(52.) Theonas having been an abbé[415] for thirty years, grows weary of being so any longer. Others show less anxiety and impatience in being clad in purple than he displays in wearing a golden cross on his breast;[416] and because no great festival at court has ever made any alteration in his position,[417] he rails at the times, declares the state badly governed, and forebodes naught but ill for the future. Convinced in his heart that in courts merit is prejudicial to a man who wishes to better his position, he at last makes up his mind to renounce the prelacy; but some one hastens to inform him that he has been appointed to a bishopric, and full of joy and conceit at news so unexpected he says to a friend, “Youʼll see I shall not remain a bishop for ever; I shall be an archbishop yet.”
(53.) There must be knaves at court[418] about the great and the Ministers of State, even if those are animated with the best intentions; but to know when to employ them is a very difficult question, and requires a certain amount of shrewdness. There are times and seasons when others cannot fill their places; for honour, virtue, and conscience, though always worthy of our respect, are frequently useless, and therefore in certain emergencies an honest man[419] cannot be employed.
(54.) An ancient author, whose very words I shall take the liberty to quote,[420] for fear I should weaken the sense of them by my translation, says: “To forsake the common herd, nay, oneʼs very equals, to despise and vilify them; to get acquainted with rich men of rank; to join them in their private amusements, deceits, tricks, and bad business; to be brazen-faced, shameless, bankrupt in reputation; to endure the gibes and jokes of all men, and, in spite of all this, not to fear to go on, and that skilfully, has been the cause of many a manʼs fortune.”
(55.) The youth of a prince is the making of many courtiers.
(56.) Timantes,[421] still the same, and possessed of that very merit which at first got him reputation and rewards, has deteriorated in the opinion of the courtiers, who are weary of respecting him; they bow to him coldly, forbear smiling on him, no longer accost nor embrace him, nor take him into a corner to talk mysteriously about some trivial affair; they have nothing more to say to him. He receives a pension, or is honoured by being appointed to a new post; and his virtues, almost dead in their memories, revive whilst their thoughts are refreshed; now they treat him as they did at the beginning, and even better.
(57.) How many friends, how many relatives of a new Minister, spring up in a single night! Some men pride themselves on their former acquaintance, on their having been his fellow-students or neighbours; others ransack their genealogy, go back to their great-grandfather, and recall their father and motherʼs side, for in some way or other every one wishes to be related to him; several times a day people affirm they are his relatives, and they would even gladly print it. They say presently: “The Minister is my friend; I am very glad of his promotion, and I ought to share in it, for he is a near relative of mine.” Would those silly men, those servile votaries of fortune, those effete courtiers, have said this a week ago? Has the Minister become a more virtuous man, or more worthy of his sovereignʼs choice, or were they waiting for this appointment to know him better?[422]
(58.) What supports me and comforts me when sometimes men of high rank or my equals slight me, is the feeling that perhaps those very men only despise my position; and they are quite right, for it is a very humble one; but they would doubtless worship me if I were a Minister.
Am I suddenly to obtain some post, and do people know it, or foresee it, because they forestall me and bow to me first?
(59.) A man who tells us he has dined the day before at Tibur, or is going to have supper there tonight, and repeats it often, who brings in the name of Plancusʼ[423] about a dozen times during a few minutes conversation, such as, “Plancus asked me....” or “I said to Plancus....” is told that very moment that his hero has been snatched away by sudden death. He starts off at a tangent, gathers around him the people in the market-place or underneath the porticoes; accuses the deceased, rails at his conduct, and blackens his administration; he even denies him a knowledge of those details which the public own he had mastered, will not allow him to have had a good memory, refuses to praise him for his steadiness of character and power of work, and will not do him the honour to believe that among all the enemies of the State there was one who was Plancusʼ enemy.