EBOOK CATHERINE DE' MEDICI ***
Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny
Catherine de' Medici
By
Honore de Balzac
Translated by
Katherine Prescott Wormeley
DEDICATION
To Monsieur le Marquis de Pastoret, Member of the Academie des
Beaux-Arts.
When we think of the enormous number of volumes that have been
published on the question as to where Hannibal crossed the Alps,
without our being able to decide to-day whether it was (according
to Whittaker and Rivaz) by Lyon, Geneva, the Great Saint-Bernard,
and the valley of Aosta; or (according to Letronne, Follard,
Saint-Simon and Fortia d'Urbano) by the Isere, Grenoble,
Saint-Bonnet, Monte Genevra, Fenestrella, and the Susa passage;
or (according to Larauza) by the Mont Cenis and the Susa; or
(according to Strabo, Polybius and Lucanus) by the Rhone, Vienne,
Yenne, and the Dent du Chat; or (according to some intelligent
minds) by Genoa, La Bochetta, and La Scrivia,--an opinion which I
share and which Napoleon adopted,--not to speak of the verjuice
with which the Alpine rocks have been bespattered by other learned
men,--is it surprising, Monsieur le marquis, to see modern history
so bemuddled that many important points are still obscure, and the
most odious calumnies still rest on names that ought to be
respected?
And let me remark, in passing, that Hannibal's crossing has been
made almost problematical by these very elucidations.
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