"In those days [1861] there was a famous mathematician whose name
was [Michel] Chasles. He was interested in the history of geometry,
and also in the glory of France, and a clever genealogist saw his
opportunity. He produced letters from which it appeared that some of
Newton's discoveries had been anticipated by Frenchmen who had been
robbed of their due fame
M. Chasles bought them, with a patriotic disregard for money; and he
continued to buy, from time to time, all that the impostor, Vrain
Lucas, offered him. He laid his documents before the Institute, and
the Institute declared them genuine. There were autograph letters
from Alexander to Aristotle, from Cæsar to Vercingetorix, from
Lazarus to St. Peter, from Mary Magdalen to Lazarus.
The fabricator's imagination ran riot, and he produced a fragment in
the handwriting of Pythagoras, showing that Pythagoras wrote in bad
French. At last other learned men, who did not love Chasles, tried
to make him understand that he had been befooled. When the iniquity
came to light, and the culprit was sent to prison, he had flourished
for seven years, had made several thousand pounds, and had found a
market for 27,000 unblushing forgeries."