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 feels a need that its destinies should afford it a series of lessons; more careless than we think of the reality of facts, it strives to perfect the event in order to give it a great moral significance, feeling sure that the succession of scenes which it plays upon earth is not a comedy, and that since it advances, it marches toward an end, of which the explanation must be sought beyond what is visible.

For my part, I acknowledge my gratitude to the voice of the people for this achievement; for often in the finest life are found strange blemishes and inconsistencies which pain me when I see them.  If a man seems to me a perfect model of a grand and noble character, and if some one comes and tells me of a mean trait which disfigures him, I am saddened by it, even though I do not know him, as by a misfortune which affects me in person; and I could almost wish that he had died before the change in his character.