The Works of Voltaire/Volume 20/Preliminary Discourse
HISTORY
of
CHARLES THE TWELFTH.
A Discourse on the History of Charles XII.
(Prefixed to the First Edition.)
Few are the princes whose lives merit a particular history. In vain have most of them been the objects of slander, or of flattery. Small is the number of those whose memory is preserved; and that number would be still more inconsiderable were none but the good remembered.
The princes who have the best claim to immortality are such as have benefited mankind. Thus, while France endures, the affection of Louis XII. for his people will ever be held in grateful remembrance. The great failings of Francis I. will be excused, for the sake of the arts and sciences of which he was the father. Blessed will be the memory of Henry IV., who conquered his kingdom as much by his clemency as by his valor. And the munificence of Louis XIV. in protecting the arts which owed their birth to Francis I. will be ever extolled.
It is for a very different reason, that the memory of bad princes is preserved; like fires, plagues, and inundations, they are remembered only for the mischief they have done.
Conquerors hold a middle rank between good kings and tyrants, but are most akin to the latter. As they have a glaring reputation, we are desirous of knowing the most minute circumstances of their lives; for such is the weakness of mankind, that they admire those who have rendered themselves remarkable for wickedness, and talk with greater pleasure of the destroyer than of the founder of an empire.
As for those princes who have neither distinguished themselves in peace nor in war; who have neither been remarkable for great virtues nor great vices; their lives furnish so little matter, either for imitation or instruction, that they are not worthy of being committed to writing. Of so many emperors of Rome, Greece, Germany, and Muscovy; of so many sultans, caliphs, popes, and kings; how few are there, whose names deserve to be recorded anywhere but in chronological tables, where they only serve to mark the different epochs.
There is commonplace among princes, as well as among the rest of mankind; yet such is the itch of writing, that no sooner is a prince dead, than the world is filled with volumes under the title of memoirs and histories of his life, and anecdotes of his court. By these means books have been multiplied in such a manner, that were a man to live a hundred years, and to employ them all in reading, he would not have time to run over what has been published relating to the history of Europe alone, for the two last centuries. This eager and unreasonable desire of transmitting useless stories to posterity, and of fixing the attention of future ages upon common events, proceeds from a weakness extremely incident to those who have lived in courts, and have unhappily been engaged in the management of public affairs. They consider the court in which they have lived as the most magnificent in the world; their king as the greatest monarch: and the affairs in which they have been concerned as the most important that ever were transacted: and they vainly imagine, that posterity will view them in the same light.
If a prince undertakes a war, or his court is embroiled in cabals and intrigues; if he buys the friendship of one of his neighbors, or sells his own to another; if, after some victories and defeats, he at last makes peace with his enemies; his subjects are so warm and interested by the part which they themselves have acted in these scenes, that they regard their own age as the most glorious that has existed since the creation. But what is the consequence? Why, this prince dies; new measures are adopted; the intrigues of his court, his mistresses, his ministers, his generals, his wars, and even himself, are forgotten.
Ever since the time that Christian princes have been endeavoring to cheat one another, and have alternately been making war and peace, they have signed an immense number of treaties, and fought as many battles; they have performed many glorious, and many infamous actions. Nevertheless, should all this heap of transactions be transmitted to posterity, they would most of them destroy and annihilate each other; and the memory of those only would remain which have produced great revolutions, or which, being related by able writers, are preserved from oblivion, like the pictures of obscure persons, drawn by a masterly hand.
Sensible then, as we are, of the truth of these observations, we should not have added a particular history of Charles XII. King of Sweden, to the infinite number of books with which the world is already crowded, were it not that he and his rival, Peter Alexiowitz, by far the greater man of the two, are universally admitted to be the most illustrious persons that have appeared for upwards of twenty centuries. The trifling pleasure, however, of relating extraordinary events was not our only motive for engaging in this work; we flattered ourselves that it might be of some little use to princes, should it ever happen to fall into their hands. No king, surely, can be so incorrigible as, when he reads the "History of Charles XII.", not to be cured of the vain ambition of making conquests. Where is the prince that can say, I have more courage, more virtues, more resolution, greater strength of body, greater skill in war, or better troops, than Charles XII.? And yet, if, with all these advantages, and after so many victories, Charles was so unfortunate, what fate may other princes expect, who, with less capacity and fewer resources, shall entertain the same ambitious views?
This history is composed from the relations of some persons of distinction, who lived several years with Charles XII. and with Peter the Great, Emperor of Muscovy; and who having retired, long after the death of these princes, into a country of liberty, can have no interest in concealing the truth. M. Fabricius, who lived in the most intimate familiarity with Charles XII.; M. de Fierville, the French ambassador; M. de Villelongue, a colonel in the Swedish service, and even M. Poniatowski, have all of them contributed their share in furnishing me with materials.
In this work we have not ventured to advance a single fact, without consulting eye-witnesses of undoubted veracity; a circumstance that renders this history very different from those gazettes which have already been published under the title of lives of Charles XII. If we have omitted some little skirmishes between the Swedish and Muscovite officers, the reason is, that we mean to write the history, not of these officers, but only of the King of Sweden, and even of his life none but the most important events. The history of a prince, in our opinion, is not to relate everything he did, but only what he did worthy of being transmitted to posterity.
Here, it may not be improper to remark, that many things, which were true at the time of writing this history in 1728, are not so at present. Commerce, for instance, begins to be more encouraged in Sweden. The Polish infantry are better disciplined, and are provided with regimental clothes, a convenience which they then wanted. In reading history, one ought always to remember the time in which the author wrote. To peruse the memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, one would take the French for a set of enthusiasts, breathing nothing but faction, madness, and civil discord. To read the history of the happy years of Louis XIV. one would think they were born to obey, to conquer, and to cultivate the polite arts. And, should any one consult the memoirs of the first years of Louis XV. he will find them devoted to luxury and avarice, and too regardless of everything else. The Spaniards at present are not the Spaniards of Charles V. and yet they may be so in a few years. The English of this age bear no more resemblance to the fanatics in Cromwell's time, than the monks and monsignori, that crowd the streets of Rome, do to the ancient Scipios. I doubt much whether the Swedish troops could be rendered, all of a sudden, so hardy and warlike as were those of Charles XII. We say of a man, that he was brave at such a time; in like manner we should say in speaking of a nation, they were of this or that character in such a year, and under such a government.
Should any prince or minister meet with disagreeable truths in this book, let them remember that, as they act in a public station, they ought to give the public an account of their conduct. Such is the price they must pay for their greatness. The business of a historian is to record, not to flatter; and the only way to oblige mankind to speak well of us, is to contribute all that lies in our power to their happiness and welfare.