In a book entitled "Anecdotes Littéraires", printed by Durand in 1752, avec privilége, there appears the following passage (vol. iii, page 183): "The Amours of Louis XIV., having been dramatized in England, that prince wished to have those of King William performed in France. The Abbé Brueys was directed by M. de Torcy to compose the piece; but though applauded, it was never played, for the subject of it died in the meantime."
There are almost as many absurd lies as there are words in these few lines. The Amours of Louis XIV. were never played on the London stage. Louis XIV. never lowered himself so far as to order a farce to be written on the amours of King William. King William never had a mistress; no one accused him of weakness of that sort. The Marquis de Torcy never spoke to the Abbé Brueys; he was incapable of making to the abbé, or any one else, so indiscreet and childish a proposal. The Abbé Brueys never wrote the piece in question. So much for the faith to be placed in anecdotes.
The same book says that "Louis XIV. was so much pleased with the opera of Isis that he ordered a decree to be passed in council by which men of rank were permitted to sing at the opera, and receive a salary for so doing, without demeaning themselves. This decree was registered in the Parliament of Paris."
No such declaration was ever registered in the Parliament of Paris. It is true that Lulli obtained in 1672, long before the opera of Isis was performed, letters permitting him to establish his opera, in which letters he got it inserted that "ladies and gentlemen might sing in this theatre without degradation." But no declaration was ever registered.
Of all the anas, that which deserves to stand foremost in the ranks of printed falsehood is the Segraisiana: It was compiled by the amanuensis of Segrais, one of his domestics, and was printed long after the master's death. The Menagiana, revised by La Monnoye, is the only one that contains anything instructive. Nothing is more common than to find in our new miscellanies old bons mots attributed to our contemporaries, or inscriptions and epigrams written on certain princes, applied to others.
We are told in the "Histoire Philosophique et Politique du Commerce dans les deux Indes" (the Philosophical and Political History of the Commerce of the two Indies), that the Dutch, having driven the Portuguese from Malacca, the Dutch captain asked the Portuguese commander when he should return; to which he replied: "When your sins are greater than ours." This answer had before been attributed to an Englishman in the time of Charles VII. of France, and before them to a Saracen emir in Sicily; after all, it is the answer rather of a Capuchin than of a politician; it was not because the French were greater sinners than the English that the latter deprived them of Canada.
The author of this same history relates, in a serious manner, a little story invented by Steele, and inserted in the Spectator; and would make it pass for one of the real causes of war between the English and the savages. The tale which Steele opposes to the much pleasanter story of the widow of Ephesus, is as follows and is designed to prove that men are not more constant than women; but in Petronius the Ephesian matron exhibits only an amusing and pardonable weakness; while the merchant Inkle, in the Spectator, is guilty of the most frightful ingratitude: "This young traveller Inkle is on the point of being taken by the Caribbees on the continent of America, without it being said at what place or on what occasion. Yarico, a pretty Caribbee, saves his life, and at length flies with him to Barbadoes. As soon as they arrive, Inkle goes and sells his benefactress in the slave market. 'Ungrateful and barbarous man!' says Yarico, 'wilt thou sell me, when I am with child by thee?' 'With child!' replied the English merchant, 'so much the better; I shall get more for thee!'" And this is given us as a true story and as the origin of a long war.
The speech of a woman of Boston to her judges, who condemned her to the house of correction for the fifth time for having brought to bed a fifth child, was a pleasantry of the illustrious Franklin; yet it is related in the same work as an authentic occurrence. How many tales have embellished and disfigured every history?
An author, who has thought more correctly than he has quoted, asserts that the following epitaph was made for Cromwell:
Ci-gît le destructeur d'un pouvoir légitime,
Jusqu' à son dernier jour favorisé des cieux,
Dont les vertus méritaient mieux
Que le sceptre acquis par un crime.
Par quel destin faut-il, par quel étrange loi
Qu' à tous ceux qui sont nés pour porter la couronne
Ce soil l'Usurpateur qui donne
L'exemple des vertus que doit avoir un Roi?
Here lies the man who trod on rightful power,
Favored by heaven to his latest hour;
Whose virtues merited a nobler fate
Than that of ruling criminally great.
What wondrous destiny can so ordain,
That among all whose fortune is to reign,
The usurper only to his sceptre brings
The virtues vainly sought in lawful kings.