enciclopédia - história - voltaire

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Title: History

OriginalTitle:

Histoire

Volumeand Page:

Vol. 8 (1765), pp. 220±225

Author: François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire

Translator: Jeremy Caradonna [The Johns Hopkins University, [email protected]]

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Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet de. "History." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. TranslatMPublishing, University of Michigan Library, 2006. Web. [fill in today's date in the form 18 Apr. 2009 and r <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0000.088>. Trans. of "Histoire," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métier

Citation(Chicago): Voltaire, François-Marie Arouet de. "History." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translat

MPublishing, University of Michigan Library, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0000.088 (accessed [fill in today's date in the form April 1brackets]). Originally published as "Histoire," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 8:220±225 (Pa

History is the narrative ( récit ) of facts presented as true, in contrast tothe fable, which is the recitation ( récit ) of facts presented as false.

There is the history of opinions, which is hardly other than thecollection of human errors; the history of the arts, perhaps the mostuseful of all when it is joined to the knowledge of inventions and the

progress of the arts, and which is the description of their

mechanism; natural History , inappropriately termed history , andwhich is an essential part of Physics.

The history of events is divided into the sacred and the profane.Sacred history is the series ( suite ) of divine and miraculousoperations, by which it pleased God in the past to conduct the Jewishnation and to exercise our faith today. I will not touch upon thisrespectable matter.

The basic ( premiers ) foundations of all History are the storiesrecounted by fathers to their children, and subsequently transmitted

from one generation to the next. They are merely probable in their origins and lose a degree of probability with each succeedinggeneration. Over time, the fable grows and the truth is lost; hence theorigins of all peoples are absurd. Thus the Egyptians were governed bythe gods for many centuries, then by demi-gods, and finally they hadkings who ruled them for eleven thousand three hundred and fortyyears. The sun, in this period of time, had changed where it rose in theeast and set [in the west] four times.



The Phoenicians claimed to have been settled in their country for thirtythousand years, and these thirty thousand years were as full of marvels( prodiges ) as the Egyptian chronology ( chronogie ). It is well knownwhat ridiculous tales of superstition reign in the ancient history of theGreeks. The Romans²as serious as they were²did not shroud

the history of their earliest centuries in fables any less than the others.Such a recent people, in comparison to some asiatic nations, wentwithout historians for five hundred years.

Thus it is not surprising that Romulus was the son of Mars and that afemale wolf was his wet-nurse; or that he marched ( marché ) withtwenty-thousand men from his village of Rome against twenty-fivethousand combatants from the village of the Sabines, and that he then

became a god; or that Tarquin cut a rock with a razor, or that a vestalvirgin pulled a boat onto land with only a belt, et cetera.

The earliest annals of all our modern nations are no less fabulous.These marvelous and improbable things should be reported, but [only]as proofs of human credulity, and they fall within the history of opinions.

There is only one way to know something with certitude aboutancient history , and that is to see if there remain any incontestablehistorical monuments ( monumens ). [1] We only have three suchwritten records. The first is the collection of astronomical observationsassembled over a nineteen-hundred year period in Babylon, sent by

Alexander to Greece, and employed in the Almagest of Ptolemy. Thissuccession of observations goes back two thousand two hundred andthirty four years before the common era, and incontrovertibly provesthat the Babylonians existed long beforehand as a constituted people:

because the arts are only the work of time, and because man's naturallaziness left him for thousands of years with no other knowledge andno other talents than feeding himself, defending himself from theclimate, and cutting the throats [of his neighbors]. [2] Looking at theGermanic tribes, the English in the time of Caesar, the Tartars of the

present day, half of Africa, and all the peoples who we have found inAmerica, excepting, in certain regards, the kingdoms of Peru andMexico and the republic of Tlaxcala, leads to this conclusion.

The second record ( monument ) is the complete eclipse of the suncalculated in China two thousand five hundred and fifty five years

before the common era, and recognized as true by all of our astronomers. It is necessary to say the same thing about the Chinese [aswe said of the peoples of Babylon], who without a doubt composed avast and well-administered ( policé ) empire. Yet what places the



Chinese above all other peoples of the earth is that neither their lawsnor their customs ( moeurs ), nor the language spoken by their men of letters ( lettrés ), has changed for roughly four thousand years.However, this nation²the oldest of all the peoples who exist today, theone that possessed the most vast and beautiful country, the one that

invented practically all of the arts ( Arts ) before we had even learned afew²has always been omitted, up until now, from our so -called universal histories : when a Spaniard and a Frenchman took count of the world's nations, neither failed to call his country the first monarchy of the world .

The third record ( monument ), much inferior to the two others, persistsin the marble [friezes] of Arundel: the chronicle of Athens wasengraved there two hundred and sixty three years before the commonera. Yet it only goes back to Cecrops, thirteen hundred and nineteenyears before the date when it was chiseled. This is the onlyincontestable knowledge that we have of the history of antiquity.

It is not surprising that we do not possess a secular ( profane ),ancient history that goes back more than approximately three thousandyears. The revolutions of the globe [and] the long and universalignorance of the art of transmitting facts through writing is the cause[of this absence]. There are still several peop les who have no such

practice. This art was only common amongst a small number of well-administered ( policé ) nations, and was only in the hands of a preciousfew. Until the thirteenth or fourteenth century, there was nothing more

rare amongst the French and the Germans than the ability to write.Almost all actions ( actes ) were attested only by witnesses. In France,it was only under Charles VII in 1454 that French customs ( coûtumes )were written down. The art of writing was even rarer amongst theSpanish, which is why their history is so insipid and uncertain up untilthe time of Ferdinand and Isabella. This shows just how much power ( imposer ) was wielded by the small number of men who knew how towrite.

There are some nations who have subjugated a part of the earth withoutthe use of [written] characters. We know that Ghengis Khan conquered

part of Asia at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Yet it is notthrough him nor through the Tartars that we know this. Their history ,written by the Chinese and translated by father Gaubil, says that theTartars did not possess at all the art of writing.

It was no less unknown to the Scythian Ogus-kan, named Madies bythe Persians and the Greeks, who conquered a part of Europe and Asiaso long before the reign of Cyrus.



It is almost certain that at that time hardly two out of a hundred nationscould use [written] characters.

There remain some records of a different sort, which serve only tocertify the remote antiquity of certain peoples who precede all books

and all known epochs. Such are the marvels of architecture, like the pyramids and the palaces of Egypt which have withstood time.Herodotus, who lived two thousand two hundred years ago, and whohad seen them, was not able to learn from Egyptian priests th e period inwhich they had been constructed.

It would be difficult to argue that the oldest of the pyramids is less thanfour thousand years old. But one must consider that such ostentatiousefforts by kings could only have begun long after the establishment of cities. And to build cities in a country that floods every year, it was firstnecessary to elevate the terrain. Then, to render them inaccessible tofloods in this land of mud, they had to use stilts as the foundations for [their] cities. Before taking this necessary course of action, and before

being in a position to attempt these enormous construction projects, itwas necessary that the people build some retreats in the middle of rockswhich form two chains to the right and the left of the river, du ring

periods when the Nile flooded. These people, when gathered together,had to have tools for plowing, for architecture, and [required] anextensive knowledge of surveying, laws, and a rational administration( police ). All of this required a prodigious amount of time. We seefrom the numerous details impeding each day just how difficult it is to

accomplish great things, [or even] the smallest and most necessary of our undertakings. One must not only possess an indefatigable persistence, but several generations animated by this persistence.

However the history of Egypt does not teach us whether it was Menes,Thoth, Cheops, or Ramesses who erected one or two of these

prodigious masses. The language of this people is lost. We only knowthat before the oldest historians existed, there was without a doubt anancient history .

What we call ancient , and which is in effect recent, hardly goes back

three thousand years. Before this time we only have probableknowledge. Only two secular books have preserved these probabilities :the Chinese chronicle and the history of Herodotus. The ancientChinese chronicles only deal with their empire as separated from therest of the world. Herodotus, more interesting for us, speaks of landsalready known. He delighted the Greeks by reciting to them the nine

books of his history , by the novelty of this undertaking, by the charmof his diction, and above all by his fables. Almost everything that he



recounts on the word ( foi ) of foreigners is a fantasy ( fabuleux ), buteverything he [himself] saw was true. We learn from him, for example,what extreme opulence and what splendor reigned in Asia Minor, todayso poor and depopulated. He saw at Delphi the marvelous gifts of goldthat the kings of Lydia sent there, and he spoke to an audience who

knew Delphi as he did. What stretch of time must have passed beforethe kings of Lydia could have amassed enough surplus treasure to offer such considerable presents to a foreign temple!

But when Herodotus recounts the stories he heard, his book reads like anovel resembling Milesian fables. He tells us of a certain Candauleswho shows his wife stark naked to a friend, Gyges. It is his wife who,out of modesty, allows Gyges only the choice of killing her husbandand marrying the [resulting] widow, or of death. He speaks of an oracleat Delphi who divines that at the same time that he spoke, Croesus, onehundred leagues away, cooked a tortoise on a plate of bronze. Rollin,repeats all the stories of this sort, admires the knowledge ( science ) of the oracle and the veracity of Apollo, as well as the modesty of thewife of the king Candaules. On a related subject, he asks the police to

prevent young people from bathing in the river. Time is so dear and history is so immense that I will spare the reader such fables and

parables ( moralités ).

The history of Cyrus is completely disfigured ( défigurée ) by mythicalfables. It would appear that this Kiro, called Cyrus , at the head of thewarrior people of Elam, in effect conquered a Babylon weakened by

luxuries. But we don't even know which king reigned in Babylon atthat time. Some say Baltazar; others Anabot. Herodotus says that Cyruswas killed in an expedition against the Massagetae; Xenophon, in hismoral and political novel, says that he died in his bed.

In the shadows of history nothing is known except that there were vastempires that lasted a very long time; that there were tyrants whose

power was based on public misery; that tyranny was so extensive that itreached the point of stripping men of their virility, to use them for infamous pleasures starting at the end of their childhood, and to employthem in their old age to guard women; that superstition governed men;that a dream ( songe ) was regarded as a sign ( avis ) from above, andthat this would govern peace and war, etc.

The closer that Herodotus comes to his own time, the truer and moreinformed his history becomes. One must confess that history , for us,only begins with Persia's ventures against the Greeks. Before thesegreat events, one only finds vague narratives ( récits ) shrouded in

puerile tales. Herodotus becomes the model historian when he



describes the prodigious preparations [undertaken by] Xerxes tosubjugate Greece and then Europe. Xerxes led close to two millionsoldiers from Susa to Athens, and Herodotus teaches us how [Xerxes]armed so many different peoples employed in his ranks. No one wasforgotten, from the farthest reaches of Arabia and Egypt and beyond

Bactria, to the northern extremity of the Caspian Sea ²a countryinhabited then by powerful peoples and today by vagabond Tartars. Allnations, from the Bosphorus of Thrace to the Ganges, were under his

banner. One notes with surprise that this prince possessed as muchterritory as the Roman Empire. He controlled everything that today

belongs to the great mogul on this side of the Ganges: all of Persia, allof the country of Uzbek, and all of the empire of the Turks, exceptingRomania; [yet] he compensated for this by possessing Arabia. One sees

by the extent of these holdings ( états ) the mistaken ways of thosecritics ( déclamateurs ), in prose and in verse, who treated Alexander² avenger of Greece²as crazy for having subjugated the empire of theenemy of the Greeks.

Herodotus deserves the same credit as Homer. He was the firsthistorian just as Homer was the first epic poet. Each seized the peculiar

beauties of an art unknown before their time. It is an admirablespectacle in [the work of] Herodotus [to read about] that emperor of Asia and Africa, who had his immense army pass from Asia to Europeon a bridge of boats, who took Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly, upper Achaea, and who entered into an Athens abandoned and deserted. Onewouldn't expect that the Athenians, without a city, without any

territory, taking refuge on their ships with some other Greeks, couldcause the massive navy of the great king to flee, or that the Greekswould re-enter their homeland as victors, or that they would forceXerxes to ignominiously retreat with his fragmented army, or that theywould forbid him, by treaty, to navigate on their seas. The superiorityof this small, generous, and free people over all of enslaved Asia, is

perhaps the most glorious thing amongst men. One learns as well fromthis event that the peoples of the West have always been better sailorsthan the peoples of Asia. When one reads modern history , the victoryof Lepanto reminds us of that of Salamis, and one compares Don Juanof Austria and Colonus to Themistocles and Eurybiades. This is

perhaps the sole fruit that one can harvest from the knowledge of theseremote times.

Thucydides, successor of Herodotus, limits himself to detailingthe history of the Peloponnesian War, fought in a country no larger than a French or German province. Yet this province has produced menof all sorts worthy of their immortal reputation. Yet if civil war, themost horrible scourge, added a new light ( feu ) and new spirit



( ressorts ) to the human mind, it is [also at] this time that all the artsflourished in Greece. Just as the arts began to perfect themselves[amidst civil war in Greece], [the same process took place] in Romeamidst another civil war, and yet again in the fifteenth and sixteenthcenturies of the common era, during the wars of the Reformation

during the disturbances in Italy.

After the Peloponnesian War, described by Thucydides, comes thecelebrated time of Alexander²a prince worthy of a tutor such asAristotle²who founded more towns than others had destroyed andwho transformed the commerce ( commerce ) of the universe. Carthageflourished in the time of Alexander and his successors, and the Romanrepublic led other nations in admiring her. All the rest is buried in

barbarism : the Celts, the Germans, and all the peoples of the north areunknown.

The history of the Roman empire deserves the most attention becausethe Romans are our masters and legislators. Their laws are still current( en vigueur ) in most of our provinces. Their language is still spoken,and long after their fall, Latin is the sole language in which public actsare written in Italy, Germany, Spain, France, England, and Poland.

With the breaking up of the Roman empire ( au démembrement ) in theWest, a new order of things began, which is commonly referred to asthe history of the middle ages : a barbarian history of barbarian

peoples, who, becoming Christian, [nonetheless] became no better.

While Europe turned upside down, one sees the appearance of theArabs in the seventh century, who had up until that point stayed in their deserts. They extended their power and domination into upper Asia( haute Asie ) and Africa, and invaded Spain. The Turks succeededthem and in the middle of the fifteenth century established the capitalof their empire in Constantinople.

At the end of that century a new world was discovered, and European politics and arts soon took on a new form. The art of printing and therestoration ( restauration ) of the sciences allowed

trustworthy histories to be produced, unlike the ridiculous chroniclesheld in cloisters since [the time of] Gregory of Tours. Soon, eachEuropean nation had historians. The old privation ( indigence ) turnedto superfluity; every town wanted its own individual history . One isoverwhelmed under the weight of minute details. A man who wantsinstruction is forced to confine himself to [studying] great events, and[must] brush aside all the minor facts that get in the way. He [must]seize, in the plethora of revolutions, the spirit of the time ( l'esprit des



tems ) and the customs ( moeurs ) of various peoples. Above all, onemust attach oneself to the history of one's homeland, study it, possessit, reserve detailed [analysis] for it alone, and take only a more generallook at other nations. The history of other nations is only interestingwhen it relates to us, or when great things occurred there. The ages

after the fall of the Roman Empire, as one has elsewhere remarked, areonly barbarous adventures ( avantures ) under barbarous names,excepting the time of Charlemagne. England remained practicallyisolated until the time of Edward III. The northern countries ( le Nord )were savage until the sixteenth century, and Germany was in anarchyfor a long time. The quarrels of emperors and popes ravaged( desolent ) Italy for six hundred years. It is difficult to detect the truthin the passions of the unlearned ( peu instruit ) writers who havewritten ill-constructed ( informes ) chronicles of this miserable time.The Spanish monarchy witnessed only one [noteworthy] event under the Visigoth kings, and that was its destruction. Everything wasconfusion until the reign of Isabella and Ferdinand. Until Louis XI,France fell victim to ( en proie à ) the dark misfortunes of anunregulated government. Daniel tried hard to argue that the early

periods of France were more interesting than those of Rome. He failedto notice that the beginnings of a vast empire are all the moreinteresting because of their inherent weaknesses, and because peoplelike to see the source of a stream that flooded half the earth.

To penetrate the dark labyrinth of the middle ages, one must haverecourse to archives, and yet we have so very few. Some of the older

convents have conserved charters and diplomas, which were gifts andof which the authority is contested. It is not by using these collectionsthat one can enlighten oneself about political history or public law inEurope. Of all countries, England is the one who has, without a doubt,the oldest and the most complete ( suivies ) archives. These documents,collected by Rimer under the auspices of Queen Anne, begin in thetwelfth century and continue without interruption up to the present day.They shed an abundance of light on the history of France. They reveal,for example, that Guyana belonged to the English with absolutesovereignty, when the king of France, Charles V, confiscated it bydecree and seized it by force of arms. One also learns about theconsiderable sums [of money] and sorts of tributes that Louis XI paidto king Edward IV so that he could fight, and how much money queenElizabeth loaned to Henry the Great to aid his accession to the throne,et cetera.

Concerning the utility (utilité) of History . Its usefulness is seen when astatesman ( homme d'état ) or a citizen compares foreign laws andcustoms with those of his own country. This is what motivates ( excite )



modern nations to spend more lavishly ( enchérir ) on arts, commerce,and Agriculture than other [countries]. Great faults of the past are veryuseful. We are always placing in front of our eyes the crimes and themiseries caused by absurd quarrels. It is certain that by dint of renewing the memory of these quarrels, we can prevent them from

happening again.

It is from having studied the details of the battles of Crécy, of Poitiers,of Agincourt, of Saint-Quentin, of Gravelines, et cetera, that thecelebrated maréchal de Saxe decided to opt for, as much as he could,what one calls des affaires de poste . [3]

Such examples [can] have a great effect on the mind of a prince whoreads attentively. He will see that Henry IV only undertook his greatwar²which changed the system of Europe²after having sufficientlyassured himself that he could fight the war for several years without thehelp of any [extra] financial aid.

The prince will see that Queen Elizabeth, through the sole resources of commerce and a wise economy, resisted the powerful Philip II, and thatof the one hundred boats that she put to sea against his invincible navy,three out of four were furnished by England's commercial towns.

France, [remaining] untouched after nine years of the most miserablewar under Louis XIV, clearly demonstrates the utility of border defenses ( places ) [such as the ones] that Louis constructed. An author [searching for] the causes of the fall of the Roman empire will blameJustinian in vain for having maintained the same political strategy asLouis XIV. It is necessary to blame only those emperors who neglectedsuch border fortresses ( places ), and who thus opened the gates of theempire to the barbarians.

Finally, the great utility of modern history , and the advantage that ithas over its ancient counterpart, is to teach all autocratic rulers( potentats ) that since the fifteenth century, [nations have] repeatedlyunited against a power that becomes too preponderant. This system of equilibrium was unknown to the ancients, and this is why the Romans

were so successful. They formed an armed force ( milice ) superior toall other peoples and subjugated them, one after the other, from theTiber to the Euphrates.

Concerning the certainty (certitude) of history . All certainty which isnot mathematically demonstrable is only a distant ( extrème )

probability. There is no other historical certainty.



When Marco Polo first spoke²and he was the only one²of thegrandeur and population of China, he was not believed nor could hecommand belief. The Portuguese who entered into this vast empireseveral centuries later began to demonstrate the probability of hisassertions. Today it is certain, and our certainty is born from a

unanimous disposition of a thousand first -hand witnesses fromdifferent nations, who have never contradicted each another in their testimony.

If two or three historians alone had written about the adventure of KingCharles XII who, despite himself, insisted on remaining in the states of the Sultan²his benefactor²and who battled with his servants againstan army of Janissaries and Tartars, I would have suspended my

judgment; but having spoken to several eye-witnesses, and havingnever heard this action placed in doubt, it is necessary to believe it,

because after all, if it is not wise or ordinary, then it does not contradictthe laws of nature nor the character of heroes.

I would have taken the history of the Man in the Iron Mask for a novelif I had not heard it from the son-in-law of the surgeon who took careof this man during his last illness. The officer who guarded the man atthat time also attested this fact to me. [Indeed] all those who knew of the man have confirmed its veracity to me; the children of the ministersof state who are still alive are depositaries of this secret and have beentold of it as I have. I have given this history a high degree of

probability, yet not as high as the Bender affair, because the Bender

adventure had more witnesses than our man in the iron mask ever did.That which contradicts ( répugne ) the ordinary course of nature mustnot be believed, unless it is attested by men moved by the divine spirit.That is why in the article Certitude of this Dictionary, it is a great

paradox to say that one should equally believe all of Paris when itaffirms having seen a dead man resuscitated, as it would be to believeall of Paris when it says that someone has won the battle of Fontenoy.It appears evident that the testimony of all Paris on an improbable thingwould not equal the testimony of all Paris on a probable thing. Theseare the basic notions of a sane Metaphysics. This Dictionary isdedicated to the truth; one article must correct another, and if an error is found here then it must be repaired by a more enlightened man.

Concerning the Uncertainty of History . We have distinguished between historical and fabulous ( fabuleux ) epochs. But historical periods should themselves be distinguished between truths and fables. Ido not speak here of fables that are recognized as such. It is not aquestion, for example, of the prodigies with which Livy embellished or



spoiled his history . But amongst the most well-known facts, how manydo we have reason to doubt? We should take note that the Romanrepublic went five hundred years without an historian, and that Livyhimself deplored the loss of the annals of the pontiffs and of other records ( monumens ), most of which perished in the fire of

Rome, pleraque interiere [a great many things]. One must remember ( qu'on songe ) that in the first three hundred years, the art of writingwas very rare, rarae per eadem tempora litterae [letters were rarethroughout those times]. We may be permitted to doubt all events fromthat period which were not in the ordinary order of human things. Is itat all probable that Romulus, the grandson of the king of the Sabines,would have been forced to remove some of the Sabine women in order for [the Romans] to have wives. Is Lucretius' history really all that

probable? Can one easily believe Livy [when he says] that the kingPorsenna fled full of admiration for the Romans because a fanatic hadwanted to assassinate him? Should one not be inclined towards thecontrary and believe Polybius, who predates Livy by two hundredyears, and who says that Porsenna subjugated the Romans? Theadventure of Regulus, [who was] locked in a barrel with iron spikes bythe Carthaginians²does that merit belief? Wouldn't Polybius²acontemporary²have spoken of it if it had been true? He doesn't say aword about it. Isn't it highly likely that this story was only inventedlong after to render the Carthaginians odious? Open the dictionary of Moréri to the article "Régulus," and it will assure you that the torture of this Roman is reported in Livy. However the Decade where Livy couldhave spoken of it has been lost. All we have is Freinsemius'

supplement, and it turns out that that dictionary was only citing aGerman from the seventeenth century, [while Freinsemius] believed[that we was] quoting a Roman from the time of Augustus. One couldmake immense volumes out of all the received and celebrated factswhich are worthy of doubt. But the limits of this article do not permitfurther [elaboration].

Monuments (monumens), annual ceremonies, even medals²do theseconstitute historical evidence ? One is naturally inclined to believe thata monument erected by a nation to celebrate an eve nt attests to thecertitude of the event. However if these monuments were not erected

by contemporaries, [or] if they celebrate an improbable occurrence, is it proof of anything other than the consecration a popular opinion?

The rostral column erected in Rome by the contemporaries of Duiliusis without a doubt proof of his naval victory. But the statue of thesoothsayer ( augure ) Navius, who cut a stone with a razor ( rasoir ),does this prove that Navius undertook such a marvel? The statues of Ceres and of Triptolemus in Athens, do they bear incontestable witness



that Ceres taught Agriculture to the Athenians? The famous "Laocoön,"which exists today in its entirety, does it attest to the truth of the history of the Trojan horse?

The origins of ceremonies and annual holidays, established by every

nation, are no easier to prove. The feast of Arion, [who was] carried on[the back of] a dolphin, was celebrated by the Romans and the Greeks.That of Faunus recalls his adventure with Hercules and Omphale, whenthis god, in love with Omphale, mistook Hercules' bed for that of hismistress.

The famous festival of Lupercalia was established in honor of the wolf who nursed Romulus and Remus.

What was the festival of Orion based upon, celebrated on the fifth of the ides of May? I'll explain. Hyreius welcomed Jupiter, Neptune, and

Mercury into his home, and when his guests took their leave, this goodman, who had no wife, and who wanted a child, recounted ( témoigna )his woe ( douleur ) to the three gods. One dare not explain what theydid to the skin of the beef that Hyreius had served them for dinner.They then covered the skin with some soil, and from that Orion was

born nine months later.

Almost all Roman, Syrian, Greek, and Egyptian festivals were basedupon similar stories, as were the temples and statues of ancient heroes.They were monuments that credulity consecrated to error.

Even a contemporary medal is not necessarily proof of anything. Howmany medals have been struck out of flattery [to commemorate]indecisive battles, qualified victories, or failed undertakings, whichwere [successfully] realized ( achevées ) only in legend. Is it not true,for example, that during the war of 1740 between the English and theSpanish that a medal was struck that represented the taking of Cartagena by Admiral Vernon, whereas [in reality] this admiral liftedhis siege?

Medals are only incontestable evidence ( témoignages irréprochables )

when the event is attested by a contemporary author. Then, these proofs, by supporting each other, reveal the truth.

In [the writing of] history, should one insert harangues and construct portraits ? If, on an important occasion, a general [or] a man of statehas spoken in a singular and strong manner which characterizes hisgenius and that of his century, then it is necessary to report hisdiscourse word for word. Such harangues are perhaps the most useful



part of history . But why attribute to a man something that he has notsaid? It would almost be better to attribute to him something that he hasnot done. This is a fiction that derives from Homer. Yet what isfictitious in a poem becomes a lie for the historian. Several ancientsused this method, and this proves nothing except that several of the

ancients wanted to parade their eloquence at the expense of the truth.

Portraits often show the desire to dazzle, not to instruct.Contemporaries are right to make portraits of men of state with whomthey have conducted business, or generals under whom they havefought wars. Yet one should fear the paint brush guided by passion! Itappears that the portraits that one finds in Clarendon are made withmore impartiality, gravity, and wisdom than those that one reads with

pleasure in the Cardinal de Retz.

But to wish to portray the ancients [or] to try hard to develop [anunderstanding of] their souls [or] to look at events as characteristicswith which one can surely read into the depths of their hearts, this is avery delicate task, and in several works it is a puerility.

On Cicero's maxim concerning history ; that the historian dare not speak a falsity nor obscure a verity . The first part of this precept isincontestable; we must examine the other. If a truth can be of someutility to the state, your silence is condemnable. But suppose you writethe history of a prince who has entrusted a secret to you; should youreveal it? Should you inform posterity [of something] that would render

you guilty if you were to speak of it in secret to an single man? Doesthe duty of the historian override a higher duty?

Or suppose that you have witnessed a foible which has had noinfluence on public affairs; would you reveal this foible? If so, history would be a satire.

One must confess that the majority of writers of anecdotes are moreindiscreet than useful. But what can one say of these insolentcompilers, who pride themselves on scandalmongering, printing, andselling scandal [sheets], as Lecauste sold poisons.

On satirical history . If Plutarch criticized Herodotus for not havingsufficiently exalted the glory of certain Greek villages, and for havingomitted several facts worthy of memory, how much more reprehensibleare those today who, without having the merits of Herodotus, ascribeodious actions to princes and nations, without the slightest shred of evidence. The war of 1741 has been written on in England. One findsin this history that at the battle of Fontenoy the French fired on the



E nglish with poisoned bullets and pieces of poisoned glass (verrevenimeux), and that the Duke of Cumberland sent to the king of Francea shred (boëte) full of these alleged poisons found in the bodies of thewounded E nglish soldiers . The same author adds that when the Frenchlost forty thousand men in this battle, the parlement of Paris proffered a

decree that forbade mentioning the battle under pain of death.

Fraudulent memoirs, a new phenomenon, are full of equally insolentabsurdities. One discovers in them that at the siege of Lille the alliesdistributed notes in the city that said the following: Frenchmen,console yourselves, Madame de Maintenon will not be your queen.

Almost every page is full of impostures and offensive words directed atthe royal family and the principal families of the kingdom, without

putting forward the least verisimilitude which could give the slightestcolor to these lies. This is not to write history but to write calumnies atrandom.

In Holland a collection of libelous literature ( libelles ) has been published under the name of history , in which the style is as crude asthe insults, and the facts are as false as they are poorly written. It has

been said by some that this is [merely] the bad fruit of the excellent treeof liberty. But if the miserable authors of these idiocies have had thefreedom to deceive the reader, [then] we must use [the same] freedomto disabuse them.

Of the method and manner of writing history, and of style . So muchhas been said of this matter that it is necessary here to say very little. Itis well known that the method and style of Livy, his gravity and wiseeloquence, suits the majesty of the Roman republic; that Tacitus is

better at depicting tyrants; Polybius better at giving lessons on warfare;Denys 'Halycarnasse Dionysius of Halicarnassus better at elaboratingon antiquities.

But in modeling oneself in general upon these great masters, we havetoday a more onerous burden than theirs. The modern historian isrequired to furnish more detail, more certifiable facts, precise dates,

authority ( autorité ), greater attention to customs, laws, morals,commerce, finance, agriculture, and population. History in this way has

become like Mathematics and Physics. The field ( carriere ) has grown prodigiously. It is now as difficult to write history as it is easy to makea collection of gazettes.

It is required that the history of a foreign country not be cast in thesame mould as that of one's homeland ( patrie ).



If you write the history of France, you are not required to describe thecourse of the Seine and the Loire. But if you give to the public [thehistory of] the conquests of the Portuguese in Asia, you need atopography of the discovered countries. People want you to lead your reader by the hand along the coasts of Africa, Persia, and India; they

expect some descriptions of the morals ( moeurs ), laws, customs( usages ) of these nations that are so new to Europe.

We have twenty histories of the establishment of the Portuguese in theIndies. Yet none have made us familiar with the diverse governmentsof this country, its religions, antiquities, the Brahmins, the disciples of John, the Guebres, the Banians. This observation could be applied to allthe histories of foreign countries.

If you have nothing to tell us other than that one Barbarian ( Barbare )has replaced another Barbarian on the banks of the Oxus and theJaxartes, in what way are you useful to the public?

The method suitable to [the writing of] the history of your country doesnot [require] you to write on the discoveries of the new world. Youshould not write about a village as you would about a great empire; youshould not write of the life of an individual as you would writethe history of Spain or England.

These rules are well known. But the art of writing History well willalways be rare. It is well known that one must have a grave, pure,varied, agreeable style. There are laws for writing History just as thereare laws for all the arts of the mind. There are many precepts and yet sofew great artists.

Notes

1. [Voltaire often uses this term in a generic sense to refer to anyhistorical record.]

2. [This is a very garbled sentence in the original French.]

3. [This is a technical military term. It refers to small-scale skirmishes,involving only a portion of an army, used as a means to prevent full- blown warfare.]

enciclopédia - história - voltaire

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