Les Bijoux Indiscrets, or, The Indiscreet Toys

by Denis Diderot

By the Sultan's most excellent majesty, and my lord the grand Seneschal,

We Gander-beak, grand Seneschal of Congo, visir of the first bench, train-bearer to the great Manimonbanda, chief and super-intendant of the sweepers of the divan, give notice, that to-morrow morning at nine of the clock, the magnanimous Sultan will give audience to the widows of the officers slain in his service, in order to decree, on sight of their pretensions, what to him shall seem meet. Given at our office the twelfth of the moon of Regeb, in the year 147200000009.

All the distressed women of Congo, and a great number of them there was, did not fail to read the proclamation, or to send their footmen to read it; and less still to be at the appointed hour, in the lobby of the audience chamber. "In order to avoid a crowd, let no more enter," said the Sultan, "than six of these ladies at once. When we have heard them, let them pass thro' the back door, which leads to the outward courts. You, gentlemen, be attentive, and pronounce on their demands."

This said, he made a signal to the first gentleman usher of the audiences; and the six, who happen'd to be next the door, were introduced. They entered in long mourning robes, and made low reverences to his highness. Mangogul addressed the youngest and handsomest of them, whose name was Ifec. "Madam," said he, "how long is it since you have lost your husband?" "Three months," answered Ifec weeping. "He was lieutenant general in your highness's service. He was kill'd in the last battle, and six children are the only legacy he left me"—"He left you?" interrupted a voice, which, tho' issuing from Ifec, was not exactly in the same tone with her's. "Madam knows better than she says. They were all begun and finished by a young Bramin, who daily came to comfort her, while my master was in the field."

'Tis easy to guess, whence proceeded the indiscreet voice, which pronounced this answer. Poor Ifec, being put out of countenance, grew pale, trembled, fainted. "Madam is subject to the vapors," said Mangogul with an air of tranquillity: "let her be carried into an appartment of the Seraglio, and be taken care of." Then immediately addressing Phenice: "Madam," said he, "was not your husband a Pacha?" "Yes, sir," answered Phenice in a trembling voice. "And how have you lost him?" "Sir, he died in his bed, quite exhausted with the fatigues of the last campaign"—"With the fatigues of the last campaign," replied Phenice's Toy. "Go, madam, your husband brought a firm and vigorous state of health from the camp; and he would still enjoy it, had not two or three scoundrel players,—you understand me, take care of yourself." "Write," says the Sultan, "that Phenice demands a pension, for the good services, which she has rendered to the state and her husband."

A third was interrogated on her husband's age and name, who was said to have died in the army of the small-pox. "Of the small pox," said the Toy, "a fine story indeed: say, madam, of two good strokes of a scymeter which he received from the Sangiac Cavaglio, because he took it ill, that his eldest son was said to be as like the Sangiac, as one egg is to another: and madam knows as well as I," added the Toy, "that a likeness was never better grounded."

The fourth was going to speak without being interrogated by Mangogul, when her Toy was heard to cry out from the lower regions, that these ten years part, which the war had lasted, she had made pretty good use of her time; that two pages and a huge scoundrel of a footman had supplied her husband's place; and that without doubt she designed the pension, which she was solliciting, for keeping an actor of the comic opera.

A fifth stept forward with intrepidity, and with an air of confidence demanded the reward of her late husband's services, who was an aga of the Janissaries, and lost his life under the walls of Matatras. The Sultan turn'd his ring on her, but to no purpose. Her Toy was mute. "I must own," says the African author, who had seen her, "that she was so ugly, that the by-standers would be astonished, if her Toy had any thing to say."

Mangogul was got to the sixth, and here are the express words of her Toy. "Truly, it well becomes madam," meaning her, whose Toy was obstinately silent, "to sollicite pensions, while she lives upon the poule, keeps a breland table which brings her in three thousand sequins a year, makes private suppers at the expence of the gamesters, and received six hundred sequins from Osman, to draw me to one of these suppers, where the treacherous Osman——"

"Due regard shall be paid to your petitions, ladies," said the Sultan: "for the present ye may withdraw." Then directing his words to his counsellors, he ask'd them, if it did not seem ridiculous to them to grant pensions to a herd of little bastards of Bramins and others, and to women whose employment it was to dishonor brave men, who had enter'd into his service in quest of glory, at the expence of their lives.

The Seneschal stood up, answered, declaimed, resumed, and gave his opinion obscurely as usual. While he was yet speaking, Ifec recovered from her fit, quite enraged at her adventure; and, as she expected no pension for herself, and would run distracted, if any other obtain'd one, which would have happened in all likelihood, she went directly into the antichamber, and whispered to two or three of her female friends, that they were summoned thither purely to hear their Toys chatter; that she herself heard one deliver horrid things in the audience chamber; that she would not name it for the world; but that they must be fools, to expose themselves to the same danger.