A decorative headpiece composed of two rows of fleur-de-lis ornaments.

TO THE READER.

I was reviewing the very ancient ROMAN *Calendar and illustrating it with notes, when a book written against me by D. Souchet, Canon of Chartres, came into my hands, to which other things of the same subject by others were added. When I read these, I held back and withdrew my pen from the work already begun, intending to think seriously about a sundōrō gift-offering/joint-gift, yet of a completely different currency. Having unfolded the drafts, I found this dissertation, which I had dictated to my students in the house of Saint-Geneviève in Paris five years earlier, after the end of the treatise on the Incarnation. Having reread it and made it somewhat larger, I decided to bring it to light under the auspices of the Blessed Virgin, dedicated to the venerable Chapter of Chartres, to whom it had already been devoted from that time; for thus we return his gifts to Ceres, and wine to Bacchus.