THE

NEW ERA;

OR,

Adventures of Julien Delmour:

RELATED BY HIMSELF.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

BY MADAME DE GENLIS.

Il ne faut point mettre un ridicule où il n'y en point; c'est se gâter le
goût, c'est corrompre son jugement et celui des autres. Mais le ridicule
qui est quelque part, il faut l'y voir, l'en tirer avec grâce et d'une manière
qui plaise et qui instruise.
Caractères de la Bruyère.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR HENRY COLBURN,

PUBLIC LIBRARY, CONDUIT STREET, HANOVER SQUARE,

Printed by Schulze and Dean, 13, Poland Street.

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

AMIDST that galaxy of female genius and talent which has illumined this country and its formidable rival, France, during the last and present century, few are more conspicuous, and no one has devoted herself so exclusively to the interests of religion, morality and education, as Madame de Genlis, who now terminates her most successful literary career, by a production, which, to the charms of fiction, unites all the solid advantages of historical record.* While these qualities cannot fail to be justly appreciated by the English reader, no wonder, that the rarity of such a combination in a French Novel, added to the Author's well-earned celebrity, should have procured extraordinary success for the original.

From the multiplied vicissitudes of the Author's life, in which she has experienced the most flattering smiles as well as bitterest frowns

There is still another work of the Author's forthcoming though it was written prior to the PARVENUS.