Sons of the Soil Author:Honore de Balzac

(1845) Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley (1830-1908).
DEDICATION:To Monsieur P. S. B. Gavault.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote these words at the beginning of his Nouvelle Heloise: "I have seen the morals of my time and I publish these letters." May I not say to you, in imitation of that great writer, "I have studied the march of my epoch and I publish this work"?