Some private Letters add, that there will also be erected a Seminary of Petticoat Politicians, who are to be brought up at the Feet of Madam de Maintenon, and to be dispatched into Foreign Courts upon any Emergencies of State; but as the News of this last Project has not been yet confirmed, I shall take no farther Notice of it.
Several of my Readers may doubtless remember that upon the Conclusion of the last War, which had been carried on so successfully by the Enemy, their Generals were many of them transformed into Ambassadors; but the Conduct of those who have commanded in the present War, has, it seems, brought so little Honour and Advantage to their great Monarch, that he is resolved to trust his Affairs no longer in the Hands of those Military Gentlemen.
The Regulations of this new Academy very much deserve our Attention. The Students are to have in Possession, or Reversion, an Estate of two thousand French Livres per Annum, which, as the present Exchange runs, will amount to at least one hundred and twenty six Pounds English. This, with the Royal Allowance of a Thousand Livres, will enable them to find themselves in Coffee and Snuff; not to mention News-Papers, Pen and Ink, Wax and Wafers, with the like Necessaries for Politicians.
A Man must be at least Five and Twenty before he can be initiated into the Mysteries of this Academy, tho' there is no Question but many grave Persons of a much more advanced Age, who have been constant Readers of the Paris Gazette, will be glad to begin the World a-new, and enter themselves upon this List of Politicians.
The Society of these hopeful young Gentlemen is to be under the Direction of six Professors, who, it seems, are to be Speculative Statesmen, and drawn out of the Body of the Royal Academy. These six wise Masters, according to my private Letters, are to have the following Parts allotted them.
The first is to instruct the Students in State Legerdemain, as how to take off the Impression of a Seal, to split a Wafer, to open a Letter, to fold it up again, with other the like ingenious Feats of Dexterity and Art. When the Students have accomplished themselves in this Part of their Profession, they are to be delivered into the Hands of their second Instructor, who is a kind of Posture-Master.
This Artist is to teach them how to nod judiciously, to shrug up their Shoulders in a dubious Case, to connive with either Eye, and in a Word, the whole Practice of Political Grimace.
The Third is a sort of Language-Master, who is to instruct them in the Style proper for a Foreign Minister in his ordinary Discourse. And to the End that this College of Statesmen may be thoroughly practised in the Political Style, they are to make use of it in their common Conversations, before they are employed either in Foreign or Domestick Affairs. If one of them asks another, what a-clock it is, the other is to answer him indirectly, and, if possible, to turn off the Question. If he is desired to change a Louis d'or, he must beg Time to consider of it. If it be enquired of him, whether the King is at Versailles or Marly, he must answer in a Whisper. If he be asked the News of the late Gazette, or the Subject of a Proclamation, he is to reply, that he has not yet read it: Or if he does not care for explaining himself so far, he needs only draw his Brow up in Wrinkles, or elevate the Left Shoulder.
The Fourth Professor is to teach the whole Art of Political Characters and Hieroglyphics; and to the End that they may be perfect also in this Practice, they are not to send a Note to one another (tho' it be but to borrow a Tacitus or a Machiavil) which is not written in Cypher.
Their Fifth Professor, it is thought, will be chosen out of the Society of Jesuits, and is to be well read in the Controversies of probable Doctrines, mental Reservation, and the Rights of Princes. This Learned Man is to instruct them in the Grammar, Syntax, and construing Part of Treaty-Latin; how to distinguish between the Spirit and the Letter, and likewise demonstrate how the same Form of Words may lay an Obligation upon any Prince in Europe, different from that which it lays upon his Most Christian Majesty. He is likewise to teach them the Art of finding Flaws, Loop-holes, and Evasions, in the most solemn Compacts, and particularly a great Rabbinical Secret, revived of late Years by the Fraternity of Jesuits, namely, that contradictory Interpretations, of the same Article may both of them be true and valid.