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CHAPTER XXI.
HISTORY.
While he was in Prussia, 'The Age of Louis XIV.' had been published. It was probably fortunate that he was absent from France when giving it the last touches. "I have finished the work," he says, "expressly to make for myself a way to the esteem of good people. The matter is so delicate that I believe I could not have dealt with it except from a distance. History demands such freedom of truth that an historiographer of France can only write when out of France." And again:—
"I shall finish here [Potsdam] this work, which perhaps would never have been finished in Paris. The stones with which I raise this monument in honour of my country would have served to crush me. A bold word would have been called unbridled licence—the most innocent things would have been interpreted with that charity which poisons everything. See what happened to Duclos after his History of Louis XI. If he is to be my successor in historiography, as is reported, I advise him not to write except when he may make, like me, a little journey out of France."
To the advantage thus gained he joined many others for the execution of his task. He had known in his youthful days many of those men who had rendered
