Page:Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte 11th ed - Richard Whately (1874).djvu/23

 by others besides me of having never even been near the great man, and having fabricated the whole story for the sake of making a gain of the credulity of travellers. In the accounts that are extant of the battle itself, published by persons professing to have been present, the reader will find that there is a discrepancy of three or four hours as to the time when the battle began!—a battle, be it remembered, not fought with javelins and arrows, like those of the ancients, in which one part of a large army might be engaged, while a distant portion of the same army knew nothing of it, but a battle commencing (if indeed it were ever fought at all) with the firing of cannon, which would have announced pretty loudly what was going on.

It is no less uncertain whether or no this strange personage poisoned in Egypt an hospital full of his own soldiers, and butchered in cold blood a garrison that had surrendered. But, not to multiply instances, the battle of Borodino, which is represented as one of the greatest ever fought, was unequivocally claimed as a victory by both parties; nor is the question decided at this day. We have official accounts on both sides, circumstantially detailed, in the names of supposed respectable persons, professing to have been present on the spot; yet totally irreconcilable. Both these accounts may be false; but since one of them must be false, that one (it is no matter which, we suppose) proves incontrovertibly this important maxim,— that it is possible for a narrative—however circumstantial—however steadily maintained—however public and however important the events it relates—however grave the authority on which it is published—to be nevertheless an entire fabrication!

Many of the events which have been recorded were probably believed much the more readily and firmly from the apparent caution and hesitation with which they were at first published,—the vehement contradiction in our papers of many pretended French accounts,—and the abuse lavished upon