THE TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. ix 



mences his " Kecollections," I have, while omitting 

 some of the official despatches, the translation of which 

 is not required in order to put the reader in possession 

 of M. de Lesseps's own version of this incident in his 

 career, been careful not to attempt anything like a 

 precis of what he says, and this for personal reasons. 

 Having for many years enjoyed the friendship of the 

 late M. Drouyn de Lhuys, who, as Foreign Minister 

 in 1849, entrusted M. de Lesseps with this mission to 

 Eome, I had often heard him speak of it and of the 

 circumstances connected with it. His view was, I 

 need hardly say, diametrically opposite to that ex- 

 pressed here by M. de Lesseps, and I have, therefore, 

 left the latter to tell the story in his own words. I 

 have, however, taken it upon myself to omit two 

 chapters altogether, one being a treatise upon the 

 French Eevolution of 1848 by Don Balmes, a Spanish 

 writer, and the other a criticism by M. de Lesseps 

 himself of this author's writings. French readers 

 may possibly be curious to know, even at this remote 

 date, what a Spanish writer has to say about the most 

 deplorable and senseless of the many revolutions 

 which have occurred in their country, but foreigners 

 can scarcely be expected to feel any interest in what 

 is, after all, but the individual expression of opinion 

 by a writer of whom they know nothing upon a sub- 

 ject which has passed quite out of their memory. 



To English readers the most interesting, but in 

 some ways the most humiliating, part of the book will 



