Volume 1

The memoirs of Dr. Thomas W. Evans : recollections of the second French empire / edited by Edward A. Crane, M. D.

  • Evans, Thomas W. (Thomas Wiltberger), 1823-1897.
Date:
1905
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The memoirs of Dr. Thomas W. Evans : recollections of the second French empire / edited by Edward A. Crane, M. D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    been published, and include practically everything in the “ Memoirs,” that relates to the Second French Empire. The greatest difficulty that I have encountered in the course of my editorial work, has arisen from the necessity of suppressing one or the other of the repeti- tions, or very similar statements, in the parts referred to; and then, so fusing or, rather, stitching the para- graphs and sections together as to give to the whole sufficient continuity and unity to be acceptable to myself without doing violence to the original text. The plan adopted, and which I believe to be the best in view of the facts above mentioned, has been to keep together, and in the body of this book, what relates directly to the Fall of the Empire, and to include in the opening and closing chapters most of the author’s more strictly personal reminiscences and appreciations of the Emperor Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugenie. I certainly should feel, however, that I had alto- gether failed to accomplish what I have sought to do, were I not aware that it is the generally conceded privilege of the writer of memoirs and reminiscences to remember only what he chooses to remember, and to say it just when it pleases him to say it. And in according with me this liberty to the author, I trust the reader may be equally generous towards the editor of this book, so far as he may be disposed to hold him responsible for an arrangement of its contents that may occasionally seem wanting in sequence, or for a style of writing that is perhaps, at times, a little too ddcousu. xu