_Prodigious events of the Reign of Kanaglou, Mangogul's Grand-father._
The favorite was very young. Born towards the end of Erguebzed's
reign, she had scarce any idea at all of the court of Kanaglou. A word
accidentally dropt had given her a curiosity to know the prodigies,
which the genius Cucufa had wrought in favour of that good prince;
and none could more faithfully inform her than Selim. He had been an
eye-witness and even a sharer in them, and was throughly versed in
the history of his time. One day that he was alone with her, Mirzoza
put him on that topic, and asked him if the reign of Kanaglou, which
made so great noise, had seen greater wonders, than those, which then
engrossed the attention of Congo?
"I have no interest, madam," answered Selim, "in preferring times
past to those of the reigning prince. Great things are come to pass
under him, but they are perhaps no more than specimens of those which
will continue to render Mangogul illustrious; and my time is too far
advanced, to flatter my self with seeing them." "You are mistaken,"
replied Mirzoza; "you have acquired, and will keep the epithet of
eternal. But tell me what you have seen."
"Madam," continued Selim, "Kanaglou's reign was long, and our poets
have named it the golden age. This title suits it upon several
accounts. It has been signalized by successes and victories: but the
advantages were blended with crosses, which prove that this gold was
sometimes mixed with bad alloy. The court, which sets the example to
the rest of the empire, was very gallant. The Sultan had mistresses,
the nobility piqued themselves on imitating him, and the lower people
insensibly assumed the same air. The magnificence in dress, furniture,
and equipages, was excessive. Delicacy in feasting was reduced to an
art. People gam'd high, ran in debt, paid no body, and spent while
they had either money or credit. There were very good laws enacted
against luxury, but not put in execution. Towns were taken, provinces
conquered, palaces begun, and the empire drained of men and money.
The people sung victory, and were starving at the same time. The
great had stately castles and delightful gardens, and their lands lay
uncultivated. A hundred ships of war had rendered us masters of the
sea, and the terror of our neighbours: but a good calculator made an
exact estimate what it cost the government to keep these hulks in
good order; and notwithstanding the remonstrances of the rest of the
ministry, they were ordered to be turned into a bon-fire. The royal
treasury was a great empty coffer, which this wretched oeconomy did
not fill; gold and silver became so scarce, that the mints were,
on a summer's morning, converted into paper-mills. To compleat our
happiness, Kanaglou suffered himself to be persuaded by a set of
fanatics, that it was of the utmost importance, that all his subjects
should resemble him, and that they should have blue eyes, snub noses,
and red whiskers, as well as he: and he expelled from Congo above two
millions of people, who were not blessed with these regimentals, or who
refused to counterfeit them. Such, madam, was this golden age; such
those good old times, which you daily hear regretted: but let those
dotards prate on, and do you believe that we have our Turennes and our
Colberts, that, all things considered, the present is better than the
time past; and that if the people are happier under Mangogul than they
were under Kanaglou, his highness's reign is more illustrious than
that of his grandfather, because the happiness of the subject is the
exact measure of the greatness of the prince. But let us return to the
particulars of Kanaglou's reign.
"I will begin by the origin of the Pantins." "Selim, I will excuse
you, I know that story by heart," says the favorite, "proceed to other
matters." "Madam," answered Selim, "might one ask from whom you have
it?" "Why," says Mirzoza, "it is published." "True Madam," replied
Selim, "and by people, who knew nothing of the matter. I am out of
humour, when I see little obscure private persons, who have never been
near princes, but at a public entry into the metropolis, or some such
other ceremony, pretend to write their history.
"Madam," continued Selim, "we had spent the night at a masquerade in
the great salons in the Seraglio, when the genius Cucufa, a vowed
protector of the reigning family, appeared to us, and commanded
us to go to bed, and sleep twenty four hours on a stretch. He was
obeyed, and at the expiration of this term, the Seraglio was found
to be transformed into a vast and magnificent galery of Pantins. At
one end appeared Kanaglou seated on his throne: a long pack-thread,
almost worn out, hung down between his legs: an old decrepit fairy
was incessantly pulling it, and with a turn of her wrist, moved an
innumerable multitude of subaltern Pantins, to whom fine imperceptible
threads answered, which issued from Kanaglou's fingers and toes. She
pulled, and in an instant the seneschal drew up, and sealed ruinous
edicts; or pronounced a panegyric on the fairy, which was prompted by
his secretary: the minister of war sent card matches to the army; the
superintendant of the finances built houses, and suffered the soldiery
to starve; and so of the other Pantins.
"When any of the Pantins happened to execute their movements aukwardly,
by not lifting up their arms sufficiently, or not bowing their knee in
a proper manner, the fairy cut their threads with a jerk of her left
hand, and they became paralytic. I shall never forget two most valiant
emirs, whom she found deficient in their duty, and who were ever after
deprived of the use of their arms.
"The threads which issued from every part of Kanaglou's body, were
extended to immense distances, and from the palace of Congo, put
whole armies of Pantins into motion or winter quarters, even to the
remotest parts of Monoémugi. With one pull of the pack-thread, a town
was besieged, the trenches were opened, they battered in breach, and
the enemy was preparing to capitulate; but upon a second pull, the
besiegers fire slackened, the attacks were not carried on with the
same vigour, troops came to the relief of the place, dissentions were
kindled among the generals: we were attacked, surprized, beaten, and
routed.
"These bad tidings never gave any concern to Kanaglou: he seldom heard
them, till they were forgot by his subjects: and the fairy would not
suffer him to be informed of them, but by Pantins, who had each a
thread fastned to the tip of their tongue, and who said no more than
what she thought proper, on pain of being struck dumb.
"Another time we young fools were all charmed with an adventure,
which gave bitter scandal to the godly. The women all at once became
tumblers, and fell to walking with their heads down, their legs up in
air, and their hands in their slippers.
"This threw all our former knowledge into confusion; and we were
obliged to commence a course of studies on these new physiognomies.
Many were slighted, who ceased to be thought lovely, as soon as they
shewed themselves; and others, who were never so much as talked of,
gained vastly by making themselves known. Their petticoats and gowns
falling over their eyes, put them in danger, either of losing their
way, or stumbling: wherefore the former were shortened, and the latter
cut open before. Such is the origin of short petticoats and open
gowns. When the women returned to the use of their feet, they retained
this part of their dress as it was: and if we thoroughly consider the
petticoats of our fine ladies, we shall easily perceive, that they were
not made to be worn, as they are worn at this day.
"Any mode, that has but one drift, will soon pass away: in order to
make it lasting, it ought to answer two ends at least. In those same
days a secret was discovered for plumping the breasts downward: and it
is used at this day for plumping them upward.
"The devout women, surprized to find their heads down, and their heels
up in the air, at first covered themselves with their hands: but this
attention made them lose their poise, and stumble in their walks. By
the advice of the Bramins, they afterwards tied their petticoats about
their legs with little black ribbons. The gay part of the sex found
this expedient ridiculous, and publickly declared, that it incommoded
their respiration, and threw them into the vapours. This prodigy was
attended with happy consequences; it occasioned a number of marriages,
or somewhat like them, and a crowd of conversions. All those, who had
disagreeable buttocks, ran headlong into the religious party, and took
little black ribbons. Four missions of Bramins would not have made so
many proselytes.
"We had scarcely got rid of this trial, when we underwent another,
less universal indeed, but not less instructive. The young girls, one
and all, from thirteen to eighteen, nineteen, twenty years of age, and
upwards, rose on a fine summer's morning, the middle finger caught,
guess where, madam?" says Selim to the favorite. "It was not in their
mouth, nor in their ear, nor infine, _à la Turque_. Their disease was
easily guess'd, and the remedy quickly applied. From that time may our
custom be dated of marrying children, who are fit for nothing but
dressing their dolls.
"Another blessing: Kanaglou's court swarmed with _Petits-maitres_, and
I had the honour to be of the number. One day as I was entertaining
them with the young French nobility, I perceived our shoulders working
upwards, till they became higher than our heads: but that was not all;
in an instant we all fell to whirling about on one heel." "And what
rarity was there in that?" said the favorite. "Nothing, madam," replied
Selim, "but that the first metamorphosis is the origin of the round
shoulders, so much in vogue in your infancy; and the second, that of
the scoffers, whose reign is not yet over. Then, as now, a discourse
was begun to some one person, which by a sudden twirl on the heel, was
continued to a second, and finished to a third, to whom it became half
unintelligible, half impertinent.
"Another time we all found our selves short sighted, and were forced to
have recourse to Bion: the rogue made us pay ten sequins for glasses,
which we continued to use, even after recovering our sight. Thence
come, madam, the opera spy glasses.
"I could never learn what the fine ladies did to the Genius Cucufa
about this time; but he took severe vengeance of them. At the end of
a certain year, whereof they had spent the nights in balls, banquets,
and gaming, and the days in dressing, or between the arms of their
lovers, they were all astonished to find themselves horridly ugly. One
was as black as a mole, another bronzed over; a third pale and lean, a
fourth of a sickly yellow, and full of wrinkles. There was a necessity
to palliate this fatal enchantment, and our chemists found out the
white, the red, pomatums, waters, venus's handkerchiefs, virgins milk,
patches, and a thousand other cosmetics, which they employed, to avoid
appearing ugly, and becoming frightful. Cucufa still held them under
this curse, when Erguebzed, who loved beautiful women, became their
intercessor. The Genius did all that he could; but the charm was so
powerful, that he was not able to dissolve it thoroughly; and the court
ladies remained such as you see them at this day."
"Was the fate of the other charms the same?" says Mirzoza. "No, madam,"
answered Selim, "they lasted some longer, some shorter: the round
shoulders sunk by degrees, and people stood upright: and for fear of
being thought hump-back'd, they turned up their noses to the wind,
and danced as they walked. The whirlgig motion continued, and they
whirl about to this day. Broach a serious or sensible conversation in
presence of a young lord of the _bel air_; and _Zeste_, you shall see
him wheel away from you in an instant, and go mutter out a parody to
some body, who asks him the news of the war, or of his health; or to
whisper in his ear, that he supped last night with Miss Rabon, and that
she is an adorable girl; that there is a new romance coming abroad;
that he has read some pages of it, and that it is fine, very fine: and
then another twirl or two towards a lady, whom he asks if she has seen
the new opera, and answers her, that Miss Dangeville has performed to a
miracle."
Mirzoza found these ridicules very diverting, and asked Selim if he had
been a sharer in them. "How, madam," replied the old courtier, "was
it possible not to have them, without passing for a man come from the
other world? I put on the round shoulders, I stood erect, I danced in
walking, I cock'd the spy-glass, I whirled about, I hissed like the
rest: and the utmost efforts of my judgment went no farther than to
be one of the first in taking up these several biasses, and none of
the last in shaking them off." Selim was got thus far, when Mangogul
appeared. The African author does not inform us, what was become of
him, or what were his occupations during this preceding chapter.
Probably the princes of Congo may be allowed to perform indifferent
actions, to say miserable things sometimes, and to resemble the rest of
mankind, who spend a great part of their lives in doing nothing, or
such things at least, as are not worthy of being known.