Excerpt from The Ancient Regime, Vol. 1 of 2: A Tale In the character of Annette de St. Morin, I have had the peculiar difiiculties to contend with which cv ery man must encounter when he endeavours to depict the many fine gradations of thought and feeling pro duced in a woman's bosom by the different events of her life; and, certainly, the circumstances in which I have placed her have not made the task more easy. Nevertheless, i trust the picture is a true one, and I believe it to be so. The rule which I have gone by in painting this character is, to have all the observations that I have made through life upon the nature and con duct of woman present to my mind, like colours ready on a palette; and I have never asked myself what would be my own sensations in any particular circum stance alluded to, but what would be the feelings of a woman, of such a woman, and of one so educated. Whether I have divined right, or whether I have made a mistake, women alone can judge. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.