“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 nobody, 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 bonfire. The royal treasury was a great empty coffer, which this wretched economy did not fill; gold and silver became so scarce, that the mints were, on a summer’s morning, converted into paper-mills. To complete 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 packthread, 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 awkwardly, 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 packthread, 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, surprised, 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 fastened 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
