Several of my friends have urged me to publish a portion of my story now: I could not bring myself to accede to their wish. In the first place, I should be less candid and less veracious, in spite of myself; and then, I have always imagined myself to be writing seated in my grave. From this my work has assumed a certain religious character, which I could not remove without impairing its merit; it would be painful to me to stifle the distant voice which issues from the tomb, and which makes itself heard throughout the course of this narrative. None will be surprised that I should preserve certain weaknesses, that I should be concerned for the fate of the poor orphan destined to survive me upon earth. Should Minos judge that I had suffered enough in this world to become at least a happy Shade in the next, a little light thrown from the Elysian Fields to illumine my last picture would serve to make the defects of the painter less prominent. Life does not suit me; perhaps death will become me better. Paris, 1 _December_, 1833. [1] This preface is first printed in the edition of 1899, from which the present version is made.--T. [2] "I am brought to nothing: as a wind thou hast taken away my desire: and my prosperity hath passed away _like a cloud._"--JOB, XXX. 15. "My days have passed by _as ships_ carrying fruits, as an eagle flying to the prey."--JOB, IX. 26. "Man cometh forth like a flower and is destroyed, and fleeth _as a shadow_, and never continueth in the same state."--JOB, XIV. 2.--T. THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION[1] _Sicut nubes ... quasi naves ... velut umbra._--JOB.[2] As it is not possible for me to foresee the moment of my end; as at my age the days accorded to man are but days of grace, or rather of reprieve, I propose to make an explanation. On the 4th of September next I shall have completed my seventy-eighth year: it is high time that I should quit a world which is quitting me and which I do not regret. The Memoirs prefaced by these lines follow, in their divisions, the natural divisions of my several careers. The sad necessity which has always held me by the throat has obliged me to sell my Memoirs. None can know what I have suffered by being compelled thus to hypothecate my tomb; but I owed this last sacrifice to my vows and to the consistency of my conduct. With an almost pusillanimous attachment, I looked upon these Memoirs as confidants from whom I would not care to part; my intention was to leave them to Madame de Chateaubriand; she would have published them at will, or suppressed them, as I would have desired more than ever today.