Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 3.5.8

3.5.8

He is very sensible that the cause of the misery which afflicts the empires of Asia, of their misrule, and consequent decay, should be sought, and will be found, in the deficient and pernicious mode of instructing the children of their Kings. Intrusted from infancy to the care of women and eunuchs, slaves from Russia, Circassia, Mingrelia, Gurgistan, or Ethiopia, whose minds are debased by the very nature of their occupation ; servile and mean to superiors, proud and oppressive to dependants; — these Princes, when called to the throne, leave the walls of the Seraglio quite ignorant of the duties imposed upon them by their new situation. They appear on the stage of life, as if they came from another world, or emerged, for the first time, from a subterraneous cavern, astonished, like simpletons, at all around them. Either, like children, they are credulous in everything, and in dread of everything; or, with the obstinacy and heedlessness of folly, they are deaf to every sage counsel, and rash in every stupid enterprise. According to their natural temperament, or the first ideas impressed upon their minds, such Princes, on succeeding to a crown, affect to be dignified and grave, though it be easy to discern that gravity and dignity form no part of their character, that the appearance of those qualities is the effect of some ill-studied lesson, and that they are in fact only other names for savageness and vanity;