One of the obligations which a historian of manners must never fail to do is not to spoil the truth by apparently dramatic arrangements, especially w… - Honoré de Balzac

" "

One of the obligations which a historian of manners must never fail to do is not to spoil the truth by apparently dramatic arrangements, especially when the truth has taken the trouble to become romantic. Social nature, especially in Paris, involves such chances, such capricious entanglements of conjectures, that the imagination of inventors is at all times exceeded. The boldness of truth amounts to combinations forbidden in art — that is how improbable or indecent they are — unless the writer softens them, appeases them, castrates them.