of unsettled beliefs, of
constancy which has its height and its depth, of opinions which
evaporate. Let us dream that once upon a time have lived men stronger and
greater, who were more determined for good or for evil; that does us
good. If the paleness of your True is to follow us into art, we shall
close at once the theatre and the book, to avoid meeting it a second
time. What is wanted of works which revive the ghosts of human beings is,
I repeat, the philosophical spectacle of man deeply wrought upon by the
passions of his character and of his epoch; it is, in short, the artistic
Truth of that man and that epoch, but both raised to a higher and ideal
power, which concentrates all their forces. You recognize this Truth in
works of the imagination just as you cry out at the resemblance of a
portrait of which you have never seen the original; for true talent
paints life rather than the living.

To banish finally the scruples on this point of the consciences of some
persons, timorous in literary matters, whom I have seen affected with a
personal sorrow on viewing the rashness with which the imagination sports
with the most weighty characters of history, I will hazard the assertion
that, not throughout this work, I dare not say that, but in many of these
pages, and those perhaps not of the least merit, history is a romance of
which the people are the authors. The human mind, I believe, cares for
the True only in the general character of an epoch. What it values most
of all is the sum total of events and the advance of civilization, which
carries individuals along with it; but, indifferent to details, it cares
less to have them real than noble or, rather, grand and complete.

Examine closely the origin of certain deeds, of certain heroic
expressions, which are born one knows not how; you will see them leap out
ready-made from hearsay and the murmurs of the crowd, without having in
themselves more than a shadow of truth, and, nevertheless, they will
remain historical forever. As if by way of pleasantry, and to put a joke
upon posterity, the public voice invents sublime utterances to mark,
during their lives and under their very eyes, men who, confused, avow
themselves as best they may, as not deserving of so much glory--

[In our time has not a Russian General denied the fire of Moscow,
which we have made heroic, and which will remain so? Has not a
French General denied that utterance on the field of Waterloo wh