All the papers I had collected to aid my recollection, and guide me in this undertaking, are no longer in my possession, nor can I ever again hope to regain them.

I have but one faithful guide on which I can depend:  this is the chain of the sentiments by which the succession of my existence has been marked, and by these the events which have been either the cause or the effect of the manner of it.  I easily forget my misfortunes, but I cannot forget my faults, and still less my virtuous sentiments.  The remembrance of these is too dear to me ever to suffer them to be effaced from my mind.  I may omit facts, transpose events, and fall into some errors of dates; but I cannot be deceived in what I have felt, nor in that which from sentiment I have done; and to relate this is the chief end of my present work.  The real object of my confessions is to communicate an exact knowledge of what I interiorly am and have been in every situation of my life.  I have promised the history of my mind, and to write it faithfully I have no need of other memoirs:  to enter into my own heart, as I have hitherto done, will alone be sufficient.

There is, however, and very happily, an interval of six or seven years, relative to which I have exact references, in a collection of letters copied from the originals, in the hands of M. du Peyrou.  This collection, which concludes in 1760, comprehends the whole time of my residence at the hermitage, and my great quarrel with those who called themselves my friends; that memorable epocha of my life, and the source of all my other misfortunes.  With respect to more recent original letters which may remain in my possession, and are but few in number, instead of transcribing them at the end of this collection, too voluminous to enable me to deceive the vigilance of my Arguses, I will copy them into the work whenever they appear to furnish any explanation, be this either for or against myself; for I am not under the least apprehension lest the reader should forget I make my confession, and be induced to believe I make my apology; but he cannot expect I shall conceal the truth when it testifies in my favor.

The second part, it is likewise to be remembered, contains nothing in common with the first, except truth; nor has any other advantage over it, but the importance of the facts; in everything else, it is inferior to the former.  I wrote the first with pleasure, with satisfaction, and at my ease, at Wootton, or in the castle Trie:  everything I had to recollect was a new enjoyment.  I returned to my closet with an increased pleasure, and, without constraint, gave that turn to my descriptions which most flattered my imagination.