assuredly there is a painful truth, to absolve him from the duty of doing what he could to belie it, and to make history as correct and as faithfully representative of actual occurrences, as careful inquiry from those most likely to know the characters of the most prominent actors could make it. In the composition of the Siècle de Louis XV., he had of course the advantage of knowing all these leaders of the public activity personally and at first hand, while if he had not that advantage to the same extent in the Siècle de Louis XIV., he at least mixed on intimate terms with many who had been intimate with the court of the great monarch. For the history of Russia he was amply provided with documents and authentic narratives from the Russian court, at whose solicitation he undertook a work which was the first full introduction of that hitherto barbarous and unknown country to the literature of civilised Europe. His letters to Schouvalof, the imperial chamberlain, attest the unremitting industry with which he sought for every kind of information that might be useful to him. ‘The enlightened spirit which now reigns among the principal nations of Europe, requires that we should go to the bottom, where in former times a historian barely thought it worth while to skim the surface. People wish to know how a nation grew together; what was its population before the epoch of which you treat; the difference in the number of the regular army then and in former times; the nature and growth of its commerce; what arts have sprung up within the country, and what have been introduced from elsewhere and been perfected there; what used to be the ordinary average revenue of the state, and what it is now; the birth and extension of its navy; the proportion in numbers between its nobles and its ecclesiastics and monks, and between the latter and the cultivators of the soil, etc.’[241] Even importunities of this kind continued over a space of some years, and the copious responses which they brought, never consoled Voltaire for not having made the journey to the Russian capital in his proper person. ‘I should have learnt more from you in a few hours of conversation,’ he wrote to Schouvalof, ‘than all the compilers in the world will ever teach me.’[242] In writing the History of Charles XII. of Sweden, one of the most delightful of his books, the art of which is none the less because it is so little ostentatious and striking and seems so easy, he had procured a large quantity of material from Fabrice, who knew the Swedish king during his detention at Bender and subsequently, and met Voltaire in London. This material was supplemented in later years by information picked up at Lunéville from the ex-Polish king Stanislas, who was indebted to Charles for his sovereignty, that true δῶρον ἄδωρον. ‘As for the portraits of men,’ Voltaire declared, ‘they are nearly all the creations of fancy; ’tis a monstrous piece of