FOOTNOTES:
[289] In studying the history, and especially the memoirs, of the eighteenth century, the reader is at a disadvantage, inasmuch as the admirable collections of MM. Buchon, Petitot, Michaud et Poujoulat, etc., do not extend beyond its earliest years. Their place is very imperfectly supplied by a collection in twenty-eight small volumes, edited by F. Barrière for MM. Didot. This is useful as far as it goes, but it is very far from complete; much of it is in extract only, and the component parts of it are not selected as judiciously as they might be. Separate editions of the principal memoirs of the century are of course obtainable, and the number is being constantly increased; but such separate editions are far less useful than the collections which enable the memoir-writing of France during five centuries of its history to be studied at an advantage scarcely to be paralleled in the literature of any other nation.
[290] Her earlier contemporary, Madame de Tencin, is her chief competitor.