This work was written twenty-six years ago at Brussels, during the first months of exile. It was begun on the 14th Decem ber, 1851, and on the day following the Author's arrival in Belgium, and was finished on the 5th May, 1852, as though Chance had willed that the anniversary of the death of the First Bonaparte should be countersigned by the condemnation of the Second. It is also Chance which, through a combination of work, of cares.