LETTER XLVIII
Usbek to Rhedi, at Venice
Those who take pleasure in their own instruction
are never idle. Although I am not employed on any business of importance,
I am yet constantly occupied. I spend my time observing, and at night
I write down what I have noticed, what I have seen, what I have heard,
during the day. I am interested in everything, astonished at everything;
I am like a child, whose organs, still over-sensitive, are vividly impressed
by the merest trifles.1
You would scarcely believe it, but we have been well received
in all circles, and among all classes. This is largely owing to the
quick wit and natural gaiety of Rica, which lead him to seek out everybody,
and make him equally sought after. Our foreign aspect offends nobody;
indeed, we are delighted at the surprise which people show on finding us
not altogether without manners; for the French imagine that men are not
among the products of our country. Nevertheless, I must admit that
they are well worth undeceiving.
I spent some days in the country near Paris
at the house of a man of some note, who delights in having company with
him. He has a very amiable wife, who, along with great modesty, possesses
what the secluded life they lead stifles in our Persian women, a charming
gaiety.
Stranger as I was, I had nothing better to do than to study the
crowd of people who came and went without ceasing, affording me a constant
change of subject for contemplation. I noticed at once one man, whose
simplicity pleased me; I allied myself with him, and he with me, in such
a manner that we were always together.
One day, as we were talking quietly in a large company, leaving
the general conversation to the others, I said, “You will perhaps find
in me more inquisitiveness than good manners; but I beg you to let me ask
some questions, for I am wearied to death doing nothing, and of living
with people with whom I have nothing in common. My thoughts have
been busy these two days; there is not one among these men who has not
put me to the torture two hundred times; in a thousand years I would never
understand them; they are more invisible to me than the wives of our great
king.” “You have only to ask,” replied he, “and I will tell you all
you desire – the more willingly because I think you a discreet man, who
will not abuse my confidence.”
“Who is that man,” said I, “who has told us
so much about the banquets at which he has entertained the great, who is
so familiar with your dukes, and who talks so often to your ministers,
who, they tell me, are so difficult of access? He ought surely to
be a man of quality; but his aspect is so mean that he is hardly an honour
to the aristocracy; and, besides, I find him deficient in education.
I am a stranger; but it seems to me that there is, generally speaking,
a certain tone of good-breeding common to all nations, and I do not find
it in him. Can it be that your upper classes are not so well trained
as those of other nations?” “That man,” answered he, laughing, “is
a farmer-general; he is as much above others in wealth, as he is inferior
to us all by birth. He might have the best people in Paris at his
table, if he could make up his mind never to eat in his own house.
He is very impertinent, as you see; but he excels in his cook, and is not
ungrateful, for you heard how he praised him to-day.”
“And that big man dressed in black,” said
I, “whom that lady has placed next her? How comes he to wear a dress
so solemn, with so jaunty an air, and such a florid complexion? He
smiles benignly when he is addressed; his attire is more modest, but not
less carefully adjusted than that of your women.” “That,” answered
he, “is a preacher, and, which is worse, a confessor. Such as he
is, he knows more of their own affairs than the husbands; he is acquainted
with the women’s weak side, and they also know his.” “Ha!” cried
I, “he talks for ever of something he calls Grace?” “No, not always,”
was the reply; “in the ear of a pretty woman he speaks more willingly of
the Fall: in public, he is a son of thunder; in private, as gentle as a
lamb.” “It seems to me,” said I, “that he receives much attention,
and is held in great respect.” “In great respect! Why! he is
a necessity; he is the sweetener of solitude; then there are little lessons,
officious cares, set visits; he cures a headache better than any man in
the world; he is incomparable.”
“But, if I may trouble you again, tell me
who that ill-dressed person is opposite us? He makes occasional grimaces,
and does not speak like the others; and without wit enough to talk, he
talks that he may have wit.” “That,” answered he, “is a poet, the
grotesquest of human kind. These sort of people declare that they
are born what they are; and, I may add, what they will be all their lives,
namely, almost always, the most ridiculous of men; and so nobody spares
them; contempt is cast upon them from every quarter. Hunger has driven
that one into this house. He is well received by its master and mistress,
as their good-nature and courtesy are always the same to everybody.
He wrote their epithalamium when they were married, and it is the best
thing he has done, for the marriage has been as fortunate as he prophesied
it would be.
“You will not believe, perhaps,” added he,
“prepossessed as you are in favour of the East, that there are among us
happy marriages, and wives whose virtue is a sufficient guard. This
couple, here, enjoy untroubled peace; everybody loves and esteems them;
only one thing is amiss: in their good-nature they receive all kinds of
people, which makes the company at their house sometimes not altogether
unexceptionable. I, of course, have nothing to say against it; we
must live with people as we find them; those who are said to be well-bred
are often only those who are exquisite in their vices; and perhaps it is
with them as with poisons, the more subtle, the more dangerous.”
“And that old man,” I whispered, “who looks
so morose? I took him at first for a foreigner; because, in addition
to being dressed differently from the rest, he condemns everything that
is done in France, and disapproves of your government.” “He is an
old soldier,” said he, “who makes himself memorable to all his hearers
by the tedious story of his exploits. He cannot endure the thought
that France has gained any battles without him, nor hear a siege bragged
of at which he did not mount the breach. He believes himself so essential
to our history that he imagines it came to an end when he retired; some
wounds he has received mean, simply, the dissolution of the monarchy; and,
unlike the philosophers who maintain that enjoyment is only in the present,
and that the past is as if it had not been, he, on the contrary, delights
in nothing but the past, and exists only in his old campaigns; he breathes
the air of the age that has gone by, just as heroes ought to live in that
which is to come.” “But why,” I asked, “has he quitted the service?”
“He has not quitted it, but it has quitted him. He has been employed
in a small post, where he will retail his adventures for the rest of his
days; but he will never get any further; the path of honour is closed to
him.” “And why?” asked I. “It is a maxim in France,”
replied he, “never to advance officers whose patience has been worn out
as subalterns; we look upon them as men whose minds have been narrowed
by detail; and who, through a constant application to small things, are
become incapable of great ones. We believe that a man who, at thirty,
has not the qualities of a general, will never have them; that he, whose
glance cannot take in at once a tract of several leagues as if from every
point of view, who is not possessed of that presence of mind which in victory
leaves no advantage unimproved, and in defeat employs every resource, will
never acquire such capacity. Therefore we employ in brilliant services
those great, those sublime men, on whom Heaven has bestowed not only the
courage, but the genius of the hero; and in inferior services those whose
talents are inferior. Of this number are such as have grown old in
obscure warfare; they can succeed only at what they have been doing all
their lives; and it would be ill-advised to start them on fresh employment
when age has weakened their powers.”
A moment after, curiosity again seized me, and I
said, “I promise not to ask another question if you will only answer this
one. Who is that tall young man who wears his own hair, and has more
impertinence than wit? How comes it that he speaks louder than the
others, and is so charmed with himself for being in the world?” “That
is a great lady-killer,” he replied. With these words some people
entered, others left, and all rose. Some one came to speak
to my acquaintance, and I remained in my ignorance. But shortly after,
I know not by what chance, the young man in question found himself beside
me, and began to talk. “It is fine weather,” he said. “Will
you take a turn with me in the garden? I replied as civilly as I
could, and we went out together. “I have come to the country,” said
he, “to please the mistress of the house, with whom I am not on the worst
of terms. There is a certain woman in the world who will be rather
out of humour; but what can one do? I visit the finest women in Paris;
but I do not confine my attentions to one; they have plenty to do to look
after me, for, between you and me, I am a sad dog.” “In that case,
sir,” said I, “you doubtless have some office or employment which prevents
you from waiting on them more assiduously?” “No, sir; I have no other
business than to provoke husbands, and drive fathers to despair; I delight
in alarming a woman who thinks me hers, and in bringing her within an ace
of losing me. A set of us young fellows divide up Paris among us
in this pursuit, and keep it wondering at everything we do.” “From
what I understand,” said I, “you make more stir than the most valorous
warrior, and are more regarded than a grave magistrate. If you were
in Persia, you would not enjoy all these advantages; you would be held
fitter to guard our women than to please them.” “The blood mounted
to my face; and I believe, had I gone on speaking, I could not have refrained
from affronting him.
What say you to a country where such people
are tolerated, and where a man who follows such a profession is allowed
to live? Where faithlessness, treachery, rape, deceit, and injustice
lead to distinction? Where a man is esteemed because he has bereaved
a father of his daughter, a husband of his wife, and distresses the happiest
and purest homes? Happy the children of Hali who protect their families
from outrage and seduction! Heaven’s light is not purer than the
fire that burns in the hearts of our wives; our daughters think only with
dread of the day when they will be deprived of that purity, in virtue of
which they rank with the angels and the spiritual powers. My beloved
land, on which the morning sun looks first, thou art unsoiled by those
horrible crimes which compel that star to hide his beams as he approaches
the dark West!
1Montesquieu describes himself in this passage.
Paris, the 5th of the moon of Rhamazan, 1713.