Denis Diderot - Les Bijoux Indiscrets, or, The Indiscreet Toys

"But who has drawn down these scourges on this wretched country? Is it not thy injustice, greedy incredulous man? Thy gallantries and silly amours, worldly immodest woman! Thy excesses and shameful debaucheries, infamous man of pleasure! Thy hardheartedness for our monasteries, miser! Thy injustice, corrupt magistrate! Thy usuries, insatiable money-dealer! Thy effeminacy and irreligion, impious and sycophant courtier.

"And you, on whom this scourge is particularly fallen, women and maidens plunged into licentiousness; tho' we, renouncing the duties of our calling, should keep profound silence with regard to your irregularities, you carry about you a more importunate voice than ours: it accompanies you, and will every where rebuke you for your impure desires, your equivocal connections, your criminal conversations, such excessive care to please, so many artifices to engage, so much address to fix, and the impetuosity of your transports, and the fury of your jealousy. Why then do you delay to shake off the yoke of Cadabra, and return under the mild laws of Brama? But let us return to our subject. Well then I was saying that worldlings sit down heretically, and that for nine reasons; the first, &c."

This discourse made very different impressions. Mangogul and the Sultana, who were the only persons that knew the secret of the ring, were convinced that the Bramin had as happily hit off the tattle of Toys by the assistance of religion, as Orcotomus by the light of reason. The court ladies and petits-maitres declared the sermon seditious, and the preacher a visionary. The rest of the audience esteem'd him a prophet, shed tears, fell to prayers, and even flagellations, and did not change their courses of life.

The noise of this sermon spread to the very coffee-houses. A wit pronounced in a decisive tone, that the Bramin had but very superficially handled the subject, and that his discourse was but a cold insipid declamation: but in the opinion of the devout women and the enlightened, it was the most solid piece of eloquence that had been delivered in the temples these hundred years. And in mine, both the wit and the devout women were in the right.

While the Bramins were making Brama speak, airing their Pagoda's by processions, and exhorting the people to repentance; others were thinking how to reap benefit by the prattle of Toys.

Great cities swarm with persons, whom misery renders industrious. – They neither rob nor pick pockets: but they are to pick-pockets, what pick-pockets are to gamblers. They know every thing, they do every thing. They go up and down, they insinuate themselves. They are found at court, in the city, at Westminster hall, at church, at the play, at ladies toilets, in coffee-houses, at balls, opera's and in academies. They are any thing that you would have them be. Do you sollicit a pension, they have the minister's ear. Have you a law-suit, they will sollicite for you. Do you love gaming, they will make a party with you; good chear, they keep a good kitchen; women, they will introduce you to Amina or Acaris. From which of the two would you please to purchase the distemper? Take your choice, they will undertake your cure. Their chief occupation is to find the ridicules of private persons, and to make advantage of the follies of the public. From them it is, that papers are distributed in the streets, at the gates of temples, at the play-house doors, and other public places, by which you are advertised gratis, that such an one living at the Louvre, St. John's, the temple, or the abby, at such a sign, dupes mankind at home from nine in the morning to noon, and abroad the rest of the day.

Scarce had the Toys began to speak, when one of these sharpers fill'd the houses of Banza with a printed bill of this form and tenor. – Advertisement to the ladies. And underneath in small Italic, by permission of my lord the great Seneschal, and with the approbation of the gentlemen of the royal academy of sciences. And lower down: The Sieur Eolipila of the royal academy of Banza, Member of the royal society of Monoémugi, of the imperial academy of Biafara, of the academy of the curious of Loango, of the society of Camur in Monomotapa, of the institute of Ereeco, and of the royal academies of Beleguanza and Angola; who has for many years given courses of baubles, with the applause of the court, the town, and the province; has, in favour of the fair sex, invented muzzles or portable gags, which deprive Toys of the use of speech, without obstructing their natural functions. They are neat and convenient. He has some of all sizes, of all prices, and for all ages: and he has had the honour to serve persons of the highest distinction with them.

There is nothing like being a member of a body of men. Be a work ever so ridiculous, it is puff'd into success. Thus it was, that Eolipila's invention gain'd ground. People flock'd to his house. The gay ladies went thither in their own equipages, prudent women in hackney-coaches; the devouts sent their confessors or footmen, and nuns their door-keepers. Every body must have a muzzle, so that not one from the dutchess down to the cobler's Joan, but had one either for the fashion or for reasons.

The Bramins, who had declared the prattle of Toys to be a divine punishment, and flatter'd themselves with a reformation of manners and other advantages from it, could not without horror see a machine, which eluded the vengeance of heaven and their hopes. Scarcely had they come down from their pulpits, but they mount again, thunder, roar, make the oracles to speak, and pronounce that a muzzle is an infernal machine, and that there is no salvation for those who shall use them. "Carnal women, quit your muzzles; submit," cried they, "to the will of Brama. Permit the voice of your Toys to awaken that of your consciences, and blush not to acknowledge crimes, which you have not been ashamed to commit."

But their exclamations were of little avail: the same fate attended muzzles, that had formerly attended the gowns without sleeves. The preachers were left to catch cold in the temples. All the women took gags, and quitted them not, either till they found them useless, or were tired of them.

For some days past the Sultan left the Toys at rest. Important affairs, on which he was busy, suspended the effects of his ring. In this interval it was, that two women of Banza made diversion for the whole town.

They were professed devouts. They had managed their intrigues with all possible discretion, and were in full enjoyment of a reputation, which even the malice of those of their own class paid respect to. In the mosques nothing was talk'd of but their virtue. Mothers proposed them as patterns to their daughters, and husbands to their wives. The principal maxim of both was, that scandal is the greatest of all sins. This conformity of sentiments, but above all, the difficulty of edifying a clear-sighted and crafty neighbour at an easy expence, had got the better of the difference of their tempers, and they were very good friends.

Zelida received Sophia's Bramin: and it was at Sophia's house that Zelida confer'd with her director; and by a little self-examination, the one could hardly be ignorant of what concerned the other's Toy: but the whimsical indiscretion of these Toys kept them both in cruel apprehensions. They held themselves as on the point of being unmask'd, and of losing that reputation of virtue, which had cost them fifteen years dissimulation and management, and which now embarassed them very much.

At some moments they would even forfeit their lives, especially Zelida, to be as much blasted as the greatest part of their acquaintance. "What will the world say? What will my husband do? – What! that woman so reserved, so modest, so virtuous, that Zelida, like others, is but – Alas! this thought distracts me! – Yes, I wish I never had any reputation," cried Zelida in a passion.