And the ecclesiastical authorities were right.  The basis of Christianity is the Redemption—­the incarnation and sacrifice of God himself to blot out the stain of the first great sin and also to open the Kingdom of Heaven to men.  That original sin was Adam’s fall, when he followed the example of Eve, a victim of the Serpent’s treacherous counsels, and disobeyed the command not to taste the Forbidden Fruit.  Eliminate the Garden of Eden, the Serpent, the Forbidden Fruit, and the entire fabric of Christianity crumbles.

If we turn to profane history and take any historical work, we find that the facts are told in such a way that they seem to us beyond dispute.  But if we see the same facts from the pen of another historian, we no longer recognize them.  The reason is that a writer almost never undertakes the task of wrestling with the giant, History, unless he is impelled to do so by a preconceived idea, by a general conception, or a system he wants to establish.  And whether he wants to or not, he sees the facts in a light favorable to his preconceived idea, and observes them through prisms which increase or diminish their importance at his will.  Then, however great his discernment and however strong his desire to reach the truth, it is doubtful if he ever will.  In history, as elsewhere, absolute truth escapes mankind.  Louis XIV, Louis XV, Madame de Maintenon, Madame de Pompadour, Louis XVI, even Napoleon and Josephine, so near our own times, are already quasi-mythical characters.  The Louis XIII of Marion de Lorme seemed until very lately to be accurate, but recent discoveries show us that he was quite different.

Napoleon III reigned only yesterday, but his picture is already painted in different tints.  My entire youth was passed in his reign and my recollections represent him neither as the monster depicted by Victor Hugo nor the kind sympathetic sovereign of present-day stories.

There has been a great deal of discussion of the causes which brought on the War of 1870.  We know all that was said and done during the last days of that crisis, but will anyone ever know what was hidden in the minds of the sovereigns, the ministers, and the ambassadors?  Will it ever be known whether the Emperor provoked Gramont or Gramont the Emperor?  Did they even know themselves?  There is one thing the most discerning historian can never reach—­the depths of the human soul.

We may, however, learn the secrets of the tomb.  It was asserted for a long time that the remains of Voltaire and Rousseau had been exhumed, desecrated, and thrown into the sewers.  Victor Hugo wrote a wonderful account of this—­an account such as only he could write.  One fine day doubt about this occurrence popped up unexpectedly.  After waiting a long time it was decided to get to the heart of the matter, and they finally opened the coffins of the two great men.  They were peacefully sleeping their last sleep.  The deed never took place; its history was a myth.