121–140. Letters CXXI–CXL

Countries inhabited by savages are usually thinly peopled, on account of the dislike which they almost always have for toil and tillage. This unfortunate dislike is so strong, that when they invoke a curse against one of their enemies, they can wish him no greater evil than to be reduced to plough a field, believing that hunting and fishing are the only exercises worthy of them.

But, as there are often years in which hunting and fishing are very unproductive, they are desolated by frequent famines; without considering that game and fish are never abundant enough in any country to support a numerous people, because animals always forsake thickly-inhabited districts.

Besides, savage hordes, each numbering two or three hundred people, separated from each other, and having interests as divided as those of two empires, cannot maintain themselves, because they have not the resources of great states, whose members are all in accord, and work together for each other’s good.

There is another custom not less baneful than the first; the cruel habit which the women have of procuring abortion, in order that their pregnancy may not make them disagreeable to their husbands.

There are dreadful laws against this crime, which are carried to excess. Every unmarried woman who does not declare her pregnancy before a magistrate is punished with death if her offspring dies: shame and modesty, accidents even, are no excuses.

Paris, the 9th of the moon of Rhamazan, 1718.

The ordinary effect of colonies is to weaken the countries from which they are taken, without peopling those which are colonised.

Men ought to stay where they are: the change from a good climate to a bad one produces diseases, and others spring from the mere change itself.

The air, like the plants, is loaded with the particles of the soil of each country. It acts upon us in such a way as to fix our constitutions. When we are transported to a foreign country we become ill. The fluids being accustomed to a certain consistency and the solids to a certain arrangement, and both to a certain degree of motion, cannot put up with others, and resist a new order.

When a country is uninhabited, it is an indication of some particular defect in the nature of the soil or of the atmosphere: so that when men are removed from an agreeable clime to such a country, exactly the opposite of what was intended is done.

The Romans knew this by experience: they banished all their criminals to Sardinia, and sent the Jews there too. They had little difficulty in consoling themselves for their loss, on account of the contempt in which they held these wretched creatures.

The great Shah Abbas, wishing to deprive the Turks of the means of supporting large armies on the frontier, transported almost all the Armenians out of their own country, and sent more than twenty thousand families into the province of Guilan, where they nearly all perished in a very short time.

None of the transportations of people into Constantinople has ever succeeded.

The immense numbers of negroes already mentioned have not peopled America.

Since the destruction of the Jews under Adrian, Palestine has been uninhabited.

It must therefore be admitted that great depopulations are almost irreparable, because a people whose numbers are brought down to a certain point, remains there; and if by chance it recovers itself, it must be the work of ages.

If, in a state of decay, the least of the circumstances which I have mentioned comes to pass, a people not only never recovers, but falls off daily and approaches annihilation.

The expulsion of the Moors from Spain is still as much felt as at the time it happened; instead of the void being filled up, it grows greater every day.

Since the devastation of America, the Spaniards, who have taken the place of the ancient inhabitants, have not been able to repeople it: on the contrary, by a fatality, which I ought rather to call an instance of Divine justice, the destroyers are destroying themselves, and waste away daily.

Princes ought not therefore to think of peopling large countries by means of colonies. I do not say that they are not sometimes successful; there are climes so favourable, that the human race always multiplies there; witness the isles which have been peopled by some sick folks abandoned by passing vessels, and who soon recovered their health there.

But, if these colonies were to succeed, in place of increasing power, they only divide it; unless they should happen to be of small extent, like those which are occupied for trading purposes.

The Carthagenians, like the Spaniards, discovered America, or, at any rate, certain large islands with which they carried on an enormous trade; but, when they beheld the number of their inhabitants decreasing, that wise republic forbade its subjects to carry on that trade, or to sail to these islands.

I dare affirm that, if in place of sending the Spaniards into the Indies, the Indians and cross breeds had been transported to Spain; if its scattered people had been returned to it, and supposing only half of its great colonies had been preserved, Spain would have become the most formidable European power.

An empire may be compared to a tree whose branches, if too widely spread, draw all the sap from the trunk, and are of use only to give shade.

Nothing is fitter to cure in princes the rage for distant conquests than the example of the Portuguese and the Spaniards.

These two nations having conquered with inconceivable rapidity immense kingdoms, more amazed at their victories than the conquered peoples at their defeat, considered the means of preserving them, and chose each of them for that purpose a different method.

The Spaniards, despairing to keep the conquered nations faithful to them, took the plan of exterminating them, and of sending to Spain for dutiful subjects: never was a dreadful design carried out with greater thoroughness. A people, as numerous as all those of Europe together, was seen to disappear from the earth, on the arrival of these barbarians, who, in discovering the Indies, seemed only to have thought of discovering to mankind the utmost reach of cruelty.

By that barbarity, they held the country under their government. Judge from this what baleful things conquests are, since such are their effects. For, indeed, this horrible expedient was the only one. How could they have kept so many millions of men in subjection? How could they have carried on a civil war at such a distance? What would have become of them, had they given these people time to recover from the consternation caused by the advent of these new gods, and from the terrors of their thunders?

As to the Portuguese, they took an entirely opposite course; they did not employ cruelty, and were consequently very soon expelled from all the countries which they had discovered. The Dutch favoured the rebellion of their foreign subjects against the Portuguese, and profited by it.

What prince would envy the lot of these conquerors? Who would wish for conquests on these conditions? One nation was soon driven out from its conquests; the other made them into deserts, and made a desert of its own country at the same time.

It is the destiny of heroes to ruin themselves by conquering countries which they suddenly lose, or by subjecting nations which they themselves are obliged to destroy; like that madman who wasted his substance in buying statues which he cast into the sea, and glasses which he broke as soon as bought.

Paris, the 18th of the moon of Rhamazan, 1718.

The propagation of the species is wonderfully aided by a mild government. All republics are a standing proof of this; especially Switzerland and Holland, which, with regard to the nature of the land, are the two worst countries in Europe, and which are yet the most populous.

Nothing attracts strangers more than liberty, and its accompaniment, wealth: the latter is sought after for itself, and our necessity leads us into those countries in which we find the former.

Mankind multiplies in a country which affords abundance for the children, without diminishing in the least the parents’ provision.

That very equality of the citizens which generally produces equality in their fortunes, brings plenty and vigour into all the parts of the body politic, and spreads these blessings throughout the whole state.

It is not so in countries subject to arbitrary power: the prince, the courtiers, and a few private persons, possess all the wealth, while all the rest groan in extreme poverty.

If a man is not well off, and feels that his children would be poorer than he, he will not marry; or if he does, he will be afraid of having too great a number of children, who would complete the ruin of his fortune and sink even lower than their father.

I admit that the boor or peasant, once married, will increase the race without any regard to his poverty or wealth; that consideration does not affect him: he has always a safe inheritance to leave his children, and that is his plough; so nothing withholds him from following blindly the instincts of nature.

But of what use to a state are those crowds of children which waste away in misery? They perish almost as rapidly as they are born: they never thrive: feeble and impotent, they die retail in a thousand ways, or are carried off wholesale by those frequent epidemics which poverty and bad diet always produce: those who escape attain the age of manhood without possessing its vigour, and waste away during the rest of their lives.

Men are like plants which never flourish if they are not well cultivated: among poor people, the race declines and sometimes even degenerates.

France supplies a great proof of all this. During the late wars, the dread which all the youths had of being enrolled in the militia forced them to marry, and that at too tender an age and in the bosom of poverty. A great many children were born of these numerous marriages who are not now to be found in France, because poverty, famine, and disease carried them off.

Now if, of a kingdom so well governed as France, and with such a good climate, remarks like these may be made, what shall be said of other states?

Paris, the 23rd of the moon of Rhamazan, 1718.

To what end are the fasts of the imans, and the sackcloth of the mollahs? The hand of God has twice lain heavy upon the children of the law: the sun has obscured his beams and seems to shine only upon their overthrow: their armies assemble to be dispersed like dust.

The empire of the Osmanli is shaken by two defeats more disastrous than it ever experienced before. A Christian Mufti supports it with great difficulty: the grand vizier of Germany is the scourge of God, sent to chastise the followers of Omar: he carries everywhere the wrath of Heaven, enraged at their rebellion and their treachery.

Holy spirit of the imans, thou weepest night and day over the children of the Prophet, whom the detestable Omar misled: thy bowels are moved at the sight of their misfortunes: thou desirest their conversion, and not their perdition: thou wouldst have them united under the standard of Hali through the tears of the saints; and not scattered among the mountains and the deserts through terror of the infidels.

Paris, the 1st of the moon of Chalval, 1718.

What can be the motive of those immense gratuities which princes lavish upon their courtiers? Is it to attach them to themselves? They have gained them already as far as that is possible. And besides, should they gain some of their subjects by bribery, they would lose a great many others, impoverished by the very same means.

When I consider the situation of princes, always surrounded by greedy and insatiable men, I cannot but pity them; and I pity them still more, when they have not the strength to resist demands—always a task to those who need to ask for nothing.

I never hear talk of their liberality, of the favours and pensions which they grant, but I give myself up to a thousand reflections: a throng of ideas present themselves to my mind: it seems to me that I hear the following decree published:—

“The indefatigable courage of some of our subjects in suing for pensions, having taxed without intermission our royal magnificence, we have at length granted the multitude of requests presented to us, which hitherto have been the greatest anxiety of the throne. Some have represented to us that they have never failed since our accession to the crown to attend our levees; that we have always seen them in our progresses as motionless as posts; and that they have raised themselves on the highest shoulders to gaze at our serenity. We have even received several petitions on the part of some members of the fair sex, who have begged to draw attention to the notorious fact that they are very circumspect in their conversation: some very ancient dames have desired us, with shaking heads, to consider that they adorned the courts of the kings, our predecessors; and that if the generals of their armies have made the state formidable by their warlike deeds, they have made the court not less celebrated by their intrigues. And so, wishing to be bounteous to these suppliants, and to grant them all their desires, we have decreed what follows:—

“That every labourer, having five children, shall daily curtail by one-fifth the bread which he gives them. We also admonish all fathers of families to decrease the share of each child in as just a proportion as possible.

“We expressly forbid all those who are engaged in the cultivation of their estates, or who rent them out in farms, to make any improvement in them of what kind soever.

“We decree that all persons engaged in base and mechanical trades, who have never attended a levee of Our Majesty, shall in future purchase clothes for themselves, their wives, and their children only once in four years: we further most strictly forbid them those little merry-makings which they have been accustomed to hold in their families on the principal festivals of the year.

“And, inasmuch as we are advised that the greater part of the citizens of our good towns are wholly occupied in providing establishments for their daughters, who have made themselves esteemed in our state only by a solemn and tedious modesty; we decree that their fathers shall delay their marriage until, having attained the age prescribed by the statutes, they can insist on being portioned. We forbid our magistrates to provide for the education of their children.”

Paris, the 1st of the moon of Chalval, 1718.

It is a puzzling thing in all religions to give any idea of the pleasures ordained for those who live well. It is easy to terrify the wicked with a long list of the torments which await them; but who knows what to promise the virtuous. Joys seem by nature to be of short duration, the imagination can hardly picture them otherwise.

I have seen descriptions of Paradise sufficient to make all sensible people give up their hopes of it: some make the happy shades play incessantly on the flute; others condemn them to the torture of an everlasting promenade; while others, who represent them as dreaming on high of their mistresses below, are of opinion that a period of a hundred million years is not sufficient to overcome a taste for the pains of love.

I remember, in this connection, a story which I heard told by a man who had been in the country of the Mogul; it shows that the Indian priests are as fertile as others in their ideas of the pleasures of Paradise.

A woman who had just lost her husband, went in due form to the governor of the city demanding permission to burn herself; but since, in the countries subject to the Mohammedans, they have abolished to the best of their ability that cruel custom, he refused her absolutely.

When she saw that her prayers were in vain, she flew into a transport of rage. “Look you,” said she, “how you torment me! A poor woman is not even allowed to burn herself when she has a mind to! Did one ever see the like! My mother, my aunt, my sisters, were all decently burned! And, when I come to ask permission of this confounded governor, he gets angry, and begins raging like a madman.”

A young bonze happened to be present. “Infidel,” said the governor to him, “is it you who have set on this woman to commit this folly?” “No,” said he, “I never spoke to her; but if she believes as I do, she will complete her sacrifice; she will perform an action pleasing to the god Brahma: she will also be well rewarded, for she will find her husband in the other world, and begin with him a second marriage.” “What do you say?” cried the woman, astonished. “I shall find my husband again? Ah! I will not burn myself then. He was jealous, peevish, and, besides, so old, that if the god Brahma has not brought about some improvement in him, assuredly he has no need of me. Burn myself for him!. . . not even the end of my finger to take him from the bottom of hell. Two old bonzes who misled me, and who knew what kind of life I led with him, took care to tell me nothing of this; if the god Brahma has no other present to make me, I renounce this felicity. Mr. Governor, I will be a Mohammedan. And for you,” turning to the bonze, “you can, if you like, go and tell my husband that I am very well.”

Paris, the 2nd of the moon of Chalval, 1718.

I expect you here to-morrow: meantime I send you your letters from Ispahan. Mine bring word that the ambassador of the Great Mogul has received orders to quit the kingdom. They add that the prince, the uncle of the king, who has charge of his education, has been arrested, conducted to a castle, where he is closely guarded, and deprived of all his honours. The fate of this prince moves me, and I pity him.

I own, Usbek, that I have never beheld the tears fall from the eyes of any one without deep sympathy: my humanity feels for the unhappy, as if they only were human; and great people even, towards whom my heart is hardened when they are prosperous, gain my affection in adversity.

Indeed, in the time of their prosperity what need have they of useless affection? It comes too near equality. They prefer respect, which requires no return. As soon, however, as they have fallen from their greatness, there is nothing left to recall it to them but our lamentation.

I find an admirable simplicity, and an equally admirable greatness, in the words of a prince, who, being in great danger of falling into the hands of his enemies, said to his courtiers, who stood weeping round him, “I see by your tears that I am still your king.”

Paris, the 3rd of the moon of Chalval, 1718.

You have heard much talk of the famous king of Sweden: while he was visiting the trenches, with an engineer as his sole companion, during the siege of a town in a kingdom called Norway, he received a wound in the head, of which he died. His prime minister was immediately arrested, and the assembled states condemned him to lose his head.

He was accused of a very grave crime; that of having slandered the nation, and of having caused the king to lose confidence in it: an offence which, in my judgment, deserves a thousand deaths.

For, in short, if it is a villainous action to blacken the character of the meanest of his subjects in the eyes of a prince, what must it be to traduce an entire nation, and to withdraw from it the goodwill of him whom Providence has set over it for its welfare?

I would have men talk with kings, as the angels talked with our holy Prophet.

You know that, in the sacred banquets, when the king of kings descends from the most sublime throne in the world to converse with his slaves, I laid a severe injunction on myself to restrain an unruly tongue: no one ever heard escape from me a single word which could be disagreeable to the meanest of his subjects. When it behoved me to cease to be sober, I never ceased to be a gentleman; and in that test of our fidelity I risked my life, but never my virtue.

I know not how it happens, but the wickedest king is hardly ever so bad as his minister; if he commits a vile action, it has nearly always been suggested to him: thus the ambition of princes is never so dangerous as the baseness of their advisers. But can you understand how a man who was yesterday made minister, and may perhaps to-morrow be disgraced, can become in a moment his own enemy, the enemy of his family, of his country, and of the people who are yet to be born of those he is about to oppress?

A prince has passions; the minister works on them: it is in that way that he manages his ministry: that is his only aim, nor does he desire another. The courtiers mislead him by their applause; and he flatters him more dangerously by his advice, by the designs with which he inspires him, and by the maxims which he proposes to him.

Paris, the 25th of the moon of Saphar, 1719.

As I was passing the other day over the Pont-Neuf with one of my friends, he met a man of his acquaintance, who, he said, was a geometer; and he looked it, for he was in a deep meditation: my friend had to tug at his sleeve for a long time and to shake him to bring him down to himself, he was so much occupied with a curve which had tormented him perhaps for more than a week. There was a most polite interchange of compliments, and they imparted to each other some items of literary news. Their talk continued till we came to the door of a coffee-house, which I entered with them.

I noticed that our geometer was received by everybody with marked cordiality, and that the coffee house waiters made much more of him than of two musketeers who were in a corner. As for him, he appeared to be very well pleased with the company; for he unwrinkled his face a little, and fell a-smiling, as if there had not been the least particle of geometry in him.

However, his exact mind measured everything that was said in the conversation. He seemed like a man in a garden, who with a sword cuts off the head of every flower which rises above its neighbours. A martyr to his own accuracy, he was offended by a witty remark, as weak sight is annoyed by too strong a light. Nothing was indifferent to him provided it was true. Thus his conversation was very remarkable. He had come that day from the country with a man who had been to see a fine chateau and splendid gardens; but he himself had only seen a building sixty feet long and thirty-five wide, and a parallelogrammic grove of ten acres: he would have liked very much that the rules of perspective had been so observed that the walks of the avenues might have appeared throughout of the same width; and for that purpose he would have supplied an infallible method. He appeared to be much pleased with a dial which he had discovered there of a very peculiar make; and he became very angry with a learned man, who sat beside me, and unfortunately asked him if this dial indicated the Babylonian hours. A newsmonger spoke of the bombardment of the castle of Fontarabia; and he at once told us the properties of the line which the bombs described in the air; and, delighted with this bit of knowledge, he was quite content to be wholly ignorant of the success of the bombardment. A man complained that in the preceding winter he had been ruined by a flood. “What you say is very agreeable to me,” said the geometer. “I find that I am not mistaken in the observation which I made, and that there fell upon the earth two inches of water more than in the year before.”

A moment after he left, and we followed him. As he walked very fast, and neglected to look before him, he ran full tilt against another man: they struck each other violently; and each rebounded from the collision in proportion to his speed and weight. When they had recovered somewhat from their dizziness, this man, pressing his hand on his forehead, said to the geometer, “I am very glad you ran against me, for I have great news to tell you: I have just published my Horace.” “How!” exclaimed the geometer; “it is two thousand years since Horace was published.” “You do not understand me,” replied the other. “It is a translation of that ancient author which I have given to the world: I have been engaged as a translator for twenty years.”

“What, sir!” rejoined the geometer; “have you been twenty years without thinking? You are only the mouthpiece of others.” “Sir,” replied the savant, “do you not think that I have done the public a great service in making them familiar with good authors?” “I am not so sure of that: I esteem as highly as any one the sublime geniuses whom you have travestied: but you are not as they; for though you translate for ever, you will never be translated.

“Translations are like copper money, which have quite the same value as a gold piece, and are even of greater use among the people; but they are base coin and always light.

“You wish, you say, to revive among us those illustrious dead; and I admit that you give them indeed a body; but you do not give the body life: the animating spirit is always wanting.

“Why do you not engage rather in seeking for some of those glorious truths which a simple calculation discovers for us every day?” After this piece of advice they parted, I imagine not in the best of humour with each other.

Paris, the last day of the second moon of Rebiab, 1719.

In this letter I shall tell you of a certain tribe called the Quidnuncs, who assemble in a splendid garden, where they are always indolently busy. They are utterly useless to the state, and half a century of their talk has no more effect than would be produced by a silence of the same length; yet they imagine themselves of consequence, because they converse about magnificent projects and discuss great interests.

The basis of their conversation is a frivolous and ridiculous curiosity: there is no cabinet, however mysterious, whose secrets they do not pretend to fathom; they will not admit that they are ignorant of anything; they know how many wives our august Sultan has, and how many children he begets every year; and, although they go to no expense for spies, they are informed of the measures he is taking to humble the Emperor of Turkey and the Great Mogul.

Hardly have they exhausted the present when they plunge into the future, and stealing a march on Providence, anticipate it in all its dealings with men. They take a general in hand, and after having praised him for a thousand follies which he has not committed, they prepare for him a thousand others which also will never come to pass.

They make armies fly like cranes, and overturn walls like a house of cards; they have bridges on all the rivers, secret paths in all the mountains, immense arsenals in burning deserts; they lack nothing but common sense.

A man with whom I lodged received a letter from a Quidnunc, which, as it seemed to me remarkable, I kept. Here it is:

“SIR,—I am seldom mistaken in my surmises on the affairs of the day. On the 1st of January 1711, I foretold that the Emperor Joseph would die in the course of a year: it is true that, as he was then quite well, I conceived that I would be derided, if I explained my meaning too clearly; which caused me to employ terms somewhat enigmatic; but rational people understood me well enough. On the 17th of April, in the same year, he died of the small-pox.

“As soon as war was declared between the Emperor and the Turks, I went through every corner of the Tuileries in search of our gentlemen: and having gathered them together near the basin, I prophesied to them that Belgrade would be besieged and taken. I was fortunate enough to have my prophecy fulfilled. It is true that towards the middle of the siege, I wagered a hundred pistoles that it would be taken on the 18th of August; it was not taken till the day after: how tantalising to lose by so little!

“When I saw the Spanish fleet disembark in Sardinia, I judged that it would conquer it: I said so, and it proved true. Puffed up with this success, I added that the victorious fleet would land at Final, in order to conquer the Milanese. As this opinion encountered much opposition, I determined to support it nobly: I wagered fifty pistoles, and lost again; for that devil of an Alberoni, violating the treaty, sent his fleet to Sicily, and deceived at one and the same time two great politicians, the Duke of Savoy and myself.

“All this, sir, has disconcerted me so much, that I have resolved to continue prophesying, but never to bet. At the Tuileries formerly the practice of betting was quite unknown, and the late Count L. would hardly permit it; but, since a crowd of petits-maitres have got in among us, we don’t know where we are. Hardly have we opened our mouths to report a piece of news, when one of these youngsters offers to bet against it.

“The other day, as I was opening my manuscript, and fixing my spectacles on my nose, one of those swaggering blades, catching promptly at the pause between my first and second words, said to me, ‘I bet you a hundred pistoles that it’s not.’ I behaved as if I had not heard this piece of extravagance; and, resuming in a louder voice, I said, ‘the Marshal of * * *, having learned. . .’ ‘That is false,’ cried he. ‘Your news is always extravagant; there is an absence of common sense in all that.’

“I beg you, sir, to favour me with the loan of thirty pistoles; for I confess that these bets have almost ruined me. Herewith I send you copies of two letters which I have written to the minister. I am,” etc.

Letters of a Quidnunc to the Minister

“MY LORD,—I am the most loyal subject the king ever had. It was I who constrained one of my friends to undertake a scheme I had formed of a book, proving that Louis the Great was the greatest of all the princes who have deserved that title. I have been engaged for a long time on another work, which will increase the glory of our nation still further, if your highness will grant me a privilege: my design is to prove that, since the beginning of the monarchy, the French have never been beaten, and that what historians have hitherto written of our defeats is the merest invention. I am obliged to correct them on many occasions; and I flatter myself that I shine above all as a critic. I am, my lord,” etc.

“MY LORD,—As we have lost the Count of L., we beg you to have the goodness to allow us to elect a president. Confusion reigns at all our meetings; and state affairs are not so thoroughly discussed as before: our young folks live without the slightest regard for their elders, and without any discipline among themselves: it is exactly like the council of Rehoboam, where the young overbore the old. We point out to them in vain that we were in peaceable possession of the Tuileries twenty years before they were born: I believe they will at last drive us out; and that, being forced to quit these quarters, where we have so often called up the shades of the French heroes, we will have to hold our meetings in the king’s garden or in some more out-of-the-way place. I am. . .

Paris, the 7th of the second moon of Gemmadi, 1719.

Nothing has interested me more since my arrival in Europe than the history and origin of republics. You know that most Asiatics have not only no notion of this form of government, but that their imagination is unable to conceive the possibility of there being any other in the world than despotism.

The first governments of which we know anything were monarchical; it was only by chance, and in the course of ages, that republics were formed.

Greece, having been destroyed by a flood, new inhabitants came to people it; it drew almost all its colonies from Egypt and the neighbouring countries of Asia; and as these countries were governed by kings, the races which came from them were governed in the same way. But the tyranny of these princes becoming intolerable, they threw off the yoke, and from the ruins of so many kingdoms sprang those republics which made Greece so prosperous, and the only cultured nation among a crowd of barbarians.

Love of liberty, and hatred of kings, preserved the independence of Greece for a long time, and extended far and wide the republican form of government. The Greek cities found allies in Asia Minor; they sent thither colonies as free as themselves, which served them as a rampart against the attacks of the kings of Persia. This is not all: Greece peopled Italy; and Italy, Spain, and perhaps Gaul. Every one knows that the wonderful Hesperia, so famous among the ancients, was at first Greece, regarded by its neighbours as an abode of bliss. The Greeks, who failed to find at home that happy country, went to Italy in search of it; the inhabitants of Italy, to Spain; and those of Spain, to Bettica or Portugal; so that all these countries bore the name of Hesperia among the ancients. These Greek colonies brought with them a spirit of liberty derived from that delightful land. It is on this account that we hardly ever hear of a monarchy in Italy, Spain, or Gaul in these remote times. It will shortly appear that the peoples of the north and of Germany were not less free; and if traces of kingly government are found among them, it is because the chiefs of armies or republics have been mistaken for monarchs.

All this took place in Europe, for Asia and Africa have always been oppressed by despots, with the exception of some cities in Asia Minor already mentioned, and the Carthagenian republic in Africa.

The world was divided between two powerful republics: that of Rome and that of Carthage. Nothing is better known than the beginnings of the Roman republic, and there is nothing of which we have less knowledge than the origin of that of Carthage. Of the African princes who succeeded Dido, and how they lost their power, we know absolutely nothing. The wonderful rise of the Roman republic would have been of immense benefit to the world, if there had not existed an unjust distinction between the Roman citizens and the conquered nations; if the governors of provinces had received less power; if the righteous laws enacted to prevent their tyranny had been observed, and if, to render these laws of no effect, the governors had not employed the very wealth amassed by their injustice.

Liberty would seem to have been intended for the genius of the European races, and slavery for that of the Asiatics. In vain the Romans offered that priceless treasure to the Cappadocians. That mean-spirited nation refused it, and rushed into slavery with the same eagerness with which other races fly to liberty.

Caesar destroyed the Roman republic, and subjected it to arbitrary power.

For a long time Europe groaned under the violence of a military government, and the gentle Roman sway was changed into cruel oppression.

Meantime an immense number of unknown races came out of the north, and poured like torrents into the Roman provinces: finding it as easy to conquer as to rob, they dismembered the empire, and founded kingdoms. These peoples were free, and they put such restrictions on the authority of their kings, that they were properly only chiefs or generals. Thus these kingdoms, although founded by force, never endured the yoke of the conqueror. When the peoples of Asia, such as the Turks and the Tartars, made conquests, being subject to the will of one person, they thought only of providing him with new subjects, and of establishing by force of arms his reign of might; but the peoples of the north, free in their own countries, having seized the Roman provinces, did not give their chiefs much power. Some of these races, indeed, like the Vandals in Africa, and the Goths in Spain, deposed their kings when they ceased to please them; and, amongst others, the power of the prince was limited in a thousand different ways; a great number of lords partook it with him; a war was never undertaken without their consent; the spoils were divided between the chief and the soldiers; and the laws were made in national assemblies. Here you have the fundamental principle of all those states which were formed from the ruins of the Roman Empire.

Venice, the 20th of the moon of Rhegeb, 1719.

Five or six months ago I happened to be in a coffee-house, where I observed a gentleman well enough dressed who had the ear of the company; he spoke of the pleasure which life in Paris gave him, and lamented that the state of his affairs obliged him to pine away in the country. “I have,” said he, “fifteen thousand livres of income from land, and I should think myself a happier man if I had a quarter of that property in money and in portable effects. In vain I put the screw on my tenants, and burden them with the expenses of lawsuits: it only makes them less solvent; I can never manage to see a hundred pistoles at a time. If my debts amounted to ten thousand francs, all my lands would be seized, and I would be brought to the workhouse.”

I left without having paid much attention to all this talk; but, finding myself yesterday in that quarter, I entered the same house, and there saw a solemn man, with a long pale face, who, in the midst of five or six chatterers, seemed sad and thoughtful, until he suddenly burst into the conversation, and said, in a loud voice, “Yes, gentlemen, I am ruined; I have nothing to live on, for I have at present at home two hundred thousand livres in bank-notes, and a hundred thousand crowns in money; my situation is frightful; I thought myself rich, and here I am a beggar; if I had only a small estate to which I could retire, I would be sure at least of a livelihood, but I have not as much land as would fill this hat.”

I happened to turn my head to the other side, and saw another man grimacing like one possessed. “Who can be trusted now?” cried he. “There is a traitor, whom I thought so much my friend, that I lent him my money; and he has paid it back! What abominable treachery! Whatever he may do now, in my opinion he will always be disgraced.”

Quite near him was a very ill-dressed man, who, raising his eyes to heaven, said, “God bless the schemes of our ministers! May stocks rise to two thousand livres, and may I see all the lacqueys of Paris richer than their masters!” I had the curiosity to ask what he was. “He is a very poor man,” they said, “with a very poor profession: he is a genealogist, and he hopes that his art will become profitable if fortunes continue to be made, and that all the nouveaux riches will have need of him to improve their names, polish up their ancestors, and adorn their coaches; he imagines that he is about to make as many people of quality as he wants to, and he trembles with joy at the thought of an increased practice.”

Lastly, I saw a pale thin man come in, whom I recognised for a Quidnunc before he had got seated; he was not one of those who are sure of victory in face of every reverse, and always predict triumphs and trophies; he was, on the contrary, a weak-kneed brother, whose news was always doleful. “Things have taken a very bad turn for us in Spain,” he said; “we have no cavalry on the frontier, and it is feared that Prince Pio, who has a large force, will fleece the whole of Languedoc.” Opposite me there sat a philosopher in shabby clothes, who held the Quidnunc in contempt, and shrugged his shoulders in proportion as the other grew loud. I approached him, and he whispered to me, “You see how this fop has plagued us for an hour with his fears for Languedoc; and I, who detected yesterday evening a spot in the sun, which, if it increases, may throw nature generally into a state of stagnation—I have not said a word about it.”

Paris, the 17th of the moon of Rhamazan, 1719.

The other day I visited a great library in a convent of dervishes, to whose care it has been entrusted, and who are obliged to admit all comers at certain hours. On entering I saw a grave-looking man, who walked up and down in the midst of a prodigious number of volumes which surrounded him. I approached him, and asked him to tell me what books those were which I saw better bound than others. “Sir,” he replied, “I live here in a strange land, where I know no one. Many people ask me similar questions; but you can easily understand how I cannot read all these books to satisfy them; my librarian will tell you all you wish, for he employs himself night and day in deciphering all you see here; he is a good-for-nothing, and is a great expense to us, because he does no work for the convent. But I hear the refectory bell. Those who, like me, are at the head of a community, ought to be foremost in all its exercises.” With that, the monk pushed me out, shut the door, and vanished from my sight as if he would have flown.

Paris, the 21st of the moon of Rhamazan, 1719.

Yesterday I returned to the same library, and met a man very different from him whom I had seen the first time. His manner was simple, his countenance intelligent, and his address most courteous. As soon as he understood my desire, he set himself to satisfy it, and even, as I was a stranger, to instruct me.

“Good father,” said I, “what are those large volumes which fill all that side of the library?” “These,” said he, “are interpretations of the Scriptures.” “What a quantity there are!” rejoined I; “the Scriptures must have been very obscure formerly, and cannot fail to be very obvious now. Do any doubts still remain? Are there any points left in dispute?” “Any, good heavens! any!” cried he; “there are almost as many as there are lines.” “Indeed!” said I; “then what have all these authors done?” “These authors,” he replied, “did not search the Scriptures for what ought to be believed, but for what they themselves believed; they did not regard the Scriptures as a work containing doctrines which they were bound to accept, but as a work which might sanction their own ideas; therefore it is that they have corrupted its meaning, and twisted every text. It is a country which all sects invade as if bent on pillage; it is a battlefield on which hostile nations encounter each other in endless engagements, attacking and skirmishing in every possible manner.

“Close to these you see books of asceticism and devotion; then books of morality, much more useful; theological tomes, doubly unintelligible, on account of the matter discussed, and the manner of treatment; and the works of the mystics, that is to say, of passionate-hearted devotees.” “Ah, my father!” said I, “stay a moment; tell me about these mystics.” “Sir,” said he, “devotion warms a heart inclined to passion, and the heat mounting to the brain, produces ecstasies and raptures. This is the delirium of devotion; often it develops, or rather degenerates into quietism: you must know that a quietist is nothing else than a madman, a devotee, and a libertine, all in one.

“There are the casuists, who expose the secrets of the night; who form in their fancy all the monsters which the demon of love can produce, collect them, compare them, and make them the everlasting subject of their thoughts; happy are they, if their hearts do not take part in them, and if they themselves do not become accomplices in the many debaucheries they describe with such simplicity and directness! You see, sir, that I think freely, and tell you all I think. I am naturally artless, and more so with you who are a stranger, desirous of information, and to know things as they are. If I wished, I could speak of all this with admiration, and be for ever saying, ‘It is divine, it is worthy of all reverence, it is truly marvellous!’ And there would happen one of two things: either I would deceive you, or I would lower myself in your regard.”

There we stopped; some business called away the dervish, and interrupted our conversation till the morrow.

Paris, the 23rd of the moon of Rhamazan, 1719.

I returned at the appointed time; and my friend led me to the very spot we had left. “Here,” he said, “are the grammarians, the glossers, and the commentators.” “Father,” said I, “have not all these people been able to dispense with common sense?” “Yes,” said he, “they have; and yet it does not appear, and their works are not a penny the worse, which is very convenient for them.” “True,” said I; “and I know plenty of philosophers who would do well to occupy themselves with sciences of this kind.”

“There,” continued he, “are the orators who can convince people without employing reason; and the geometers, who compel a man to be convinced in spite of himself, and conquer him by sheer force.

“Here are metaphysical books, which deal with very lofty concerns indeed, and in which the infinite meets one at every turning; books of physics, which detect nothing more marvellous in the economy of the vast universe, than in the simplest machine of our craftsmen.

“Books of medicine, those monuments of the frailty of nature and of the power of art, which when they treat even of the slightest disorders make us tremble by bringing the idea of death home to us; but which when they discuss the power of remedies make us feel as secure as if we were immortal.

“Near these are the books of anatomy, which do not so much contain descriptions of the parts of the human body, as the barbarous names which have been given them—neither likely to cure the patient of his disease nor the physician of his ignorance.

“Here are the alchemists, who inhabit now the hospital, now the madhouse, dwellings equally suitable for them.

“Here are books of science, or rather of occult ignorance; of such are those which contain any kind of sorcery—execrable according to most people; in my opinion contemptible. Such also are the books of judicial astrology.” “What do you say, father? The books of judicial astrology!” I cried with enthusiasm. “These are the books we make most of in Persia. They rule all the actions of our lives, and determine us in all our undertakings: in fact, the astrologers are our spiritual fathers, and more, for they take part in the government of the state.” “If that is so,” said he, “you live under a yoke much heavier than that of reason. Yours must be the strangest of all governments: I pity from my heart a family, and above all a nation, which permits the planets to have such ascendancy over them.” “We make use of astrology,” replied I, “just as you make use of algebra. Every nation has its proper science, according to which it guides its policy. All the astrologers together have never committed so many follies in Persia, as a single algebraist has done here. Do you think that the fortuitous concourse of the stars is not as sure a guide as all the fine reasoning of your system-monger? If the votes on that subject were counted in France and in Persia, astrology would have good reason to triumph; you would see the schemers properly humbled, from which how disastrous a corollary might be deduced against them!”

Our dispute was interrupted, and I had to leave him.

Paris, the 26th of the moon of Rhamazan, 1719.

At our next interview, my learned instructor took me into a separate room. “Here,” said he, “are the books of modern history. First of all, there are the historians of the Church, and of the Popes; books which I read for instruction, but which often produce in me an opposite effect.

“There are the books of those who have written of the decline of the great Roman empire, which was formed from the ruins of so many monarchies, and from the destruction of which there sprang as many again. An infinite number of barbarous nations, as unknown as the countries which they inhabited, suddenly appeared, overran the Roman empire, ravaged it, cut it to pieces, and founded all the kingdoms which you now see in Europe. These races were not altogether barbarians, because they were free; but they became so afterwards, as the most part of them, having submitted to absolute power, lost that sweet freedom, so conformable to reason, to humanity, and to nature.

“There you see the historians of the German empire, which is but a shadow of the Roman one; but which is, I believe, the only power on earth unweakened by faction, and I believe also, the only one which grows stronger from its losses, and which, tardy in profiting by success, becomes invincible in defeat.

“Here are the historians of France, who show us to begin with the power of kings taking shape; then we see it perish twice, and reappear only to languish through many ages; but, insensibly gathering strength and built up on all sides, it achieves its final stage: like those rivers which in their course lose their waters, or hide them under the earth; then reappearing again, swollen by the streams which flow into them, rapidly draw along with them all that opposes their passage.

“There you see the Spanish nation issuing from some mountains; the Mohammedan princes overcome as gradually as they had conquered quickly: many kingdoms joined in one vast monarchy, which became almost the only one; until, overborne by its own greatness and its fictitious wealth, it lost its strength and even its reputation, preserving only its original pride.

“These, again, are the historians of England. Here you may see liberty flaming up again and again from discord and sedition; the prince, always tottering upon an immovable throne; a nation impatient, but prudent in its rage; and which, mistress of the sea (a thing unheard-of before), combines commerce with power.

“Near by are the historians of that other queen of the sea, the Republic of Holland, so respected in Europe, and so feared in Asia, where its merchants behold many a king bow to the dust before them.

“The historians of Italy show you a nation once mistress of the world, now the common slave; its princes disunited and weak, with no other attribute of sovereignty than an ineffectual policy.

“There are the historians of the republics: of Switzerland, which is the type of liberty; of Venice, resourceless but for its own thrift; and of Genoa, superb only because of its buildings.

“And here are those of the north—among others, of Poland, which makes such a bad use of its liberty and of the right it possesses of electing its kings, that it would seem to be its intention thereby to console its neighbours which have lost both the one and the other.”

Thereupon we separated until next day.

Paris, the 2nd of the moon of Chalval, 1719.

Next morning he took me to another room. “Here,” he said, “we have the poets; that is to say, those authors whose business it is to shackle common sense, and to smother reason with embellishment, as women were formerly buried under their ornaments and jewellery. You must know them; they are not uncommon in the east, where a hotter sun seems to give new heat even to the imagination.”

“There are the epic poems.” “Ah! and what are epic poems?” “Indeed,” said he, “I don’t know; critics say that there were never more than two, and that the others, which go by the name, are not epics: that, too, I know nothing about. They say, besides, what is still more surprising, that it is impossible to make more.

“Here are the dramatic poets, which are, in my opinion, the best of all, and the masters of passion. There are two kinds: the comic dramatists, who move us so agreeably, and the tragic dramatists, who rouse our passions and shake our dispositions.

“And here are the lyric poets, whom I despise as much as I esteem the others, and who have reduced art to the production of melodious nonsense.

“Then come the authors of idylls and eclogues, which charm even courtiers, who imagine that they receive from them a feeling of serenity which they do not possess, and that they are brought face to face with the pastoral life.

“But of all the authors we have passed in review, here are the most dangerous: those, namely, who forge epigrams, little, sharp darts, which make a deep and incurable wound.

“Here you see the romances, whose authors are a sort of poet, and who are as extravagant in their wit as they are outrageous in their treatment of passion: they spend their lives seeking nature and never finding it: their heroes are about as natural as winged dragons and hippogriffs.”

“I have seen,” said I, “some of your romances, and if you could see ours, you would be yet more disgusted. They are as unnatural as yours, and, on account of our manners, excessively tedious; it takes ten years of devotion before a lover may be allowed as much as to see the face of his mistress. Yet the authors are compelled to conduct their readers through these wearisome preliminaries. As it is impossible that incidents should be endlessly varied, they have recourse to an artifice worse than the evil they would remedy; I mean the introduction of prodigies. I am sure you would not approve of a sorceress causing an army to spring out of the earth, or of a hero destroying single-handed a hundred thousand men. Yet such are our romances; the repetition of these dull adventures tires us out, and these absurd marvels disgust us.”

Paris, the 6th of the moon of Chalval, 1719.

Ministers succeed and destroy each other here like the seasons; during three years I have seen the financial system change four times. To-day taxes are levied in Turkey and Persia, as they were levied by the founders of these empires; a state of affairs very different from that which exists here. It is true that we do not set about it so intelligently as the people of the west. We imagine that there is no more difference between the administration of the revenues of a prince and the fortune of a private person, than there is between counting a hundred thousand tomans and counting only a hundred; but the matter is very much more delicate and mysterious. It requires the greatest geniuses to work night and day, inventing endless new schemes with all the pains of travail; they must listen to the advice of a multitude of people, who, unasked, meddle in their affairs; they have to retire and live shut up in closets inaccessible to the great, and worshipped by the small; they must always have their heads full of important secrets, miraculous plans, and new systems; and, being absorbed in thought, it behoves them to be deprived of the use of speech, and sometimes even of the ability to be polite.

No sooner had the late king died, than they thought of setting up a new administration. They felt that things were in a bad way; but knew not how to bring about a better state. They did not believe in the unlimited authority of the preceding ministers; they wished the power to be divided. For that purpose five or six councils were created, and that ministry was perhaps the wisest of all those which have governed France; it did not last long, and neither did the good which it brought to pass.

France, at the death of the late king, was a body overcome by a thousand disorders: N * * * took the knife in hand, cut away the useless flesh, and applied some local remedies. But there always remained an internal disease. A stranger came who undertook its cure. After many violent remedies, he imagined he had put it into good condition, whereas it had only become unhealthily stout.

All who were rich six months ago are now paupers, and those who lacked bread are rolling in wealth. These two extremities never before approached so near. This foreigner has turned the state as an old-clothes man turns a coat; he causes that to appear uppermost which was under, and that which was above he places beneath. What unexpected fortunes, incredible even to those who made them! God creates men out of nothing with no greater expedition. How many valets are now waited on by their fellows, and may to-morrow be served by their former masters!

The oddest things happen as a result of all this. Lacqueys, who made their fortune in the last reign, brag to-day of their birth: they avenge themselves upon those who have just doffed their livery in a certain street, for all the contempt poured out upon themselves six months before; they cry with all their might, “The nobility is ruined! What a chaotic condition the state is in! What confusion of ranks! Only nameless people now make fortunes!” And these nameless ones, you may be sure, will take their revenge on those who come after them; in thirty years as people of quality they will make sufficient noise in the world.

Paris, the 1st of the moon of Zilcade, 1720.

Here is an example of conjugal affection, wonderful in any woman, but much more so in a queen. The Queen of Sweden, having quite made up her mind that the prince, her husband, should share the government with her, in order to overcome all difficulties sent to the Assembly a declaration resigning the regency, provided they elected him.

Some sixty years ago or more another queen, called Christina, abdicated the throne in order to devote herself entirely to philosophy. I know not which of these two examples one ought to admire most.

Although I entirely approve of every one maintaining himself firmly in the station in which nature has placed him, and although I cannot praise the weakness of those who, feeling themselves inferior to their position, leave it by what is little short of desertion, yet I am much struck with the magnanimity of these two princesses, which enabled the mind of the one and the heart of the other to rise superior to their fortunes. Christina aspired to knowledge at an age when others think only of enjoyment; and the other wished to enjoy her power only that she might place her entire happiness in the hands of her noble husband.

Paris, the 27th of the moon of Maharram, 1720.

The Parliament of Paris has just been banished to a little town called Pontoise. The Council ordered it to register or approve a declaration dishonouring to it; and it registered it in a manner which dishonoured the Council.

Other parliaments of the kingdom are threatened with similar treatment.

These assemblies are always detested; they approach kings only to tell them disagreeable truths, and while a crowd of courtiers are never done representing to them that the people are quite happy under their rule, the parliaments come giving the lie to flattery, and carrying to the foot of the throne the tearful complaints committed to them.

When it is necessary to bear it into the presence of princes, truth, my dear Usbek, is a heavy burden! It ought therefore to be remembered that those who do so are constrained to it, and that they never would have made up their minds to a course so disagreeable and distressing for those who undertake it, if they were not compelled by their duty, their respect, and even by their affection.

Paris, the 21st of the first moon of Gemmadi, 1720.