gold and jewels, with a golden crook in his hands, with a collar of
gold about his dogʼs neck, and a silken and golden string to lead him.
What is his flock the better for all this gold, or what avails it
against the wolves?
(30.) How happy is that station which every instant furnishes
opportunities of doing good to thousands of men! how dangerous is that
post which every moment exposes its occupant to injure millions!
(31.) If men in this world cannot feel a more natural, praiseworthy,
and sensible pleasure than to know that they are beloved, and if kings
are men, can they purchase the hearts of their people at too high a
rate?
(32.) There are very few general rules and unvariable regulations
for governing well; they depend on times and circumstances, as well
as on the prudence and designs of the rulers. A perfect government
is, therefore, a masterpiece of the intellect; and perhaps it would
be impossible to attain it, if the subjects did not contribute their
moiety towards it by their habits of dependence and submission.
(33.) Those persons who, under a very great monarch, fill the highest
offices, have no very intricate duties to perform, and they do this
without any trouble; everything goes on easily; the authority and the
genius of the prince smoothes their way, rids them of all difficulties,
and makes everything prosper beyond their expectations; their merit
consists in being subordinates.[521]
(34.) If the care of a single family be so burdensome, if a man has
enough to do to answer for himself, what a weight, what a heavy load
must be the charge of a whole realm! Is a sovereign rewarded for all
his anxieties by the pleasures which absolute power seems to afford and
by the prostrations of his courtiers? When I think of the difficult,
hazardous, and dangerous paths he sometimes is forced to tread to
attain public tranquillity; when I think of the extreme but necessary
means he often is obliged to employ to compass a good end; when I am
aware he is accountable to God for the welfare of his people, that good
and evil are in his hands, and that he cannot plead ignorance as an
excuse, I cannot forbear asking myself the question if I should like to
reign? A man who is tolerably happy as a private individual should not
abandon it for a throne, for, even to one who occupies it by hereditary
right, it is almost unbearable to be born a monarch.
(35.) How many gifts Heaven must bestow on a prince for him to become
a good ruler! He must be of royal blood, have an august and commanding
air, a presence to satisfy the curiosity of a crowd anxious to see
the prince, as well as to command respect from his courtiers.[522]
His temper must be always the same; he must be averse to ill-natured
raillery, or, at least, be so sensible as to refrain from it; he
must never threaten, reproach, nor give way to passion, yet he must
be always obeyed; he should be complacent and engaging, so frank and
sincere that all may think they plainly see the bottom of his heart,
which will tend to gain him friends, partisans, and allies; yet he
must be secret, close, and impenetrable in his motives and plans; he
must be very grave and serious in public; be brief, precise, and
dignified in his answers to ambassadors, as well as in his expressions
in council; be careful in choosing fit objects for his favours, and
bestow them with that peculiar charm which enhances them; great must be
his sagacity to penetrate into the minds, qualifications, and tempers
of men, to nominate them to various posts and places, as well as to
select his generals and ministers of state. His opinions should be so
settled, sound, and decisive in matters of state, as immediately to
point out what is the best and most honest thing to do; his mind ought
to be so upright and just as sometimes to decide against himself and in
favour of his subjects, allies, or enemies; so comprehensive and ready
should be his memory as to remember the necessities of his subjects,
their faces, names, and petitions.[523] His capacious intelligence
should not only exercise itself on foreign affairs, commerce, maxims
of state, political designs, extension of the frontiers by conquering
new provinces, and ensuring their safety by numerous and inaccessible
forts; but also look after the affairs of his own kingdom, and study
them in detail; banish from it a false, insidious, and anti monarchical
sect,[524] if such a one exists; abolish all barbarous and impious
customs, if they are to be found there;[525] reform the abuses of
laws and usages, for such may have crept in;[526] render his cities
more safe and comfortable by establishing new police regulations,
more splendid and magnificent by sumptuous edifices; punish severely
scandalous vices; increase the influence of religion and virtue by
his authority and example;[527] protect the Church and clergy, their
rights and liberties;[528] and govern the nation like a father, always
intent on relieving it and making the subsidies as light as those
levied in the provinces[529] without impoverishing them. He must have
great talents for war, be vigilant, diligent, and unwearied, able
to command numerous armies, and be composed in the midst of danger;
he ought to be sparing of his own life for the good of the state,
and prefer its welfare and glory to that very life; his power must
be absolute, to leave no room for indirect influence, intrigues and
factions, and sometimes to lessen that vast distance which exists
between the great and the common people, so that they may be drawn
closer together, and obey that power equally; the knowledge of the
prince should be extensive, that he may see everything with his own
eyes, act immediately and by himself, so that his generals, though
at a distance, are but his lieutenants, and his ministers but his
ministers;[530] he should be sagacious enough to know when to declare
war, when to conquer and make the best use of a victory, when to make
peace, and when to break it; when, sometimes, to compel his enemies to
accept it, according to the various interests at stake; to set bounds
to his vast ambition, and how far to extend his conquests; he should
find leisure for games, festivals, and spectacles; cultivate arts and
sciences, and erect magnificent structures, even when surrounded by
secret and declared enemies. To conclude, he should possess a superior
and commanding genius, which renders him beloved by his subjects and
feared by strangers, and makes of his court, and even of his entire
realm, as it were, one family, governed by one head, living in perfect
unison and harmony with one another, and thus formidable to the rest
of the world. All these admirable virtues seem to me comprised in the
notion of what a sovereign ought to be. It is true we rarely see them
all combined in one man, for too many adventitious qualities, such as
intelligence, feelings, outward appearances, and natural disposition,
must be found at the same time in him; it therefore appears to me that
a prince who unites all these in his single person well deserves the
name of Great.[531]
[Illustration: LOUIS XIV]
[Illustration]
XI.
OF MANKIND.
(1.) Let us not be angry with men when we see them cruel, ungrateful,
unjust, proud, egotists, and forgetful of others; they are made so; it
is their nature; we might just as well quarrel with a stone for falling
to the ground, or with a fire when the flames ascend.
(2.) In one sense men are not fickle, or only in trifles; they change
their habits, language, outward appearance, their rules of propriety,
and sometimes their taste; but they always preserve their bad morals,
and adhere tenaciously to what is ill and to their indifference for
virtue.
(3.) Stoicism is a mere fancy, a fiction, like Platoʼs Republic.
The Stoics pretend a man may laugh at poverty; not feel insults,
ingratitude, loss of property, relatives, and friends; look
unconcernedly on death, and regard it as a matter of indifference which
ought neither to make him merry nor melancholy; not let pleasure or
pain conquer him; be wounded or burned without breathing the slightest
sigh or shedding a single tear; and this phantasm of courage and
imaginary firmness they are pleased to call a philosopher. They have
left man with the same faults they found in him, and did not blame
his smallest foible. Instead of depicting vice as something terrible
or ridiculous, which might have corrected him, they have limned an
idea of perfection and heroism of which man is not capable, and they
exhorted him to aim at what is impossible. Thus, the philosopher that
is to be, but will never exist except in imagination, finds himself
naturally, and without any exertions of his own, above all events and
all ills; the most excruciating fit of the gout, the most severe attack
of colic, cannot draw from him the least complaint; Heaven and earth
may be overturned, without dragging him along in their downfall; and
he remains calm and collected amidst the ruins of the universe, whilst
a man really beside himself utters loud exclamations, despairs, looks
fierce, and is in an agony for the loss of a dog or for a China dish
broken into pieces.
(4.) Restlessness of mind, inequality of temper, fickleness of
affections, and instability of conduct, are all vices of the mind,
but they are all different; and, in spite[532] of their appearing
analogous, are not always found in one and the same subject.
(5.) It is difficult to decide whether irresolution makes a man more
unfortunate than contemptible, or even whether it is always a greater
disadvantage to take a wrong step than to take none at all.
(6.) A man of variable mind is not one man, but several men in one; he
multiplies himself as often as he changes his taste and manners; he is
not this minute what he was the last, and will not be the next what he
is now; he is his own successor. Do not ask what is his nature, but
what are his proclivities; nor what mood he is in, but how many sorts
of moods he has. Are you not mistaken, and is it Eutichrates whom you
accost? To-day he is cool to you, but yesterday he was anxious to see
you, and was so demonstrative that his friends were jealous of you.
Surely he does not remember you; tell him your name.
(7.) Menalcas[533] goes down-stairs, opens the door to go out, and
shuts it again; he perceives that he has his nightcap on, and on
looking at himself with a little more attention, he finds that he is
but half shaved, that he has fastened his sword on the wrong side,
that his stockings are hanging on his heels, and that his shirt is
bulging out above his breeches. If he walks about, he feels something
strike him all at once in the stomach or in the face, and he cannot
imagine what it is, until he opens his eyes and wakes up, when he finds
himself before the shaft of a cart, or behind a long plank a workman
is carrying. He has been seen to run his head against a blind man, and
to get entangled between his legs, so that both fell backwards. Often
he meets a prince face to face, who wishes to pass; he recollects
himself with some difficulty, and scarcely has time to squeeze himself
up against the wall to make room for him.[534] He searches about,
rummages, shouts, gets excited, calls his servants one after another,
and complains that everything is lost or mislaid; he asks for his
gloves which he holds in his hands, like the woman who asked for the
mask she had on her face. He enters the rooms at Versailles,[535]
and passing under a chandelier, his wig gets hooked on to one of the
brackets and is left hanging, whilst all the courtiers stare and laugh.
Menalcas looks also, and laughs louder than any of them, staring in
the meanwhile at all the company to see what man shows his ears and
has lost his wig.[536] If he goes into town,[537] before he has gone
far he thinks he has lost his way, gets uneasy, and asks some of the
passers-by where he is, who name to him the very street he lives in; he
enters his own house, runs out in haste, and fancies he is mistaken. He
comes out of the _Palais de Justice_, and finding a carriage waiting
at the bottom of the great staircase, he thinks it is his own and
enters it; the coachman just touches the horses with his whip, and
supposes all the while he is driving his master home; Menalcas jumps
out, crosses the courtyard, mounts the stairs, and passes through the
ante-chamber and ordinary rooms into the study; but nothing is strange
or new to him; he sits down, takes a rest, and feels himself at home.
When the real master of the house arrives, he rises to receive him,
treats him very politely, begs him to be seated, and believes he is
doing the honours of his own room; he talks, muses, and talks again;
the master of the house is tired and amazed, and Menalcas as much as
he, though he does not say what he thinks, but supposes the other
is some bore who has nothing to do, and will leave soon—at least he
hopes so, and remains patient; yet it is almost night before he is
undeceived, and that with some difficulty. Another time he pays a visit
to a lady, and imagines that she is visiting him; he sits down in her
arm-chair[538] without any thought of giving it up; it then seems to
him that the lady is somewhat long in her visit, and he expects every
moment that she will rise and leave him at liberty; but as she delays,
he is growing hungry, and night coming on, he invites her to have some
supper with him, at which she bursts out in such loud laughter that
he comes to himself. He marries in the morning, but has forgotten it
at night, and does not sleep at home on his wedding-night; some time
afterwards his wife dies in his arms, and he is present at her funeral;
the next day one of the servants informs him that dinner is on the
table, when he asks if his wife is already dressed and if they have
told her it is served up. He enters a church, and takes a blind man,
always stationed at the door, for a pillar, and the plate he holds in
his hands for a holy-water basin, into which he dips his hands; and
when he makes the sign of the cross on his forehead, he, on a sudden,
hears the pillar speak and beg for alms; he walks through the aisle,
and fancying he sees a praying-chair, throws himself heavily on it;
the chair bends, gives way, and strives to cry out;[539] Menalcas is
surprised to find himself kneeling on the legs of a very little man,
and leaning on his back, with both his arms on his shoulders, his
folded hands extended, taking him by the nose and stopping his mouth;
he is quite confused, withdraws, and goes and kneels elsewhere. He
takes out his prayer-book as he thinks, but he pulls out a slipper
instead, which he had inadvertently put into his pocket before he went
out; he has hardly left the church when a footman runs after him, comes
up to him, and asks him, with a laugh, if he has not got the bishopʼs
slipper; Menalcas produces his, and assures him that he has no other
slippers about him; but, however, after searching he finds the slipper
of his lordship, whom he has just been visiting, had found indisposed
at his fireside, and whose slipper he had pocketed before he took his
leave, instead of one of his gloves he had dropt; so that Menalcas
returns home with one slipper less. One day whilst gambling he lost
all the money he had about him, and, as he wished to continue, he went
into his private room, unlocked a cupboard, took out his cash-box,
helped himself to whatever he pleased, and then thought he put it back
again in its former place; but he heard some barking going on in the
cupboard he just locked, and, quite astonished at this marvellous
occurrence, he opened it again, and burst out laughing on beholding
his dog he had locked up instead of his cash-box. Whilst he is playing
backgammon he asks for something to drink, which is brought him; it is
his turn to play, and, holding the box in one hand and the glass in
the other, and being very thirsty, he gulps down the dice and almost
the box, whilst the water is thrown on the board, and quite wets the
person he is playing with. One day being in a room with a family with
whom he was very intimate, he spits on the bed, and throws his hat on
the ground, thinking he is spitting on the floor and shying his hat
on the bed. Once on the river he asked what oʼclock it was; they hand
him a watch, but it is scarcely in his hands when he forgets both the
time and the watch, and throws the latter into the river as a thing
which bothers him. He writes a long letter, throws some sand on his
paper,[540] and then pours the sand into the inkstand; but that is not
all. He writes a second letter, and after having sealed both, he makes
a mistake in addressing them; one of them is sent to a duke and peer of
the realm, who, on opening it, reads: “Mr. Oliver,—Pray donʼt fail to
send me my provision of hay as soon as you receive this letter.” His
farmer receives the other letter, opens it, has it read to him, and
finds in it: “My lord,—I receive with the utmost submission the orders
which it has pleased your highness,” and so on. He writes another
letter at night, and after sealing it, puts out the light; yet is
surprised to be on a sudden in the dark, and is at a loss to conceive
how it has happened. Coming down the Louvre staircase, Menalcas meets
another person coming up, and exclaims that the latter is the very man
he is looking for; he takes him by the hand, and they go down-stairs
together, cross several courtyards, enter some apartments, and come out
again; he moves about, and returns whence he started; then, looking
more narrowly at the man he has thus been dragging after him for a
quarter of an hour, he wonders who it is, has nothing to say to him,
lets go his hand, and turns another way. He often asks a question,
and is almost out of sight before it is possible to answer him; or
else he will ask you, whilst he is running about, how your father is,
and when you answer him that he is seriously unwell, he will shout
to you that he is very glad to hear it. Another time, if you fall
in his way, he is delighted to meet you, and says he has just come
from your house to talk to you on a certain matter of business; then,
looking at your hand, he exclaims, “Thatʼs a fine ruby you wear; is
it a balass ruby?”[541] and then he leaves you, and goes on his way;
this is the important matter of business he was so anxious to talk to
you about. If he is in the country, he tells some person he must feel
happy he has been able to leave the court in the autumn and to have
spent on his estate all the time the court was at Fontainebleau;[542]
whilst to other people he talks about something else; then, going back
to the first, he says to him, “You have had some very fine weather
at Fontainebleau, and you must have followed the royal hunt pretty
often.” He begins a story which he forgets to finish; he laughs to
himself, and that aloud, at something he is thinking of, and replies
to his own thoughts; he hums a tune, whistles, throws himself into a
chair, sends forth a pitiful whine, yawns, and thinks himself alone.
When he is at a dinner-party he gradually gathers all the bread on his
own plate, and his neighbours have none; and he does the same with the
knives and forks, which do not remain long in their hands. Lately some
large spoons, convenient for helping every one, have been introduced
at certain tables; he takes one of these spoons, plunges it into the
dish, fills it, puts it into his mouth, and is highly astonished to see
the soup he has just taken all over his clothes and linen. He forgets
to drink at dinner, or, if he remembers it, thinks there is too much
wine poured out for him; he flings more than half of it in the face
of a gentleman seated at his right hand, drinks the rest with a great
deal of composure, and cannot understand why everybody should burst
out laughing for throwing on the floor the wine he did not wish to
drink.[543] He keeps his bed a day or two for a slight indisposition,
and a goodly number of ladies and gentlemen visit him, and converse
with him in the _ruelle_;[544] in their presence he lifts up the
blankets and spits in the sheets. He is taken to the Convent of the
Carthusians, where they show him a gallery adorned with paintings,
all executed by the hand of a master;[545] the monk who explains the
subjects persistently expatiates on the life of Saint Bruno, and points
out the adventure with the canon in one of the pictures.[546] Menalcas,
whose thoughts are all the while wandering away from the gallery, and
far beyond it, returns to it at last, and asks the monk whether it is
the canon or Saint Bruno who is damned. Being once, as it happened,
with a young widow, he talks to her of her deceased husband, and asks
of what he died; this conversation renews all the sorrows of the lady,
who, amidst tears and sobs, tells him all the particulars of her late
husbandʼs illness, from the night he first was attacked by fever to
his final agony; whereupon Menalcas, who apparently listens to her
narrative with great attention, asks her if the deceased was her only
husband. One morning he gets it into his head to hurry on everything
for dinner; but he rises before the dessert is brought on, and leaves
his guests by themselves. That day he is sure to be seen everywhere in
town except on the spot where he has made an appointment about the very
business which prevented him finishing his dinner, and made him walk,
for fear it would take too long a time to get the horses and carriage
ready. You may frequently hear him shout, scold, and get in a rage
about one of his servants being out of the way. “Where can that man
be?” says he;