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I CANNOT express the satisfaction I feel at finding myself once more addressing the great American public, which from the first has received my works with such flattering favour.

I have taken special pleasure in the production of this new edition of Old Court Life in France, which was first published in America some twenty years ago, and which is, I trust, now entering into a new lease of life.

That the same cordial welcome may follow the present edition, which was accorded to the first, is my anxious hope.

A new generation has appeared, which may, I trust, find itself interested in the stirring scenes I have delineated with so much care, that they might be strictly historical, as well as locally correct.

To write this book was, for me (with my knowledge of French history) a labour of love. It takes me back to the happiest period of my life, passed on the banks of the historic Loire: to Blois, Amboise, Chambord, and, a little further off, to the lovely plaisances of Chenonceaux and Azay le Rideau, the woods of magnificent Versailles, and Saint Cloud (now a desolation), on to the walls of the palatial Louvre, the house-tree of the great Kings and Queens of France – never can all these annals be fitly told! Never can they be exhausted!

To be the guide to these romantic events for the American public is indeed an honour. To lead where they will follow, with, I trust, something of my own enthusiasm, is worth all the careful labour the work has cost me.

With these words I take my leave of the unknown friends across the sea, who have so kindly appreciated me for many years. Although I have never visited America, this sympathy bridges space, and draws me to them with inexpressible cordiality and confidence, in which sentiment I shall ever remain, leaving my work to speak to them for me.

Frances Elliot.

June, 1893.