Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 6.djvu/17



HAD been reading a considerable number of memoirs and pamphlets relating to the end of the sixteenth century. I took a fancy to extract some of the matter of my reading; and the result of the process is the present book.

Anecdotes are the only part of history that I love; and among anecdotes I prefer those where it seems to me that I find a true picture of manners and character at a given time. This is not a very dignified taste; but I confess to my shame that I would willingly give Thucydides for some authentic memoirs by Aspasia or by a slave of Pericles. For memoirs alone, which are as it were familiar conversations of an author with his reader, furnish those portraits of human beings which amuse and interest me. To form an idea of the Frenchman of the sixteenth century you must go, not to Mézeray, but to Montluc, Brantôme, D'Aubigné, Tavannes, La Noue, and their likes. The very style of these contemporary authors teaches as much as their matter.