Usbek to Ibben, at Smyrna.
THE king of France is old; we have not one instance in our history, of a monarch who reigned so long. He is said to possess to a very great degree the art of making himself obeyed; he governs with the same spirit, his family, his court, and his kingdom; he hath often been heard to say, that of all the governments in the world, that of the Turks, or of our august Sultan, pleased him best; so highly does he esteem the politics of the East! I have studied his character, and have discovered in it contradictions impossible for me to solve: for example, he hath a minister who is not above eighteen years old, and a mistress turned of fourscore; he loves his religion, and yet cannot bear those who say it ought to be rigorously observed; though he avoids the tumult of cities, and is little communicative, yet he is busy from morning to evening, what he may do to be talked of; he is very fond of trophies and victories, but he fears as much to see a good general at the head of his troops as he would have cause to do one at the head of his enemies troops. It never happened, I believe, but to himself, to be at the same time loaded with more riches than a prince could wish to be, and to be oppressed with a poverty that a private person could not be able to sustain. He loves to reward those who serve him; but he rewards as liberally the assiduity, or rather the idleness of his courtiers, as the laborious campaigns of his generals. He oftentimes prefers a man who undresses him, or gives him a napkin when he sits down to table, preferable to another who takes cities, or gains battles for him; he does not think that the grandeur of a sovereign ought to be restrained in the distribution of favours, and without examining whether the man he loads with his favours hath real merit, he thinks his choice capable of rendering him such; accordingly he hath been known to bestow a small pension on a man who run away two leagues from the enemy, and a good government to another who run twice that length. He is magnificent above all in his buildings; he has more statues in his palace-gardens than there are inhabitants in a great city. His guard is as strong as that of the prince before whom all other thrones are debased; his armies are equally numerous, his resources as many, and his finances as inexhaustible.