ich
will immortalize it? And if I were not withheld by my respect for a
sacred event, I might recall that a priest has felt it to be his
duty to disavow in public a sublime speech which will remain the
noblest that has ever been pronounced on a scaffold: "Son of Saint
Louis, rise to heaven!" When I learned not long ago its real
author, I was overcome by the destruction of my illusion, but before
long I was consoled by a thought that does honor to humanity in my
eyes. I feel that France has consecrated this speech, because she
felt the need of reestablishing herself in her own eyes, of blinding
herself to her awful error, and of believing that then and there an
honest man was found who dared to speak aloud.]

and as not being able to support so high renown. In vain; their
disclaimers are not received. Let them cry out, let them write, let them
print, let them sign--they are not listened to. These utterances are
inscribed in bronze; the poor fellows remain historical and sublime in
spite of themselves. And I do not find that all this is done in the ages
of barbarism alone; it is still going on, and it molds the history of
yesterday to the taste of public opinion--a Muse tyrannical and
capricious, which preserves the general purport and scorns detail.

Which of you knows not of such transformation? Do you not see with your
own eyes the chrysalis fact assume by degrees the wings of fiction? Half
formed by the necessities of the time, a fact is hidden in the ground
obscure and incomplete, rough, misshapen, like a block of marble not yet
rough-hewn. The first who unearth it, and take it in hand, would wish it
differently shaped, and pass it, already a little rounded, into other
hands; others polish it as they pass it along; in a short time it is
exhibited transformed into an immortal statue. We disclaim it; witnesses
who have seen and heard pile refutations upon explanations; the learned
investigate, pore over books, and write. No one listens to them any more
than to the humble heroes who disown it; the torrent rolls on and bears
with it the whole thing under the form which it has pleased it to give to
these individual actions. What was needed for all this work? A nothing, a
word; sometimes the caprice of a journalist out of work. And are we the
losers by it? No. The adopted fact is always better composed than the
real one, and it is even adopted only because it is better. The human
race feel