Excerpt from The Works, Vol. 21: Revised Corrected by the Author, With an Introductory Preface

An apology is due to the public for the employment in the very title of this book of a word taken from a foreign language. Although the term "regime" has been commonly used in England in the sense which is here given to it, I certainly should not have retained it had I been able to discover any purely English expression to signify that state of society and government which existed in France immediately before the first revolution. There are doubtless many other faults in these volumes which equally require excuse, and I can only trust that upon all these points the public will extend to me the same lenity which it has hitherto evinced.

In the following tale I have deviated, in some degree, from the usual plan of my romances, and have undertaken a somewhat difficult task, though that task is one which I had long contemplated before I began the execution, and for which I had arranged the plot and characters with the hope of producing a certain moral eifect upon the minds of my fellowmen, at the same time that I afforded them amusement for an idle hour.

A subject of no slight interest was to be found in the education of a girl from infancy to womanhood by a man unconnected with her by blood, together with the results to both, but, at the same time, to treat it properly, was not an easy undertaking.

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