TO
FIELD-MARSHAL THE RIGHT HON.
G. J. VISCOUNT WOLSELEY
K.P., G.C.B., G.C.M.G., COL.R.H.G.
COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
VICTOR AT TEL-EL-KEBIR
ETC. ETC.
PREFACE
IN the following pages I have tried to give a faithful picture of life in England and in France during the first decade of the Nineteenth Century. The invasion scare, the state of National feeling in our land, the conditions which prevailed among British prisoners in France, the descriptions of French conscripts and French dungeons, etc., are in accordance with reality. My authorities have been many, including volumes written and published at the time, long since out of print. One chief authority for dungeon-scenes is the "Narrative" of Major-General Lord Blayney, himself four years a captive at Verdun and elsewhere; but his account by no means stands alone. My aim has been in no case to overdraw, but to be true to those things which actually were.
Some old MS. letters, handed down in my own family, belonging to that date, have been no inconsiderable help.