XXXVII. Thus, you see, we on all sides are beset with hazards. The
authors who are remote from the time when, and the places where events
happened, are very much exposed to be deceived in one or other of the
various ways, by which informations descend to them; and those who were
contemporaries with the events, and lived in the places where they
fell out, are frequently interested by a variety of circumstances and
combinations to disfigure them.
XXXVIII. We have said, that perhaps Peter Mathé, without any foundation,
and without any other motive than that of adorning his history with a
curious tale, related the prediction of la Brosse; and to a desire of
doing this, we have also imputed the cause of an infinite number of other
historical errors, for there is no other author whatever, who does not
interest himself in making his history appear pleasant and delightsome to
his readers; and there is nothing tends more to produce this effect, than
inserting in them many particulars, in which are contained something of
the curious, the exquisite, and the admirable. It may be generally said,
that there are no histories more pleasant to read, than those which
approach nearest to novels. From whence it happens, that truth is often
dispensed with, for the sake of _edulcorating_ the narrative with fiction.
XXXIX. Upon what other principle than the foregoing, can we account for
authors relating many things as the events of very remote ages, without
ever having read them in any antient author, or found any traces of
them in an antient monument? or for their having, to events which they
found related at large, in order to make the account more entertaining,
added a variety of circumstances of their own invention? I therefore
say, whenever the fiction appears grateful to the reader, and he cannot
assign any other motive for the author’s inserting it, he may reasonably
conclude, it was done with no other view, than that of making his history
more pleasing to those who read it; and how much of this, do we meet with
in numbers of authors!
XL. The account of the great battle, in which Charles Martel and the
Duke of Acquitain routed the numerous army of Saracens, that, under the
command of Abdarramen, had made an irruption into France, we find related
in a very concise and summary way by the authors of that day, and the
times which immediately followed it. Notwithstanding this, some modern
authors give so prolix and circumstantial a relation of it, that it
seems as if they themselves had been present at, and personally engaged
in it. This is an observation of Cordemoi’s, whose words I shall insert
here, because they are very remarkable. He says, _the particulars of
this battle were worthy of being recorded, and the antient authors are
exceedingly reprehensible for not having given a circumstantial account
of so memorable an action; but in the eyes of all those who are lovers
of truth, some modern authors also, whose merit in other respects is
great, are inexcusable, for having given relations of this event, which
are so minute and circumstantial, that one might be led to think they had
assisted at all the councils of war preceding it, and had seen all the
motions of the two armies; for they not only describe how the French and
Saracens were armed, but how they disposed and arranged their troops;
give us the harangues of the chiefs on each side; tell us the stratagems
which Abdarramen made use of, and the measures Charles Martel took to
frustrate them; and finally, they proceed to describe the particular
positions in which the dead bodies lay on the field, the groans and
lamentations of the dying, together with all the circumstances of the
congratulations which passed between the French chiefs after the battle_.
The moderns which Cordemoi censures in this place, are Paulus Emilius,
and Fauchet, for he points them out in the margin.
XLI. There is nothing more doubtful, than the motives which induced
Constantine to put to death his wife the empress Fausta, and his son
Crispin whom he had by the concubine Helen. Authors disagree so much
respecting this point, that they represent the circumstances of this
double tragedy in more than twenty different ways; one of which is,
that Fausta, being in love with Crispin, solicited him to a criminal
intercourse with her; but that, finding him firm in refusing to comply
with her desires, she, irritated with the refusal, transferred her own
crime to Crispin, and accused him to Constantine of having made lewd
advances to her, for which Constantine caused him to be put to death;
and that coming afterwards to the true knowledge of the fact, he ordered
her to be put to death also. This is the way Simeon Metaphraste relates
the case, who is not one of the most exact authors, and of whom cardinal
Belarmine said, that he was addicted to write things, not as they
were, but as they ought to be. Father Causinus, in the second volume
of his work, intitled _la Corte Santa_, not only adopts the relation
of Metaphraste as true, but paraphrases it according to his own fancy,
decorating the tragedy with all the circumstances which he thought
would suit well with, and were applicable to an event of this nature.
He paints the beauty of Crispin, describes the origin and progress of
the love of Fausta, the manner in which she disclosed it to him; her
mortification at finding her offers rejected, and the artifice she made
use of to be revenged; and adds at last, what had never been suggested by
Metaphraste, nor any other writer, that, stung with piercing remorse and
grief upon hearing of the death of Crispin, she became her own accuser
to Constantine, and declared her criminality, and the innocence of the
unhappy youth.
XLII. I should be sorry if what I have just now said, should induce in my
readers, a disesteem for two such respectable writers, as Paulus Emilius,
and father Nicholas Causinus. I know the great merit of both the one
and the other of them, and I venerate more in the second, the candour
of his mind, and the integrity of his heart, than his great wisdom and
learning. He, in a particular instance of his life, gave a striking
proof of his virtue; which was, that, in order to guide in a right
train the conscience of a monarch, who, by making him his confessor,
had confided to him the direction of his religious conduct, he had
voluntarily exposed himself to, and felt the effects of the resentment
of a furious and vindictive minister, who governed every thing. But the
greatest men, sometimes give tokens of their being no more than men;
and I have purposely noted these defects in two authors, so celebrated
as Paulus Emilius and father Causinus; in order to shew, how strong the
temptation is in a writer, to ornament his history with something of his
own invention, if authors of the especial credit of those I have just
mentioned, are now and then liable to fall into this mistake.
XLIII. Our eloquent countryman, the illustrious Guevara, has been very
much taken notice of for having used this licence, not only by foreign
authors, but those of our own nation also; which freedom he has exercised
to such a degree, that Nicholas Antonio says, he took the liberty of
ascribing to antient authors his own fictions, and sported and made as
free with all history, as a man would do with the fables of Esop, or the
fictitious tales of Lucian. His life of Marcus Aurelius, with respect to
the veracity of it, is not held in better estimation among the critics,
than the Cyrus of Xenophon. It certainly cannot be denied, that he did
not scruple to introduce circumstances of fancy and imagination into
his writings, when he thought they would contribute strikingly to the
entertainment of the reader: such for example (in order to point out the
cause or origin of the extraordinary cruelty of Caligula) as that of
attributing it to the conduct or disposition of the nurse that suckled
him, who was a masculine fierce woman, and had for some slight offence
killed another woman, whose blood she bathed her nipples with; and, while
they were wet with it, applied the lips of the infant Caligula to them.
He quotes Dion Cassius as his author for this tale, although in Dion
Cassius there is no such relation to be found.