But in short, whatever may be the cause of the sentiment which actuates me, I have yielded to the desire of retracing the various sensations which I experienced during that fatal war. I have employed my leisure hours in separating, arranging, and combining with method my scattered and confused recollections. Comrades! I also invoke yours! Suffer not such great remembrances, which have been so dearly purchased, to be lost; for us they are the only property which the past leaves to the future. Single, against so many enemies, ye fell with greater glory than they rose. Learn, then, that there was no shame in being vanquished! Raise once more those noble fronts, which have been furrowed with all the thunders of Europe! Cast not down those eyes, which have seen so many subject capitals, so many vanquished kings! Fortune, doubtless, owed you a more glorious repose; but, such as it is, it depends on yourselves to make a noble use of it. Let history inscribe your recollections. The solitude and silence of misfortune are propitious to her labours; and let truth, which is always present in the long nights of adversity, at last enlighten labours that may not prove unproductive. As for me, I will avail myself of the privilege, sometimes painful, sometimes glorious, of telling what I have seen, and of retracing, perhaps with too scrupulous attention, its most minute details; feeling that nothing was too minute in that prodigious Genius and those gigantic feats, without which we should never have known the extent to which human strength, glory, and misfortune, may be carried. TABLE OF CONTENTS. VOLUME FIRST. BOOK I. CHAP. I.--Political relations of France and Russia since 1807 1 II.--Prussia.--Frederick William 6 III.--Turkey.--Sultans Selim--Mustapha--Mahmoud 18 IV.--Sweden.--Bernadotte 32 BOOK II. CHAP. I.--Feelings of Napoleon's grandees at the approaching contest--their objections, with Napoleon's replies--real motives which urged him to the struggle 49 II.--Arguments against the war by the Dukes of Frioul and Vicenza and the Count de Segur.--Napoleon's replies 56 III.--His manner of gaining proselytes to his opinions--his avowals to his own family--his discussions with Cardinal Fesch--his declaration to Prince Kourakin 67 IV.--Circumstances inclining him to delay the contest--his proposals to England and to Russia--Russian ultimatum 75 V.--Preparations for commencement--Talleyrand--opinions of the military--of Napoleon's ministers and generals--fresh obstacles to his departure 80 BOOK III.