Читать книгу Les Bijoux Indiscrets, or, The Indiscreet Toys - Дени Дидро, Дені Дідро, Denis Diderot - Страница 17

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.