XXXV. We may with great probability, and without any violent or strained supposition, conclude, that the facility with which the verification of astrological predictions has been imposed on the world, was owing solely to their not having in their origin met with the contradiction which that of Peter Mathé did. If the refutation of a fable does not immediately follow its invention, there is afterwards no remedy. XXXVI. But leaving it for the present undetermined at whose door the deception lay, what can we suppose could be the motive of either of these historians, to quote the Duke de Vendome falsely as his author? It might, in Peter Mathé, be his friendship for the astrologer, whose fame he wanted to raise as a foreteller of events: it might proceed also, from a desire of adorning his history with a curious and pleasing anecdote. On the part of Peter Petit, might intervene his dislike to astrologers; or he might also deny the truth of the prediction, because it clashed with the system of his dissertation upon comets, which is the book in which he denies it. According to this mode of reasoning, it is easy to assign other motives of inducement; but it is not quite so easy to hit upon the true one. SECT. XIII. XXXVII. Thus, you see, we on all sides are beset with hazards. The authors who are remote from the time when, and the places where events happened, are very much exposed to be deceived in one or other of the various ways, by which informations descend to them; and those who were contemporaries with the events, and lived in the places where they fell out, are frequently interested by a variety of circumstances and combinations to disfigure them. XXXVIII. We have said, that perhaps Peter Mathé, without any foundation, and without any other motive than that of adorning his history with a curious tale, related the prediction of la Brosse; and to a desire of doing this, we have also imputed the cause of an infinite number of other historical errors, for there is no other author whatever, who does not interest himself in making his history appear pleasant and delightsome to his readers; and there is nothing tends more to produce this effect, than inserting in them many particulars, in which are contained something of the curious, the exquisite, and the admirable. It may be generally said, that there are no histories more pleasant to read, than those which approach nearest to novels. From whence it happens, that truth is often dispensed with, for the sake of _edulcorating_ the narrative with fiction.