XXXII. If only the interest of the prince of the state, or of religion, attracted the pen of the historian, and caused it to deviate from the truth; we should at least have the satisfaction to suppose, that with respect to those facts which have no relation to the party he follows, or the power he obeys, an historian would not wish to deceive us. But the private or particular motives which may excite him to deception are so numerous, that even with respect to these facts, we can seldom say we are secure. Who can form an idea of the affections which possess the heart of an author, whom he does not know, nor has had any intercourse with? Who can determine to how many objects his love or hatred extend? Even with regard to those facts which seem the most remote, either from his affections or his interest, he may be swayed by his prejudices or his convenience; and sometimes historians lie, when their motives for doing it are incomprehensible, of which we will proceed to give an example. XXXIII. Peter Mathé, a famous French historian, tells us, that one la Brosse, a physician and mathematician at Paris, had foretold the death of Henry the fourth, and had communicated his prediction in confidence to the Duke de Vendome. Peter Petit, another historian, who was much celebrated for his knowledge of human nature, assures us, that such a prediction never existed. These two men were both contemporaries, both resided at Paris, were both there at the death of Henry the fourth, and both knew the physician la Brosse; but with all this, as they give diametrically opposite testimonies, it is very clear that one or other of them must lie. If it should be urged, that one of them might be deceived by some sinister information, I answer, that could not be the case, for they both quote the Duke de Vendome as their author. Peter Mathé says, he had the thing just as he relates it from the duke himself: Peter Petit says, he asked the Duke de Vendome if what Peter Mathé had related was true; and that the duke replied, it was false.