I have taken care that my account of the national
establishments in France should be perfectly correct; and, in fact, I
have been favoured with the principal information it contains by
their respective directors. In regard to the other topics on which I
have touched, I have not failed to consult the best authorities, even
in matters, which, however trifling in themselves, acquire a relative
importance, from being illustrative of some of the many-coloured
effects of a revolution, which has humbled the pride of many,
deranged the calculations of all, disappointed the hopes of not a
few, and deceived those even by whom it had been engendered and
conducted.
Yet, whatever pains I have taken to be strictly impartial, it cannot
be denied that, in publishing a work of this description at a time
when the self-love of most men is mortified, and their resentment
awakened, I run no small risk of displeasing all parties, because I
attach myself to none, but find them all more or less deserving of
censure. Without descending either to flattery or calumny, I speak
both well and ill of the French, because I copy nature, and neither
draw an imaginary portrait, nor write a systematic narrative. If I
have occasionally given vent to my indignation in glancing at the
excesses of the revolution, I have not withheld my tribute of
applause from those institutions, which, being calculated to benefit
mankind by the gratuitous diffusion of knowledge, would reflect
honour on any nation.
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