Page:Lectures on the French Revolution of John Acton.djvu/385

Rh alone; and he says that there were 50,000 in the whole of France. One collection is coming out on the Elections for Paris, another on the Paris Electors, that is, the body entrusted with the choice of deputies, who thereupon took over the municipal government of the city and made themselves permanent. Then there is the series of the acts of the Commune, of the several governing committees, of the Jacobins, of the war department, and seven volumes on Vendee alone.

In a few years all these publications will be completed, and all will be known that ever can be known. Perhaps some one will then compose a history as far beyond the latest that we possess as Sorel, Aulard, Rambaud, Flammermont are in advance of Taine and Sybel, or Taine and Sybel of Michelet and Louis Blanc; or of the best that we have in English, the three chapters in the second volume of Buckle, or the two chapters in the fifth volume of Lecky. In that golden age our historians will be sincere, and our history certain. The worst will be known, and then sentence need not be deferred. With the fulness of knowledge the pleader's occupation is gone, and the apologist is deprived of his bread. Mendacity depended on concealment of evidence. When that is at an end, fable departs with it, and the margin of legitimate divergence is narrowed.

Don't let us utter too much evil of party writers, for we owe them much. If not honest, they are helpful, as the advocates aid the judge; and they would not have done so well from the mere inspiration of disinterested veracity. We might wait long if we watched for the man who knows the whole truth and has the courage to speak it, who is careful of other interests besides his own, and labours to satisfy opponents, who can be liberal towards those who have erred, who have sinned, who have failed, and deal evenly with friend and foe assuming that it would be possible for an honest historian to have a friend.