However, if I must teU you what I think, I never cared greatly for the figurative 'style. In our Koran there are a great number *of trifles which always appear to me as such, although they receive distinction from the strength and liveliness of the style. At first these inspired books seemed to be only divine ideas stated in the language of mankind: on the contrary, however, one often finds in the Koran the language of God and the ideas of men; as if by some astonishing caprice, God had dictated the words, and man had supplied the thought.
You will say, perhaps, that I speak too freely of that which is held most sacred among us; regard it as the* outcome of the independence which distin- guishes this country. No; thanks to Heaven, my mind has not corrupted my heart, and while I live Hali shall be my prophet.
Paris, the 15th of the moon of Chahban, 1716.
LETTER XCIX Usbek to Ibben, at Smyrna There is no country in the world where fortune is more inconstant than in this. Every ten years a PERSIAN LETTERS revolution happens which plunges the wealthy into misery, and raises the poor on rapid wings to the summit of affluence. The one is astonished at his poverty; the other at his riches. The new-made rich man admires the wisdom of Providence; the pauper, the mischance of a blind fate.
Those who gather the taxes swim in wealth; and there are few Tantaluses among them. It is the extremity of misery, however, that (Jrives them into this employment. They are despised like dirt while they are poor; when they become rich, they are sufficiently respected, is they neglect nothing to acquire esteem. ' They are at present in a dreadful situation. They are about to establish a chamber of justice, so called because it is to strip them of all their wealth. They can neither transfer, nor hide their effects; for they are compelled to render an exact account, upon pain of death; thus they have to pass through a very narrow strait, I mean between their lives and their money. To fill up the cup of their misfortune, there is a minister, remarkable for his wit, who honours them with his jokes, and makes fun of all the delibera- tions of the council. It is not every day that ministers are to be found disposed to make the people laugh; and they ought to be much beholden to him for having undertaken to do so.
The body of footmen is more respectable in France than anywhere else; it is a nursery of great lords; it fills up the vacancies in other ranks. The members of it take the places of the unfortunate great, of ruined magistrates, of gentlemen killed in the fury of war; and when they are unable to find supply among themselves, they re-establish all the great families by means of their daughters, which are like LETTER C a kind of manure enfiching barren and mountainous soil.
I find, Ibben, the ways of Providence in the distribu- tion of wealth admirable. If riches had been granted only to good people, they would not have been suffi- ciently distinguished from virtue, and their insigni- ficanie would not have been fully recognised. But when we consider who are the people most loaded with them, by dint cf despising the rich, we come to despise riches.
Paris, the 26th of the moon Oj[ Maharram, 1717.
LETTER C Rica to Rhedi, at Venice The caprices of fashion among the French are amaz- ing. They have forgotten how they were dressed this summer; they know as little how the5^ will be dressed in the winter; but, above all, you would never believe how much it costs a husband to dress his wife in the fashion. Where is the use of my giving you a full description of their dress and ornaments? A new fashion would destroy all my labour as it does that of the dressmakers; and before you could receive my letter all would be changed.
A woman who leaves Paris to spend six months in the country, returns from it as out of date as if she had been forgotten for thirty years. The son does not know the portrait of his mother, so strange does the dress in which she was painted appear to him; he imagines that it represents some American, or that the painter wished to express a fancy of his own.
Sometimes the headdresses grow gradually to a PERSIAN LETTERS great height, until a revolutioa brings them down suddenly. They grew so lofty once that a woman’s face seemed to be in the centre of her anatomy; at another time it was the feet that occupied that place, the heels fonping a pedestal which raised them into the air. Would you believe it? Architects have often been obliged to raise, to lower, or to widen, their doors, according to the change in the women’s dresses; and the rules of their art have had to yield to such caprices. Sometimes one sees upon a face an im- mense quantity of patches, which are all gone next day. Formerly women liad figures and teeth; now these are of no consequence. In this changeable nation, whatever ill-natured wags may say, the daughters are differently made from the mothers.
As with their fashions, so is it with their customs and style of living: French manners change with the age of the king. The monarch -could even succeed in making his people solemn if he chose to try. He im- presses his owif characteristics upon the court, the court upon the city, and the city on the provinces. The soul of the sovereign is a mould in which all the others are formed. ‘ Paris, the 8th of the moon of Saphar, 1717.
LETTER Cl Rica to the Same I TOLD you the other day of the extraordinary incon- stancy of the French in their fashions. Yet it is inconceivable to what an extent they are infatuated about them; everything is swayed by them; fashion is the rule by which they judge what is done in other LETTER Cl nations; whatever ie foreign always seems to them ridiculous. I confess that I hardly know how to reconcile this bigoted devotion to their customs with the inconstancy which changes them every day.
When I say that they despise eve:^thing foreign, I mean only trifles; for in important matters they are s^ diffident as almost to degrade themselves. They confess with the greatest goodwill that the other nations are wi^er, if you grant that they are better dressed; they are willing to submit themselves to the laws of a rival nation, provided French wig-makers may decide, like legislatots, the form of foreign perukes. Nothing seems to them more glorious than to see the taste of their cooks reigning from north to south, and the decrees of their tire-women obeyed in every boudoir of Europe.
With these noble advantages, what does it matter to them that their vdsdom comes from others, and that they have derived from their neighbours every- thing relating to political and civil government?
Who would imagine that the most ancient and powerful kingdom in Europe has been governed for ten ceftturies by laws which were not made for it? If the French had been conquered, it would not be difficult to understand, but they are the conquerors.
They have abandoned the old laws made by their first kings in the general assemblies of the nations; and, singularly enough, the Roman laws which have been substituted, were partly made and partly digested by emperors contemporary with their own legislators.
And, to make the borrowing complete, and in order that all their wisdom might come from others, they have adopted all the constitutions of the Popes, and have made them a new part of their law: a new kind of slavery.
PERSIAN LETTERS Latterly, it is true, they h«ive drawn up some provincial statutes and by-laws; but they are nearly all taken from the Roman law.
So great is the multitude of adopted, and, so to speak, naturalised laws, that it oppresses alike justice and judges, liut these volumes of law are nothing in comparison with the appalling army of glossers,^ com- mentators, and compilers, a tribe as feeble by the inferiority of their minds, as they are^strong by their immense numbers.
This is not all; these foreign laws have introduced formalities so excessive ao to be a disgrace to human reason. It would be very difficult to decide whether pedantry has been more hurtful in jurisprudence or in medicine; whether it has played more mischief under the cloak of a lawyer, or the broad brim of a physician; and whether the one has ruined more people than the other has killed.
Paris, the 17th of the moon of Saphar* 1717.
LETTER CII Usbek to * * * They are always talking here of the Constitution.^ The other day I went into a certain house, where the first person I saw was a fat man with a red face, who said in a loud voice, " I have issued my charge; I shall make no further reply to anything you may say; but read my charge, and you will see that I have solved all your doubts. I sweated over it,” he con- tinued, pressing his brow with his hand; “I had need 1 The Bull Unigeniius, directed against the Jansenists. (See Letter XXIV.)
LETTER cm of all my learning, and was obliged to read many Latin authors.” “ I believe it,” said a man who was standing by, ” for it is an admirable work; and I altogether defy that Jesuit who comes so often to see you to write a better.” “ Read it, then,” replied he, " and you will know more of these matters in a quarter of an^hour than if I had talked to you about them for a whole day.” In this way he avoided engaging in con- versation and {he exposure of his own incompetence. But finding himself pressed, he was obliged to leave his entrenchment, and began to titter a mass of theo- logical nonsense, supported tiy a dervish who received his remarks with the utmost respect^ When two men who were present denied any of his principles, he said at once, ” It is true; we have so decided it, and we are infallible judges.” “ But how,” said I, " are you infallible judges? ” “Do you not see,” he replied, “ that the Holy Ghost enlightens us? ” “ That is fortunate,” I rejoined, “ for from the style of your talk to-day, I perceive how much»you need to be enlightened.”
Paris, the i8th of the first moon of Rcbiab, 1717.
LETTER cm Usbek to Ibben, at Smyrna The most powerful states in Europe are those of the Emperor, and of the kings of France, Spain, and England. Italy, and a large part of Germany, are divided into a great number of small states, the princes of which are, properly speaking, martyrs to sovereignty. Our glorious sultans have more wives than some of these princes have subjects. Those of PERSIAN LETTERS Italy, being less united, are nw^t to be pitied; their states are as open as caravansaries, in which they are forced to accommodate the first comer: they therefore require to join themselves to great princes, and share their fears with them rather than their friendship. ]&ost European governments are mon- archical, or rather are called so; for I do not ^know whether there ever was a government truly mon- archical; at least they cannot have^ continued very long in their original purity. It is a state in which might is right, and which degenerates always into a despotism or a republio'. Authority can never be equally divided betw’een the people and the prince; it is too difficult to maintain an equilibrium; power must diminish on one side while it increases on the other; but the advantage is usually with the prince, as he commands the army.
Accordingly, the power of thq kings of Spain is very great; one may say that they have as much as they desire, but they, do not exercise it to such a degree as our sultans: firstly, because they are not willing to offend the manners and the religion of the people; secondly, because it is not in their own intertsts to carry things with so high a hand.
Nothing brings our princes nearer the condition of their subjects than the immense power which they wield over them; nothing makes them more subject to reverses and caprices of fortune.
The custom which princes have of putting to death all those who displease them upon the slightest pre- tence, destroys the proportion which ought to exist between crime and punishment; and that proportion, scrupulously preserved by the Christian princes, gives them an immeasurable advantage over our sultans.
LETTER cm A Persian who, imprudently or by mischance, draws upon himself the displeasure of his prince, is sure to die; the slightest fault or the slightest caprice reduces him to that necessity. But if he had attempted the life of his soverei^, if he had intended to betray his towns to the enemy, he woul^ have atoned as before by losing his life; he runs no greater risk in the latter case than in the former.
And so, under the least disgrace, death being certain and nothing worse to fear, he naturally applies himself to disturb the state, and to Conspire against the sove- reign — his only remaining resource.
It is not the same with the grandees of Europe, who, when in disgrace, lose only the royal favour and goodwill. They withdraw from the court and give themselves up to enjoy a quiet life and the privileges of their birth; as they are seldom done to death except for high treason, they dread to commit that crime, remembering what they ma}^ lose, and how little they are likely to gain; this is why one sees here few rebellions, and few princes who die a violent death. * If, with that unlimited powerwhich our princes have, they did not take every precaution for the safety of their lives, they would not live a single day; and if they had not in their pay innumerable troops to coerce their other subjects, their rule would not last for a month.
It is only some four or five centuries since a king of France,^ contrary to the custom of the times, levied guards to secure himself from the assassins which a petty prince of Asia * had sent to kill him; till that ^ Philip-Augustus.
* He who was called the old man of the mountains.*' PERSIAN LETTERS time kings had lived peacefullypamong their subjects, like fathers with their children.
Although the kings of France are quite unable, of their own motion, to take away the hfe of one of their subjects like our sultans, yet they carry about with them always mercy for all criminals; that he should have been fortunate enough to behold the august countenance of his prince, is sufficient to make a man once more worthy to live. Thfse monarchs are like the sun, which sheds everywhere heat and life.
•I Paris, the 8th of the second moon of Rebiab, 1717.^ LETTER CIV Usbek to the Same Here you have as nearly as I can, continuing the subject of my last letter, wh?t a sensible European said to me recently.
“ The worst course which the princes of Asia could have adopted, is to shut themselves up as they do. They desire to render themselves more venerable; but it is royalty which they cause to be respected, and not the king; they attach the minds of their subjects to a certain throne, and not to a certain person.
“ When the power that governs is invisible it is always the same to the people. Although ten kings, known only by name, should have their throats cut one after the other, the public are sensible of no differ- ence: it is as if they were governed by a succession of spirits.
“ If the detestable murderer of our great king, Henry IV., had •assassinated one of the kings of Ind, master of the royal seal, and of an immense treasure LETTER CIV which would seem to,^ave been amassed for him, he would peacefully have seized the reins of power, without its entering into any one’s mind to inquire after the king, his relations, and children.
“ We are astonished that there is hardly ever any change in the government of eastern princes: how could it be otherwise, when we bear in mind their terrible tyranny?
“ Changes cannot be effected except by the prince or by the people: but there the princes take care to alter nothing, because, possessed of such absolute power, they have alt they lan have: were they to make any change it could only be to Iheir own injury.
“As to the subjects, should one of them form any design, he cannot execute it upon the state; it would be necessary to overturn at one blow a most formid- able and unchanging power; for this he lacks time and means: but he hjis only to attack the source of that power, for which all he needs is an arm and a moment of time.
“ The murderer mounts the throne, as the monarch leaves it and falls expiring at his feet.
“ In ‘Europe a malcontent thinks of carrying on a secret correspondence, of going over to the enemy, of seizing some town, or of exciting foolish complaints among the people. A malcontent in Asia goes straight to the prince, amazes, strikes, overthrows: he obliterates all memory of his existence: in one moment slave and master, usurper and lawful sove- reign.
" Unfortunate is the king who has only one head! In guarding it with all his power he only shows the first upstart where to strike.”
Paris, the 17th of the second moon of Rebiab, 1717.
PERSIAN LETTERS LETTER CV Usbek to the Same All the nations of Europe are not equally subrpissive to their princes: the impatient humour of the English, for instance, leaves their king hardly qny time to make his authority felt. Submission and obedience are virtues upon which they flatter themselves but little. On this subject they < say most amazing things. According to them there is only one tie which can bind men, and that is gratitude: husband and wife, father and son, are only bound to each other by their mutual affection, or by the services they do each other: and these various motives of obligation are the origin of all kingdoms and communities, But if a prince, instead of making the lives of his subjects happy,‘attempts to oppress and ruin them, the basis of obedience is destroyed; nothing binds them, nothing attaches them to him; and they return to their natural liberty. They maintain that ‘all un- limited power must be unlawful, because it cannot have had a lawful origin. For, we cannot, say they, give to another more power over us than we ourselves have: now, we have not unlimited power over our- selves; for example, we have no right to take our own lives: no one upon earth then, they conclude, has such a power.
The crime of high treason is nothing else, according to them, than the crime of the weaker against the stronger, simply disobedience, no matter what form the disobedience may take. Thus the people of England, finding themselves stronger than one of LETTER CVI their kings, ^ pronounaed it high treason in a prince to make war upon his subjects. They have therefore good reason to say that the precept of their Koran,* which requires submission to the powers that be, is not a very difficult one to follow, seeing that it is impossible not to do so, inasmuch as they are not enjoiqed to submit to the most virtuous, but to the strongest.
The English.tell how one of their kings, having conquered and taken prisoner a prince who disputed his right to the crown, began to Sreproach him with his faithlessness and treachery,* when the unfortunate prince replied, “ It was decided only a moment ago which of us two is the traitor.”
A usurper declares all those rebels who have not, like him, oppressed their country; and believing that where there are no judges there are no laws, he causes the caprices of chance* and fortune to be reverenced like the decrees of Heaven.
Pans, the 20th of the second moon of Rebiab, 1717.
LETTER CVI Rhedi to Usbek, at Paris In one of your letters you said much to me about the arts and sciences cultivated in the west. You are inclined to regard me as a barbarian; but I am not certain that the profit derived from them recom- penses men for the bad use to which they are put every day. I have heard it said that the invention of bombs alone has deprived all the nations of Europe of freedom. The princes being no longer able to trust 1 Charles I. * The New Testament.
PERSIAN LETTERS the guardianship of towns to the citizens, who would surrender them at the first bomb, have made it a pretext for keeping large bodies of regular troops, whom they have since used to oppress their subjects.
You know /hat since the invention of gunpowder no place is impregnable; that is to say, Usbek, that there is no longer upon the earth a refuge from in- justice and violence.
I dread always lest they should at last discover some secret which will furnish them with a briefer method of destroying men, by killing them off whole- sale in tribes an^ nations.
You have read the historians: think of them seriously; almost all monarchies have been founded upon ignorance of the arts, and have been destroyed by their over-cultivation. The ancient empire of Persia may furnish us with an example at our own doors. ■ I have not been long in Europe; yet I have heard sensible people‘'‘talk of the ravages of alchemy. It seems to be a fourth plague, which ruins men, destroy- ing them one by one, but continually; while war, pestilence, and famine destroys them in the mass, but at intervals.
Of what advantage has the invention of the mariner’s compass been to us, and the discovery of so many nations who have given us more diseases than wealth? Gold and silver have been established by a general agreement as the means of purchasing all goods, and as a pledge of their value, because these metals are rare, and useless for any other purpose: of what consequence was it to us, then, that they should become more common, and that to mark the value of any commodity, we should have two or three signs in place of one? This was only more inconvenient.
LETTER evil LETTER evil But, on the other Jiand, this invention has been hurtful to the countries of the New World. Entire nations have been destroyed; and those who have escaped death have been reduced to a slavery so dreadful, that the description of it makes even a Mussulman shudder.
Happy in their ignorance are the children of Mohammed! Their amiable simplicity, so dear to our holy Prophet, perpetually recalls to me the art- lessness of the olden time, and the peace which reigned in the hearts of our first’ fathers.
Venice, the 5th of the moon of Rhamazan, 1717.
LETTER evil Usbek to Jthedi, at Venice You do not think as you say, or else your actions are better than your thoughts. You left your country to acquire knowledge, and you despise all knowledge; you go to form yourself in a country where the fine arts are cultivated, and you regard them as hurtful. May I say it, Rhedi? — I am more of your mind than you are yourself.
Have you properly considered the barbarous and unhappy condition which the loss of the arts ^ would entail upon us? There is no need to imagine it; it can be seen. There are still people upon the earth, among whom a tolerably trained monkey could live with credit; he would be almost on a level with the other inhabitants; and they would not think him a curious creature, or an odd character; he would pass 1 Used by Montesquieu as inclusive of both the industrial and the fine arts.
PERSIAN LETTERS as well as another, and would* even be distinguished by his elegance.
You say that the founders of empires have almost all been ignorant of the arts. I do not deny that barbarians have poured over the earth like impetuous torrents, and covered with their wild armies the most civilised kingdoms; but, observe this, they ^learnt the arts, or made the conquered races exercise them; without that, their power would havej)assed away like the noise of a thunderstorm.
You fear, you say, 'that some more dreadful method of destruction than thclc at present in use will be invented. No; if a fatal invention were to be brought out, it would soon be prohibited by the law of nations, and suppressed by unanimous consent. It is not in the interest of princes to make conquests by such means; they wish to gain subjects, not soil.
You complain of the invention of gunpowder and bombs: you think it strange that no place should now be impregnable — that is to say, you think it strange that wars should be brought to an end sooner to-day than they were formerly.
You must have remarked in reading histoty, that since the invention of gunpowder, battles are much less bloody than they used to be, because the armies are seldom intermingled.
Why, because an art is foimd injurious in some particular instance, should it be rejected entirely? Do you think, Rhedi, that the religion which our holy Prophet brought from Heaven is harmful, because one day it will serve to confound the unbelieving Christians?
You think that the arts enervate people, and are therefore the cause of the fall of empires. You speak of the fall of that of the ancient Persians, which was LETTER evil the result of their effeminacy; but this example is not by any means decisive, since the Greeks, who defeated them so often, and conquered them, were much more assiduous than they in the cultivation of the arts.
When they talk of the arts making men effeminate, they are not referring at all to the people that work at them, since they know nothing of indolence, which of all vices weakens courage the most.
It is, then, those who enjoy the fruits of labour who are intended. But, as in a civilised country those who enjoy the products of one art are obliged to cultivate another on pain of being reduced to a shame- ful poverty, it follows that indolence and effeminacy are incompatible with the arts.
Paris is perhaps the most luxurious city in the world; in it pleasure is carried to the highest pitch of refinement; yet life''there is perhaps harder than in any other city. That one man may hve dehcately a hundred must labour without intermission. It comes into a lady’s head that she ought to appear at an assembly in a certain dress; from that moment fifty workmen must go without sleep, and without time to eat or drink; she commands, and is obeyed as promptly as our monarch would be, because interest is the greatest monarch in the world.
This ardour for work, this passion for wealth, nms through every rank, from the workmen up to the highest in the land. Nobody likes to be poorer than he who is his immediate inferior. You may see at Paris a man with sufficient to live on till the end of the world, labouring constantly, and running the risk of shortening his days, to scrape together, as he says, a livelihood.
The same spirit prevails throughout the nation; PERSIAN LETTERS nothing is to be seen but toil and industry. Where, tlien, is this effeminate people of which you talk so much?
I will suppose a kingdom, Rhedi, in which only those arts absolutely necessary for the cultivation of the land are pillowed, which amount after all to a goodly number; and that all those which minister only to pleasure or to fancy are banished; I piain- tain that that state would be one of the most miserable in the whole world. r Though the inhabitants might have sufficient hardihood to do without so many things which their needs require, the people Vould decay daily; and the state would become so feeble, that there would be no force too petty to overcome it.
It would be easy to discuss this in detail, and to show you that the incomes of the subjects would cease almost entirely, and consequently that of the prince. There would hardly •-be any exchange of goods among the citizens, and there would be an end of that circulatibn of wealth, and of that increase of revenue, which arises from the dependence of the arts upon each other; each person would live upon his land, and would take from it only just endugh to keep him from d3dng of hunger. But as this is some- times not a twentieth part of the revenue of a state, the number of the inhabitants would diminish in proportion, until there remained of them also only a twentieth.
Consider attentively how much the revenue of industry amounts to. Land produces annually to its owner only a twentieth part of its value; but with one pistole-worth of colour a painter will make a picture which will be worth fifty. The like may be said of goldsmiths, of workers in wool and sUk, and of all kinds of artisans.
LETTER CVIII From all this, one*may conclude, Rhedi, that if a prince is to be powerful, it is necessary that his sub- jects should live in luxury; he ought to labour to procure all sorts of superfluities with as much care as the necessities of life.
Paris, the 14th of the moon of Chalval, 1717.
LETTER CVIII Rica to Ibben.^at Smyrna I HAVE seen the young king.‘ His life is very precious to his people: it is not less so to the whole of Europe. But kings are like gods; and a5 long as they live must be considered immortal. His face is majestic but pleasing; a good education in conjunction with a happy disposition, alr<eady give promise of a great prince.
They say that one can never tell 4;he character of the kings of the west until they have passed through the two great ordeals of selecting their mistress and their c(»ifessor. We shall shortly see the one and the other labouring to possess the mind of this one: and on that account he will become the subject of great contentions. For under a young prince these two powers are always rivals; but they are reconciled and leagued together under an old one. Under a young prince a dervish has a very difficult part to play; the king’s strength is his weakness; but the other triumphs alike in both his strength and his weakness.
When I arrived in France, I found the late king altogether governed by women, although at his age I believe him to have been the one monarch in the 1 Louis XV., born 15th February 1710.
PERSIAN LETTERS world who had least need of them. I heard a woman say one day, " Something must be done for that young colonel; I know his worth; I will speak to the minister for him.” Another said, " It is surprising that that youi^ abbe should have been overlooked; he must be made a bishop; he is well-born, and I can answer for his morals.” You must not however suppose that the women who talked in this way were favourites of the prince: they had perhaps not spoken twice to him all their lives; which is never- theless a very easy thing to do with European princes. But there is not a single fJerson employed in any way at the court, in Paris, or in the provinces, who is not acquainted with some woman through whose hands pass all the favours and sometimes all the wrongs which he may wish done. These women are all in each other’s secrets, and form a sort of republic, the members of which are always busy aiding and serving each other; it is like a state within a state; and any one at court, in ‘Paris, or in the provinces, who sees the activity of the ministers, the magistrates, and the prelates, if he does not know the women who govern them, is like a man who sees a machine at work, but who is ignorant of the springs that move it.
Do you think, Ibben, that a woman consents to be the mistress of a minister for love of him? What an idea! It is in order that she may lay before him every morning five or six petitions; and the good- ness of these women appears in the zeal with which they serve an infinite number of unfortunate people, who obtain for them an income of a hundred thousand livres.
They complain in Persia that the kingdom is governed by two or three women: it is much worse in France, where the women govern generally, and not LETTER CIX only usurp all authority wholesale, but retail it among themselves.
Paris, the last day of the moon of Chalval, 1717.
LETTER CIX Usbek to * * * There is a species of book unknown to us in Persia, and which seems to me to be very fashionable here: these are the journals. ‘ fdleness ^feels flattered in reading them; it is so delightful to be able to run through thirty volumes in a quarter of an hour.
In most of these books, the author has not made the ordinary compliments, before the reader is in despair; he is made to enter half dead upon a subject drowned in the midst of a s&a of words. This one would immortalise himself in duodecimo, that one in quarto; another with loftier propensities ainTs at a folio; he must therefore extend his subject in proportion; which he does without mercy, counting as nothing the trouble of the poor reader, who worries himself to death reducing what the author took such pains to amplify.
I cannot see, * * *, what merit there is in making such works; I could do it myself quite well, if I chose to ruin my health and a publisher.
The chief fault of these journalists is, that they talk only of new books; as if truth were always new. It seems to me that until a man has read all the old books, he has no right to prefer the new ones.
But when they lay it down as a law that they must 1 The French journals of the eighteenth century contained nothing but notices of new books.
PERSIAN Letters never speak except of works hot' from the press, they impose upon themselves another — ^which is, to be very tedious. They are very chary of criticising the works from which they make extracts, whatever their reason may be^ and, indeed, what man is bold enough to wish to make ten or twelve enemies every month?
Most authors are like poets, who will take a craning without a murmur; but who, indifferent as to their shoulders, are so very jealous of their vwks, that they cannot endure the least criticism. It is necessary then to be very careful not to attack them in so sensitive a spot j and the journalists know it well. They therefore do just the contrary: they begin by praising the matter treated of; from this their first ineptitude they pass to the praise of the author, forced praise, for they have to do with people who are always on the alert, ever ready to see justice done themselves, and to attack with trenchant pen a fool-hardy journalist.
Paris, the 5th of the moon of Zilcade, 1718.
LETTER CX Rica to * * * The University of Paris is the first-born daughter of the kings of France, and very aged; for she is more than nine hundred years old; and so she dotes now and again.
I have been told that she had at one time a great dispute with some doctors about the letter Q,^ which * He means the dispute with Ramus. — (M.) Dr. Ramus (Pierre de la Ram6e), Professor in the College Royal, wished to say kiskis and kankam instead of quisquis and quanquam. He was assassinated on the third day of the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
LETTER CXI they wanted to pronounce like K. The quarrel grew so warm that some of the disputants were despoiled of their substance. It became necessary for parlia- ment to put an end to it; which it did by permitting, in a solemn decree, all the subjects of the king of France to pronounce that letter according to their fanej^. It was very amusing to see the two most venerable institutions in Europe occupied in deciding the fate of a letter of the alphabet!
It seems, my dear * * *, that the ablest men grow stupid when they get togetlfer; and that, where you have the greatest number of wise men, there you have the least wisdom. Great bo^es always pay so much attention to minor details, and idle customs, that essentials are never considered till afterwards.
I have heard it said that a king of Arragon,* having assembled the states of Arragon and Catalonia, the first sessions were spont in deciding in what language the deliberations should be held: the dispute was lively, and the states would have broken up a thousand times, if they had not hit upon the expedient of putting ' the question in the Catalonian tongue, and the reply in that of Arragon.
Paris, the 25th of the moon of Zilhage, 1718.
LETTER CXI Rica to * * * The rdle of a fine lady is much more serious than one would imagine. Nothing could be more important 1 Philip III., King of Spain.
PERSIAN LETTERS than what takes place in the nv>ming at her toilette among her servants: a general of an army devotes no more attention to the disposition of his right or of his reserve corps, than she gives to placing a patch which may fail, but from which she hopes or foresees success.
What mental worry, what care, to be continually reconciling the interests of two rivals; to appear neutral to both, while she is giving herself to each of them; and to act the part of peacemaker in all the strife she makes between them!
How she is occupied * with the success and the renewal of pleasuVe parties, and in the prevention of all accidents that might interrupt them!
And with it all, the greatest trouble is taken, not to amuse oneself, but to appear to be amused. Bore them as much as you like, they will forgive you, so long as it is understood that ihey have been very merry.