r animation and interest." This leads directly to the neglect
of criticism, and to the reproduction of whatever is effective from the
literary point of view. Others declared that the facts of the past ought
to be recounted with all the emotions of a spectator. "Thierry," says
Michelet, praising him, "in telling us the story of Klodowig, breathes
the spirit and shows the emotion of recently invaded France...."
Michelet "stated the problem of history as the resuscitation of integral
life in the inmost parts of the organism." With the romantic historians
the choice of subject, of plan, of the proofs, of the style, is
dominated by an engrossing desire to produce an effect--a literary, not
a scientific ambition. Some romantic historians have slid down this
inclined plane to the level of the "historical novel." We know the
nature of this species of literature, which flourished so vigorously
from the Abbe Barthelemy and Chateaubriand down to Merimee and Ebers,
and which some are now vainly attempting to rejuvenate. The object is to
"make the scenes of the past live again" in dramatic pictures
artistically constructed with "true" colours and details. The obvious
object of the method is that it does not provide the reader with any
means of distinguishing between the elements borrowed from the
documents and the imaginary elements, not to mention the fact that
generally the documents used are not all of the same origin, so that
while the colour of each stone may be "true" that of the mosaic is
false. Dezobry's _Rome au siecle d'Auguste_, Augustin Thierry's _Recits
merovingiens_, and other "pictures" produced at the same epoch were
constructed on the same principle, and are subject to the same drawbacks
as the historical novels properly so-called.[218]

We may summarise what precedes by saying that, up to about 1850, history
continued to be, both for historians and the public, a branch of
literature. An excellent proof of this lies in the fact that up till
then historians were accustomed to publish new editions of their works,
at intervals of several years, without making any change in them, and
that the public tolerated the practice. Now every scientific work needs
to be continually recast, revised, brought up to date. Scientific
workers do not claim to give their works an immutable form, they do not
expect to be read by posterity or to achieve personal immortality; it is
enough for them if the results of their researches, correcte