Misattributions

The book which I just oh-so-gladly handed off to my editor involves the run-up to the infamous Enghien affair, in which Napoleon kidnapped a member of the French royal family (not personally—can you imagine Napoleon trying to toss the Duc d’Enghien over his shoulder?), had him hauled across the Rhine onto French soil, tried him on rather wobbly charges, and summarily executed him. It was not the First Consul’s most shining moment.

Of this affair, it was said, “C'est plus qu'un crime, c'est une faute”, or, en anglais, “It is worse than a crime; it is a blunder.”

But who said it?

Although the famous words were, in fact, voiced by Joseph Fouche, Napoleon’s infamous Minister of Police, many people attribute them instead to another flamboyant member of the Consular regime, Napoleon’s Foreign Minister, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord. The misattribution has its own unintentional humor to it; Fouche and Talleyrand, aside from both being savvy political operators, both employed by Bonaparte, were about as unlike as any two men could be. One imagines that neither would be pleased to be linked for eternity by a shared phrase.

And what about the line, “I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member”? Just the other day, I found myself arguing rather vehemently that the line was Oscar Wilde’s. Of course it was Wilde! I protested hotly. Mocking club life… well, it just sounded like him.

It turns out I was wrong. Not all the best lines belong to Wilde. This one was properly the property of Groucho Marx.

Oooops.

A quick google search of “misattributed quotations” revealed that I was far from the only one stealing thunder from Peter to gift it to Paul. Shakespeare and Mark Twain appear to be the biggest beneficiaries/victims of the misquotation craze, getting credit for others’ lines at the same times as theirs get snatched, but it isn’t just them. Some of the more amusingly incongruous misattributions that popped up included bits of Aesop being credited to the Bible, Henry Thoreau providing words for the mouth of Jefferson, and (my personal favorite) the twentieth century Russian dictator, Lenin, taking the credit for a phrase penned by the seventeenth century Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift: “Promises and pie crusts are made to be broken.” Somehow, one just can’t imagine Lenin and Swift sharing a cozy cup of tea, even if they could get past the whole milk or lemon/ monarchy or proletarian paradise question.

Have you come across any interesting misquotes?