Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 20.djvu/23

Rh This eager and unreasonable desire of transmitting useless stories to posterity, and of fixing the attention of future ages upon common events, proceeds from a weakness extremely incident to those who have lived in courts, and have unhappily been engaged in the management of public affairs. They consider the court in which they have lived as the most magnificent in the world; their king as the greatest monarch: and the affairs in which they have been concerned as the most important that ever were transacted: and they vainly imagine, that posterity will view them in the same light.

If a prince undertakes a war, or his court is embroiled in cabals and intrigues; if he buys the friendship of one of his neighbors, or sells his own to another; if, after some victories and defeats, he at last makes peace with his enemies; his subjects are so warm and interested by the part which they themselves have acted in these scenes, that they regard their own age as the most glorious that has existed since the creation. But what is the consequence? Why, this prince dies; new measures are adopted; the intrigues of his court, his mistresses, his ministers, his generals, his wars, and even himself, are forgotten.

Ever since the time that Christian princes have been endeavoring to cheat one another, and have alternately been making war and peace, they have signed an immense number of treaties, and fought as many battles; they have performed many glorious, and many infamous actions. Nevertheless, should all this heap of transactions be transmitted to posterity, they would most of them destroy and