Usbek to * * *.
THE late king’s reign was so long, that the end had made the beginning to be forgot. At present the fashion is, to be taken up with nothing but with the events that happened in his minority: and no body reads any thing now but the memoirs of those times.—See a speech which one of the generals of the city of Paris made in a council of war: though I must confess I can conceive nothing very great in it.
‘Though our troops have been repulsed with loss, I believe it will be very easy for us to repair this misfortune. I have composed six couplets of a song ready to be published, which, I am persuaded, will restore all our affairs to an equilibrium. I have made choice of some excellent voices, which, issuing from the cavity of certain strong breasts, will wonderfully move the people. They are set to an air, which hitherto hath had a singular effect. If this does not do, we will publish a print of Mazarine as hanged. Luckily for us, he does not speak good French , and so murders it that it is impossible but that his affairs must decline. We do not fail making the people observe, with what a ridiculous accent he pronounces . A few days ago we made such a ridicule of a blunder that he made in grammar, that it hath been made a joke of in every street. I hope, that before eight days, the people will make the name of Mazarine a general word to express all beasts of burden and carriage. Since our defeat, our music about original sin , hath so vexed him, that not to see all his party reduced to one half, he hath been obliged to send back all his pages. Recover yourselves then; take courage; and be assured that we will make him repass the mountains by the force of our hisses.’