edition
of 1558.

Gentle Reader, I can tell thee verily and with good right assert (even
prove by witnesses worthy of belief) when this work was presented to me
that I might fulfil the office of a sponge and cleanse it of a multitude
of manifest errors that were found in a copy written by hand, I was only
requested to take out or copy eighteen or twenty of the more notable
tales, reserving myself to complete the rest at a more convenient season
and at greater leisure.

However, as men are fond of novelties, I was solicited with very
pressing requests to pursue my point, to which I consented, rather by
reason of the importunity than of my own will, and my enterprise was
conducted in such fashion, that so as not to show myself in any wise
disobedient, I added some more tales, to which again others have since
been adjoined.

In regard to myself, I can assure thee that it would have been less
difficult for me to build the whole edifice anew than to mutilate it in
several places, change, innovate, add and suppress in others, but I
was almost perforce compelled to give it a new form, which I have done,
partly for the requirements and the adornment of the stories, partly to
conform to the times and the infelicity of our century, when most human
things are so exulcerated that there is no work, however well digested,
polished, and filed, but it is