[p ii]
Entered according to Act of Congress, the year 1833, by Allen and Ticknor, in the Clerk’s office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
BOSTON:
Kane and Co......127 Washington Street.
[p iii]
PREFACE
.
The present work has had an extensive circulation in France, the country which we are accustomed to consider as the genial soil of politeness; and the publishers have thought it would be rendering a useful service on this side of the Atlantic to issue a translation of it.
Some foreign visitors in our country, whose own manners have not always given them a right to be censors of others, have very freely told us what we ought not to do; and it will be useful to know from respectable authority, what is done in polished society in Europe, and, of course, what we ought to do, in order to avoid all just censure. This object, we are [p iv] confident, will be more effectually accomplished by the study of the principles and rules contained in the present volume, than by any other of the kind.
By persons who are deemed competent judges in such a case, this little work has been pronounced to be one of the most useful and practical works extant upon the numerous and delicate topics which are discussed in it. We are aware, that a man can no more acquire the ease and elegance of a finished gentleman, by any manual of this kind, than in the fine arts he could become a skilful painter or sculptor by studying books alone, without practice. It is, however, equally true, that the principles of Politeness may be studied, as well as the principles of the arts. At the same time, intercourse with polite society, in other words, practice, as in the case of the arts, must do the rest.
The reader will find in this volume some [p v] rules founded on customs and usages peculiar to France and other countries, where the Roman Catholic religion is established. But it was thought better to retain them in the work, than to mutilate it, by making such material alterations as would have been occasioned by expunging every thing of that description. In our liberal and tolerant country, these peculiarities will give offence to none; while to many, their novelty, at least, will be interesting.
The Translator.