strongest idea of vice or
virtue which can be conceived of him--filling the gaps, veiling the
incongruities of his life, and giving him that perfect unity of conduct
which we like to see represented even in evil--if, in addition to this,
she preserves the only thing essential to the instruction of the world,
the spirit of the epoch, I know no reason why we should be more exacting
with her than with this voice of the people which every day makes every
fact undergo so great changes.

The ancients carried this liberty even into history; they wanted to
see in it only the general march, and broad movements of peoples and
nations; and on these great movements, brought to view in courses very
distinct and very clear, they placed a few colossal figures--symbols of
noble character and of lofty purpose.

One might almost reckon mathematically that, having undergone the double
composition of public opinion and of the author, their history reaches
us at third hand and is thus separated by two stages from the original
fact.

It is because in their eyes history too was a work of art; and in
consequence of not having realized that such is its real nature, the
whole Christian world still lacks an historical monument like those
which dominate antiquity and consecrate the memory of its destinies--as
its pyramids, its obelisks, its pylons, and its porticos still dominate
the earth which was known to them, and thereby commemorate the grandeur
of antiquity.

If, then, we find everywhere evidence of this inclination to desert the
positive, to bring the ideal even into historic annals, I believe that
with greater reason we should be completely indifferent to historical
reality in judging the dramatic works, whether poems, romances, or
tragedies, which borrow from history celebrated characters. Art ought
never to be considered except in its relations with its ideal beauty.
Let it be said that what is true in fact is secondary merely; it is only
an illusion the more with which it adorns itself--one of our prejudices
which it respects. It can do without it, for the Truth by which it must
live is the truth of observation of human nature, and not authenticity
of fact. The names of the characters have nothing to do with the matter.
The idea is everything; the proper name is only the example and the
proof of the idea.

So much the better for the memory of those who are chosen to represent
philosophical or moral ideas; but, once again, that is