does not feel called upon to inform the public that he has not seen _all_ the documents; on the contrary, he makes the most of what he has been able to procure in the course of twenty-five years of industrious research. [38] Some dispense with personal search by invoking the assistance of the functionaries charged with the administration of depositories of documents; the indispensable search is, in these cases, conducted by the functionaries instead of by the public. Cf. _Bouvard et Pécuchet_, p. 158. Bouvard and Pécuchet resolve to write the life of the Duke of Angoulême; for this purpose "they determined to spend several days at the municipal library of Caen to make researches. The librarian placed general histories and pamphlets at their disposal...." [39] These considerations have already been presented and developed in the _Revue universitaire_, 1894, i. p. 321 _sqq._ [40] It is well known that, since the opening of the Papal Archives, several governments and learned societies have established Institutes at Rome, the members of which are, for the most part, occupied in cataloguing and making known the documents of these archives, in co-operation with the functionaries of the Vatican. The French School at Rome, the Austrian Institute, the Prussian Institute, the Polish Mission, the Institute of the "Goerresgesellschaft," Belgian, Danish, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and other scholars, have performed, and are performing, cataloguing work of considerable extent in the archives of the Vatican. [41] Catalogues of documents sometimes, but not always, mention the fact that such and such a document has been edited, dealt with critically, utilised. The generally received rule is that the compiler mentions circumstances of this kind when he is aware of them, without imposing on himself the enormous task of ascertaining the truth on this head[sic] in every instance where he is ignorant of it. [42] E. Bernheim, _Lehrbuch der historischen Methode_, 2nd ed., pp. 196-202. [43] C. V. Langlois, _Manuel de Bibliographie historique_: I. _Instruments bibliographiques_, Paris, 1896, 16mo. [44] E. Renan, _Feuilles détachées_ (Paris, 1892, 8vo), pp. 96 _sqq._ [45] vii. p. 228 _sqq._ [46] E. A. Freeman, _The Methods of Historical Study_ (London, 1885, 8vo), p. 45.