The opening of Preface
For some years the author of this work has been collecting materials for writing the history of the French Revolution. With this object in view he has visited Paris, wishing also to become familiar with the localities rendered immortal by the varied acts of this drama--the most memorable tragedy, perhaps, which has as yet been enacted upon the theatre of time. In addition to the aids which he has thus derived from a brief sojourn in Paris, he has also found the library of Bowdoin College peculiarly rich in all those works of religious and political philosophizings which preceded and ushered in these events, and in the narratives of those contemporary historians who recorded the scenes as they occurred, or which they themselves witnessed. Governor Bowdoin, whose library was the nucleus of the present college library, seems to have taken a special interest in collecting all the writings of the French philosophers and all the works of contemporary authors bearing upon the French Revolution, including--the most important of all--full files of the Moniteur.