Chapter: "I had not always bleared eyes and red eyelids; neither did my nose
always touch my chin; nor was I always a servant. I am the daughter of
Pope Urban X,[10] and of the Princess of Palestrina. Until the age of
fourteen I was brought up in a palace, to which all the castles of your
German barons would scarcely have served for stables; and one of my
robes was worth more than all the magnificence of Westphalia. As I grew
up I improved in beauty, wit, and every graceful accomplishment, in the
midst of pleasures, hopes, and respectful homage. Already I inspired
love. My throat was formed, and such a throat! white, firm, and shaped
like that of the Venus of Medici; and what eyes! what eyelids! what
black eyebrows! such flames darted from my dark pupils that they
eclipsed the scintillation of the stars--as I was told by the poets in
our part of the world. My waiting women, when dressing and undressing
me, used to fall into an ecstasy, whether they viewed me before or
behind; how glad would the gentlemen have been to perform that office
for them!

"I was affianced to the most excellent Prince of Massa Carara. Such a
prince! as handsome as myself, sweet-tempered, agreeable, brilliantly
witty, and sparkling with love. I loved him as one loves for the first
time--with idolatry, with transport. The nuptials were prepared. There
was surprising pomp and magnificence; there were _fetes_, carousals,
continual _opera bouffe_; and all Italy composed sonnets in my praise,
though not one of them was passable. I was just upon the point of
reaching the summit of bliss, when an old marchioness who had been
mistress to the Prince, my husband, invited him to drink chocolate with
her. He died in less than two hours of most terrible convulsions. But
this is only a bagatelle. My mother, in despair, and scarcely less
afflicted than myself, determined to absent herself for some time from
so fatal a place. She had a very fine estate in the neighbourhood of
Gaeta. We embarked on board a galley of the country which was gilded
like the great altar of St. Peter's at Rome. A Sallee corsair swooped
down and boarded us. Our men defended themselves like the Pope's
soldiers; they flung themselves upon their knees, and threw down their
arms, begging of the corsair an absolution _in articulo mortis_.

"Instantly they were stripped as bare as monkeys; my mother, our maids
of honour, and myself were all served in the same manner. It is amazing
with what expedition those gentry undress people. But what surprised me
most was, that they thrust their fingers into the part of our bodies
which the generality of women suffer no other instrument but--pipes to
enter. It appeared to me a very strange kind of ceremony; but thus one
judges of things when one has not seen the world. I afterwards learnt
that it was to try whether we had concealed any diamonds. This is the
practice established from time immemorial, among civilised nations that
scour the seas. I was informed that the very religious Knights of Malta
never fail to make this search when they take any Turkish prisoners of
either sex. It is a law of nations from which they never deviate.

"I need not tell _you_ how great a hardship it was for a young princess
and her mother to be made slaves and carried to Morocco. You may easily
imagine all we had to suffer on board the pirate vessel. My mother was
still very handsome; our maids of honour, and even our waiting women,
had more charms than are to be found in all Africa. As for myself, I was
ravishing, was exquisite, grace itself, and I was a virgin! I did not
remain so long; this flower, which had been reserved for the handsome
Prince of Massa Carara, was plucked by the corsair captain. He was an
abominable negro, and yet believed that he did me a great deal of
honour. Certainly the Princess of Palestrina and myself must have been
very strong to go through all that we experienced until our arrival at
Morocco. But let us pass on; these are such common things as not to be
worth mentioning.

"Morocco swam in blood when we arrived. Fifty sons of the Emperor
Muley-Ismael[11] had each their adherents; this produced fifty civil
wars, of blacks against blacks, and blacks against tawnies, and tawnies
against tawnies, and mulattoes against mulattoes. In short it was a
continual carnage throughout the empire.

"No sooner were we landed, than the blacks of a contrary faction to that
of my captain attempted to rob him of his booty. Next to jewels and gold
we were the most valuable things he had. I was witness to such a battle
as you have never seen in your European climates. The northern nations
have not that heat in their blood, nor that raging lust for women, so
common in Africa. It seems that you Europeans have only milk in your
veins; but it is vitriol, it is fire which runs in those of the
inhabitants of Mount Atlas and the neighbouring countries. They fought
with the fury of the lions, tigers, and serpents of the country, to see
who should have us. A Moor seized my mother by the right arm, while my
captain's lieutenant held her by the left; a Moorish soldier had hold of
her by one leg, and one of our corsairs held her by the other. Thus
almost all our women were drawn in quarters by four men. My captain
concealed me behind him; and with his drawn scimitar cut and slashed
every one that opposed his fury. At length I saw all our Italian women,
and my mother herself, torn, mangled, massacred, by the monsters who
disputed over them. The slaves, my companions, those who had taken them,
soldiers, sailors, blacks, whites, mulattoes, and at last my captain,
all were killed, and I remained dying on a heap of dead. Such scenes as
this were transacted through an extent of three hundred leagues--and yet
they never missed the five prayers a day ordained by Mahomet.

"With difficulty I disengaged myself from such a heap of slaughtered
bodies, and crawled to a large orange tree on the bank of a neighbouring
rivulet, where I fell, oppressed with fright, fatigue, horror, despair,
and hunger. Immediately after, my senses, overpowered, gave themselves
up to sleep, which was yet more swooning than repose. I was in this
state of weakness and insensibility, between life and death, when I
felt myself pressed by something that moved upon my body. I opened my
eyes, and saw a white man, of good countenance, who sighed, and who said
between his teeth: '_O che sciagura d'essere senza coglioni!_'"[12]




"Astonished and delighted to hear my native language, and no less
surprised at what this man said, I made answer that there were much
greater misfortunes than that of which he complained. I told him in a
few words of the horrors which I had endured, and fainted a second time.
He carried me to a neighbouring house, put me to bed, gave me food,
waited upon me, consoled me, flattered me; he told me that he had never
seen any one so beautiful as I, and that he never so much regretted the
loss of what it was impossible to recover.

"'I was born at Naples,' said he, 'there they geld two or three thousand
children every year; some die of the operation, others acquire a voice
more beautiful than that of women, and others are raised to offices of
state.[13] This operation was performed on me with great success and I
was chapel musician to madam, the Princess of Palestrina.'

"'To my mother!' cried I.

"'Your mother!' cried he, weeping. 'What! can you be that young
princess whom I brought up until the age of six years, and who promised
so early to be as beautiful as you?'

"'It is I, indeed; but my mother lies four hundred yards hence, torn in
quarters, under a heap of dead bodies.'

"I told him all my adventures, and he made me acquainted with his;
telling me that he had been sent to the Emperor of Morocco by a
Christian power, to conclude a treaty with that prince, in consequence
of which he was to be furnished with military stores and ships to help
to demolish the commerce of other Christian Governments.

"'My mission is done,' said this honest eunuch; 'I go to embark for
Ceuta, and will take you to Italy. _Ma che sciagura d'essere senza
coglioni!_'

"I thanked him with tears of commiseration; and instead of taking me to
Italy he conducted me to Algiers, where he sold me to the Dey. Scarcely
was I sold, than the plague which had made the tour of Africa, Asia, and
Europe, broke out with great malignancy in Algiers. You have seen
earthquakes; but pray, miss, have you ever had the plague?"

"Never," answered Cunegonde.

"If you had," said the old woman, "you would acknowledge that it is far
more terrible than an earthquake. It is common in Africa, and I caught
it. Imagine to yourself the distressed situation of the daughter of a
Pope, only fifteen years old, who, in less than three months, had felt
the miseries of poverty and slavery, had been ravished almost every day,
had beheld her mother drawn in quarters, had experienced famine and war,
and was dying of the plague in Algiers. I did not die, however, but my
eunuch, and the Dey, and almost the whole seraglio of Algiers perished.

"As soon as the first fury of this terrible pestilence was over, a sale
was made of the Dey's slaves; I was purchased by a merchant, and carried
to Tunis; this man sold me to another merchant, who sold me again to
another at Tripoli; from Tripoli I was sold to Alexandria, from
Alexandria to Smyrna, and from Smyrna to Constantinople. At length I
became the property of an Aga of the Janissaries, who was soon ordered
away to the defence of Azof, then besieged by the Russians.

"The Aga, who was a very gallant man, took his whole seraglio with him,
and lodged us in a small fort on the Palus Meotides, guarded by two
black eunuchs and twenty soldiers. The Turks killed prodigious numbers
of the Russians, but the latter had their revenge. Azof was destroyed by
fire, the inhabitants put to the sword, neither sex nor age was spared;
until there remained only our little fort, and the enemy wanted to
starve us out. The twenty Janissaries had sworn they would never
surrender. The extremities of famine to which they were reduced, obliged
them to eat our two eunuchs, for fear of violating their oath. And at
the end of a few days they resolved also to devour the women.

"We had a very pious and humane Iman, who preached an excellent sermon,
exhorting them not to kill us all at once.

"'Only cut off a buttock of each of those ladies,' said he, 'and you'll
fare extremely well; if you must go to it again, there will be the same
entertainment a few days hence; heaven will accept of so charitable an
action, and send you relief.'

"He had great eloquence; he persuaded them; we underwent this terrible
operation. The Iman applied the same balsam to us, as he does to
children after circumcision; and we all nearly died.

"Scarcely had the Janissaries finished the repast with which we had
furnished them, than the Russians came in flat-bottomed boats; not a
Janissary escaped. The Russians paid no attention to the condition we
were in. There are French surgeons in all parts of the world; one of
them who was very clever took us under his care--he cured us; and as
long as I live I shall remember that as soon as my wounds were healed he
made proposals to me. He bid us all be of good cheer, telling us that
the like had happened in many sieges, and that it was according to the
laws of war.

"As soon as my companions could walk, they were obliged to set out for
Moscow. I fell to the share of a Boyard who made me his gardener, and
gave me twenty lashes a day. But this nobleman having in two years' time
been broke upon the wheel along with thirty more Boyards for some broils
at court, I profited by that event; I fled. I traversed all Russia; I
was a long time an inn-holder's servant at Riga, the same at Rostock, at
Vismar, at Leipzig, at Cassel, at Utrecht, at Leyden, at the Hague, at
Rotterdam. I waxed old in misery and disgrace, having only one-half of
my posteriors, and always remembering I was a Pope's daughter. A hundred
times I was upon the point of killing myself; but still I loved life.
This ridiculous foible is perhaps one of our most fatal characteristics;
for is there anything more absurd than to wish to carry continually a
burden which one can always throw down? to detest existence and yet to
cling to one's existence? in brief, to caress the serpent which devours
us, till he has eaten our very heart?

"In the different countries which it has been my lot to traverse, and
the numerous inns where I have been servant, I have taken notice of a
vast number of people who held their own existence in abhorrence, and
yet I never knew of more than eight who voluntarily put an end to their
misery; three negroes, four Englishmen, and a German professor named
Robek.[14] I ended by being servant to the Jew, Don Issachar, who placed
me near your presence, my fair lady. I am determined to share your fate,
and have been much more affected with your misfortunes than with my own.
I would never even have spoken to you of my misfortunes, had you not
piqued me a little, and if it were not customary to tell stories on
board a ship in order to pass away the time. In short, Miss Cunegonde, I
have had experience, I know the world; therefore I advise you to divert
yourself, and prevail upon each passenger to tell his story; and if
there be one of them all, that has not cursed his life many a time, that
has not frequently looked upon himself as the unhappiest of mortals, I
give you leave to throw me headforemost into the sea."

 The old woman revealed herself to be the daughter of Pope Urban X and the princess of Palestrina, and until the age of fourteen she had lived in a castle that far exceeded in splendor any German castle. Indeed, her dresses were worth more than all the magnificence of Westphalia. And, of course, she was a peerless beauty, admired by all. The old woman revealed herself to be the daughter of Pope Urban X and the princess of Palestrina, and until the age of fourteen she had lived in a castle that far exceeded in splendor any German castle. Indeed, her dresses were worth more than all the magnificence of Westphalia. And, of course, she was a peerless beauty, admired by all. She had been betrothed to the most handsome sovereign prince of Massa-Carrara, and the elaborate festivities appropriate for the nuptials were prepared. But just when the marriage was to take place, the prince was poisoned by his jealous mistress and died in frightful convulsions. Her despairing mother then decided to take the girl to an estate near Gaeta, and with their entourage the two set sail on a galley lavishly appointed. En route they were attacked by pirates, and their own soldiers proved to be cowards. All were subjected to appalling indignities. Male and female alike were stripped naked, the pirates showing amazing skill in this process. But if all this was almost unbearable, what followed was worse. The pirates' search of their captives was shockingly thorough as they looked for jewels perhaps hidden somewhere in the bodies of the helpless group. The girl, her mother, the ladies of honor -- all were taken as slaves to Morocco. The girl was ravished by the pirate captain, who was convinced that he did her great honor. The old woman was content, at this point, merely to stress the heartlessness of the pirates. No need for details, she said, for these are things so common that they are not worth speaking about. Slaughter was everywhere when the group arrived in Morocco. The fifty sons of Emperor Muley Ismael had formed fifty factions, which produced fifty civil wars. The carnage extended over the entire empire. One of the factions, hostile to pirates, seized their stolen treasure and then fought furiously for possession of the women. The terrified girl saw all the Italian women and her mother torn, cut, and massacred. The pirate captain kept the girl hidden behind him and, with his scimitar, killed all who approached him. Finally the members of both factions were killed, and the girl lay dying on a heap of bodies. Similar scenes took place throughout Morocco, but none of the living failed to say the five daily prayers ordained by Mohammed. The poor girl managed to crawl away and, reaching an orange tree beside a stream, swooned from sheer fright, exhaustion, despair, and hunger. For some time she was unconscious, languishing between life and death. Then, becoming aware that someone was pressing her body, she awoke to see an attractive looking man, who was bewailing the fact that he had been emasculated. Astounded and happy to hear her native language spoken, if surprised at the words she heard, the girl endeavored to console the stranger by telling him that there are worse misfortunes than that which he endured. Briefly she recounted the horrors she had experienced, and then she fainted. The man took her to a nearby house, had her put to bed, waited on her, and in his turn sought to console her. He was overwhelmed by her beauty and told her that never before had he so regretted his state of emasculation. Then he told his story. He had been born in Naples and became one of the 3,000 boys who, every year, were emasculated. Some died as a result, but others went on to become beautiful singers or even to govern states. He had survived to become a musician in the Chapel of My Lady the Princess of Palestrina -- his young audience's mother! And the two then knew that in early childhood they had been reared together. The two exchanged reports of their experiences. The honest eunuch, as Voltaire called him, told her that he had been sent to the king of Morocco to conclude a treaty involving munitions, arms, and ships "to help exterminate the trade of the other Christian countries." His mission had been concluded; he now planned to take her back to Italy. Again he groaned over the fact that he was a eunuch. The "honest" eunuch took her instead to Algiers and sold her to the Dey . There a terrible plague, described by the old woman as being worse than an earthquake, broke out. She became one of its victims. She, the daughter of a pope, a girl who, at the age of fifteen had endured poverty, slavery, and repeated rape; who had seen her mother cut into quarters -- she was now dying of the plague in Algiers. But she did live, although the eunuch, the Dey, and nearly all the ladies of the seraglio perished. She was sold to a merchant who brought her to Tunis, and then sold successively at Tripoli, Alexandria, Smyrna, and Constantinople. Finally, she was bought by the Aga of the Janizaries , whose immediate commission was to defend the city of Azov against the Russians. The gallant Aga took his entire seraglio with him. The slaughter on Turkish and Russian sides alike was very great, and Azov was put to fire and sword, neither age nor sex being spared. Only the fort, where the members of the seraglio were lodged, protected by two eunuchs and twenty Janizaries, remained. The Russians sought to starve them out; the determined but starving Janizaries ate the two eunuchs rather than surrender. A few days later, they were about to eat the women, but a pious, compassionate imam persuaded them to restrain themselves and to cut off only one buttock from each of the ladies. The horrible operation was performed just before the Russians arrived in flat-bottomed boats and slaughtered the Janizaries. Fortunately, there were French surgeons available, and one of them took care of the ladies. Not only did he cure them but he was most consoling: it was a law of war for them to be so treated. The girl and her companions were sent to Moscow, where she was given as a slave to a boyar , who made her his gardener and saw to it that she was beaten daily. But the boyar himself was broken on the wheel with some other noblemen for some petty offense, and the girl was able to escape across the whole of Russia. She traveled far in Western Europe, working as a servant in various cities, including Rotterdam. Once most beautiful, she had indeed grown old in misery. Many times she had wanted to end her life, but she still loved it, for this clinging to life is one of the evidences of humanity's stupidity. Man caresses the serpent that devours life until it has eaten up his heart. Among the very few who loathed their lives and had the courage to commit suicide, she cited the case of the German professor Robeck, author of dissertations on the futility of life, who drowned himself in 1739 at the age of sixty-seven. The old woman had made her point. Most things are relative. Cunegonde, a baron's daughter, had indeed suffered much. But evil pervades the world, and others have suffered, often to a far greater extent. After all, how many have been deprived of a buttock? Her concluding advice is that one should get what enjoyment one can and learn from others in life's journey. Nowhere will Cunegonde find a person who has not often cursed life and contemplated suicide.

