I CANNOT tell you, magnificent lord, how deeply perplexed I am. Appalling disorder and confusion prevail in the seraglio: war reigns among your wives; your eunuchs are divided; nothing is heard bur murmurs, complaints, reproaches; my remonstrances are despised: everything seems to be permitted in this time of licence, and I am nothing but a name in the seraglio.

There is not one of your wives who does not deem herself superior to the others by her birth, her beauty, her wealth, her intellect, or her love; and who does not claim every preference on the score of the value she sets upon one or other of these titles to respect. I lose every moment that long-suffering patience, with which, nevertheless, I have had the misfortune to displease them all: my prudence, even my kindness, so rare and strange a virtue in the post which I occupy, have been useless.

Is it your pleasure that I should disclose to you, magnificent lord, the cause of all these disorders? It is in your heart alone, in the tender affection which you have for them. If you did not withhold my hand; if, instead of remonstrating, you would allow me to punish; if, rather than suffer them to soften you by their complaints and tears, you would send them to weep before me, whom nothing can move, I would soon fashion them to the yoke they ought to bear, and weary out this proud and independent temper.

Stolen, at the age of fifteen years, out of the heart of Africa, my native country, I was at first sold to a master, who had more than twenty wives, or concubines. Judging from my grave and taciturn air, that I would be an acquisition in the seraglio, he ordered that I should be prepared for it, and made me undergo an operation, painful at first, but fortunate in its results, because it has given me the ear and the confidence of my masters. I entered the seraglio, to me a new world. The first eunuch, the sternest man I have ever known, governed there with undisputed sway. Nothing was ever heard of divisions or of quarrels: profound silence reigned everywhere: all these women were put to bed at the same hour, and wakened a the same hour, from one year’s end to the other: they entered the bath in turn, and left it at the slightest sign made by us: the rest of the time they were almost always shut up in their rooms. He had one rule, which exacted the observance of the greatest neatness, and he was in this matter inexpressibly careful: the least refusal of obedience was punished without mercy. “I am,” said he, “a slave; but the slave of a man who is your master and mine; and I use the power which he has given me over you: it is he who chastises you, not I; I only lend my hand.” These women never entered my master’s chamber but when they were summoned; that favour they welcomed gladly, and saw themselves deprived of it without a murmur. As for myself, the least of the blacks in that peaceful seraglio, I was a thousand times more respected than I am in yours, where I command all.

As soon as the chief eunuch had recognised my genius, he regarded me with favour, and spoke of me to his master as of one able to carry out his views, and to succeed him in the post which he filled: he was not afraid of my great youth, believing that my application would make up for my want of experience. Shall I tell you? I advanced so rapidly in his confidence that he went the length of entrusting me with the keys of those dreadful places, which he had guarded for so long a time. It was under this great master that I learnt the difficult art of commanding, and that I was formed according to the maxims of an inflexible government: I studied under him the heart of women: he taught me to take advantage of their weaknesses, and not to be dismayed by their arrogance. Often he amused himself by watching me drive their obedience to the very last verge; he then made them return gradually, and required that I for some time should appear to yield. But he should have been seen at those times when, now beseeching, now reproaching, they were driven almost to despair: he beheld their tears unmoved, rejoicing in his triumph. “See,” said he, with a satisfied air, “how women must be governed: their number does not trouble me; I could manage in the same way all those of our great king. How can a man hope to win their hearts, if his faithful eunuchs have not begun by breaking their spirits?”