Ibrahim, splendidly clad, received the ambassadors for their first audience, without rising. He accepted the rich jewels they offered him, and appointed a later day for the business of the treaty. On the appointed day the envoys were permitted to kiss the garments of the grand vizir, and they saluted him as brother of their sovereigns, Ferdinand and Queen Marie of Hungary. Ibrahim had never acknowledged the sovereignty of Ferdinand, and had always spoken of him without any kingly title, to the amaze of the ambassadors.[133] In this interview and throughout the whole conference Ibrahim spoke of Ferdinand as his brother, and as son to Suleiman. This was not mere personal vanity; under the pretext of the community of good which should exist between father and son he cloaked the Sultan’s usurpation of Hungary, and the fraternity of Ferdinand and Ibrahim served to disguise the humiliation of the former, who was placed in the same rank as a vizir.[134] But in the long speech that Ibrahim Pasha made to the ambassadors, he revealed his personal pride. We quote from the speech: “It is I who govern this vast empire. What I do is done; I have all the power, all offices, all the rule. What I wish to give is given and cannot be taken away; what I do not give is not confirmed by any one. If ever the great Sultan wishes to give, or has given anything, if I do not please it is not carried out. All is in my hands, peace, war, treasure. I do not say these things for no reason, but to give you courage to speak freely.”[135]
When the letters of Emperor Charles were shown him, he examined the seals, remarking as he did so: “My master has two seals, of which one remains in his hands and the other is confided to me, for he wishes no difference between him and me; and if he has garments made for himself, he orders the same for me; he refuses to let me expend anything in building; this hall was built by him.”
Ibrahim seems to have lost his head during this, his last embassy, and to have uttered things that were not safe for any subject of an Oriental despot, however doting, to utter. Whether he spoke out of the sheer madness that the gods send upon those whom they would destroy, or whether he seriously aspired to assume literally and explicitly the power he held actually is impossible to say. Even as grand vizir of Turkey he seems never to have forgotten that he was a Greek. For years he ignored it, and behaved like a Turk and a loyal Moslem, but as he came to feel more secure in his high position, he became more careless, and spoke to these Christian ambassadors of the pride and generosity with which the Greeks are filled. It is a question whether any Greek, from the fall of Byzantium to our time, has not in his inmost heart felt his race superior to his Moslem conquerors, and the fitting ruler of the Eastern Empire. To that feeling are due some of the knottiest complexities in the Young Turk situation of 1911. Naturally this attitude has always been profoundly resented by the Turks; therefore Ibrahim was seriously jeopardizing his standing with the Ottoman Sultan when he remembered that he was both Greek and Christian by birth.
There were plenty at the court to take immediate advantage of any such slip. The courtiers had already been scandalized at the freedom the Pasha took with the Sultan, and thought that he had bewitched Suleiman.[136] In the same interview he further expresses his relations to his imperial master in a parable:
The fiercest of animals, the lion, must be conquered not by force, but by cleverness; by the food which his master gives it and by the influence of habit. Its guardian should carry a stick to intimidate it, and should be the only one to feed it. The lion is the prince. The Emperor Charles is a lion. I, Ibrahim Pasha, control my master, the Sultan of the Turks, with the stick of truth and justice. Charles’ ambassador should also control him in the same way.
From this he went on to expatiate on his own power:
The mighty Sultan of the Turks has given to me, Ibrahim, all power and authority. It is I alone who do everything. I am above all the pashas. I can elevate a groom to a pasha. I give kingdoms and provinces to whom I will, without inquiry even from my master. If he orders a thing and I disapprove, it is not executed; but if I order a thing and he disapproves, it is done nevertheless. To make war or conclude peace is in my hands, and I can distribute all treasure. My master’s kingdoms, lands, treasure, are confided to me.
He also boasted of his past accomplishments, speaking of himself as having conquered Hungary, received ambassadors, and made peace. If Suleiman knew of these vauntings, he made no sign of resentment, but continued to repose the same confidence in Ibrahim as hitherto, but the courtiers held them in their hearts to use when the time should come.
Ibrahim’s importance and influence are taken for granted by foreign rulers and envoys. In all his instructions to his ambassadors Ferdinand tells them to see Ibrahim first, and the queen regent of France wrote to him, when she wrote to the sultan. The collections of Gévay and Charrière contain a number of letters from Ferdinand and Francis to Ibrahim. The Venetian baillies transacted all their business with Ibrahim and sent many reports to the Signoria of his power in the state and his influence over the sultan. The envoys brought him valuable presents which he did not hesitate to accept.[137] He loved to receive jewels and there was a famous ruby once on the finger of Francis I which was sent by the first French envoy to the Porte, (the envoy who was killed in Bosnia) and which somehow came into Ibrahim’s possession when the Pasha of Bosnia was called to Constantinople to account for the murder.[138]