As soon as I returned to France, my friends requested me to write memoirs: I found excuses for not doing so in my reluctance to judge with severity the first jacobin chiefs who have shared since in my proscription,--the _Girondins_, who have died for those very principles they had opposed and persecuted in me,--the king and queen, whose lamentable fate only allows me to pride myself upon some services I have rendered them,--and the vanquished royalists, who are at present deprived of fortune, and exposed to every arbitrary measure. I ought to add, likewise that, happy in my retreat, in the bosom of my family and occupied with agricultural pursuits, I know not how to purloin one moment from the enjoyments of my domestic life.
But my friends have renewed their request, and to comply in some degree with it, I have consented to place in order the few papers that I still possess and assemble together some relations which have been already published, and unite, by notes, the whole collection, in which my children and friends may one day find materials for a less insignificant work. As to myself, I acknowledge that my indolence in this respect is owing to the intimate conviction which I feel, that liberty will ultimately be established in the old as well as in the new world, and that then the history of our revolutions will put all things and all persons in their proper places.
1. Although this notice, written a short time after the 18th _Brumaire_, be anterior to a great number of events, in the midst of which General Lafayette continued his public life, we have placed it in this part of the work, as a sort of general introduction to the various materials it contains.
If I were to confound, as is too often done, obstinacy with firmness, I should blush at beginning these memoirs, after having so long refused to do so, and at even increasing their apparent egotism by my style, instead of sheltering myself under cover of the third person; but I will not yield a half compliance to the request of that tender friendship which is far more valuable to me than the ephemeral success which a journal might obtain. It is sufficient for me to know that this relation, intended for a few friends only, will never extend beyond their circle: it even possesses two very great advantages over many celebrated books: these are, that the public not being concerned in this work it cannot need a preface, and that the dedication of affection cannot require an epistle.