Louis XIV, Louis XV, Madame de Maintenon, Madame de Pompadour, Louis XVI, even Napoleon and Josephine, so near our own times, are already quasi-mythical characters.
The Louis XIII of _Marion de Lorme_ seemed until very lately to be accurate, but recent discoveries show us that he was quite different.
Napoleon III reigned only yesterday, but his picture is already painted in different tints.

My entire youth was passed in his reign and my recollections represent him neither as the monster depicted by Victor Hugo nor the kind sympathetic sovereign of present-day stories.
There has been a great deal of discussion of the causes which brought on the War of 1870.

We know all that was said and done during the last days of that crisis, but will anyone ever know what was hidden in the minds of the sovereigns, the ministers, and the ambassadors?
Will it ever be known whether the Emperor provoked Gramont or Gramont the Emperor?
Did they even know themselves?
There is one thing the most discerning historian can never reach--the depths of the human soul.
We may, however, learn the secrets of the tomb.

It was asserted for a long time that the remains of Voltaire and Rousseau had been exhumed, desecrated, and thrown into the sewers.

Victor Hugo wrote a wonderful account of this--an account such as only he could write.