From the book's Preface:This book has no pretensions to be anything else but a simple narration of things I have seen, and descriptions of people I have met. It does not aspire to be considered as a volume of memoirs destined to clear up historical points of interest. It is merely a little book of recollections which perhaps may amuse those who have lived through the same scenes, and moved in the same circles that I have done in various parts of Europe. Existence nowadays is such a rush that the events of yesterday are just as much forgotten as those of a century ago, and I dare say that very few men and women will be found who give a thought to what happened ten or twenty years ago. Everything changes so quickly that it has seemed to me it would be interesting to fix the remembrance of those last days of the century which so recently came to an end. The whole aspect of the political and social world was then so entirely different from what it has become since the commanding personality of Prince Bismarck was withdrawn from the stage of this world's affairs.When I entered society, the German Empire had been scarcely three years in existence. France was writhing still in the convulsions of her late defeat ; Russia was slowly trying to re- cover the many advantages of which the Crimean war had deprived her. Motor-cars were unknown, electric light was still spoken of as something quite extraordinary, and the telephone was not yet one of the resources of civilisation. Manners, too, were different from those which prevail today. The hunt after notoriety had not transformed individuals into self-advertising personages of a stamp which is only too familiar. Society was quieter, more sedate ; adventurers had still a bad time of it, and the American element had not altogether invaded us. Whilst I was writing this book, I often asked myself whether it was possible that I had lived in times so entirely different from the present. It is because society has altered that this book may amuse some people and bore others. The only merit 1 will claim for it is, that it is a true account of events of which I am cognisant. Personal feeling has played such an important part alike in the German and Russian Courts that it is only by knowing people that one can understand political incidents. I have tried to make the book just in its appreciation of individuals, and if I have wounded any susceptibilities such has been far from my intention. I have met with many kindnesses in the world, and after all I have not found it such a bad ; perhaps because I have never asked much from it, having tried to practise the maxim ot Beaumarchais, that it is better to laugh than to cry. I have come across bad people, of course,but I have also met characters such as those of the late Emperor and Empress Frederick, who alone would convince the greatest of misanthropes to acknowledge the more lofty claims of humanity. My book, I hope, will be accepted by its readers for what I have meant it to be — a tribute of gratitude to some people and of kind feelings to others. More than that it does not profess to be. CATHERINE RADZIWILL. London, August 17th, 1904