[147] The "Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz" furnish a conclusive instance: the anecdote of the ghosts met by Retz and Turenne. A. Feillet, who edited Retz in the _Collection des Grands Écrivains de la France_, has shown (vol. i. p. 192) that this story, so vividly narrated, is false from beginning to end. [148] A good example of the fascination exerted by a circumstantial narrative is the legend respecting the origin of the League of the three primitive Swiss cantons (Gessler and the Grütli conspirators), which was _fabricated_ by Tschudi in the sixteenth century, became classical on the production of Schiller's "William Tell," and has only been extirpated with the greatest difficulty. (See Rilliet, _Origines de la Conféderation suisse_, Geneva, 1869, 8vo.) [149] Striking example of falsehoods due to vanity are to be found in abundance in the _Économies royales_ of Sully and the _Mémoires_ of Retz. [150] Fustel de Coulanges himself went to the formulæ of the inscriptions in honour of the emperors for a proof that the peoples liked the imperial _régime_. "If we read the inscriptions, the sentiment which they exhibit is always one of satisfaction and gratitude.... See the collection of Orelli, the most frequent expressions are...." And the enumeration of the titles of respect given to the emperors ends with this strange aphorism: "It would show ignorance of human nature to see nothing but flattery in all this." There is not even flattery here; there is nothing but formulæ. [151] Suger, in his life of Louis VI., is a model of this type. [152] The _Chronicon Helveticum_ of Tschudi is a striking instance. [153] Aristophanes and Demosthenes are two striking examples of the power great writers have of paralysing critics and obscuring facts. Not till the close of the nineteenth century has any one ventured to recognise frankly their lack of good faith. [154] For example, the account of the election of Otto I. in the _Gesta Ottonis_ of Wittekind. [155] For example, the statistics on the population, the commerce, and the wealth of European countries given by the Venetian ambassadors of the sixteenth century, and the descriptions of the usages of the Germans in the _Germania_ of Tacitus. [156] It would be interesting to examine how much of Roman or Merovingian history would be left if we rejected all documents but those which represent direct observation.