But lovers’ intrigues and childish escapades were not the only pursuits which occupied the time and attention of the occupants of that labyrinth of gardens and temples. Politics crept in through the cracks of doors and between window-bars, and the power exercised there by beautiful eyes over affairs of state was not one whit less far-reaching than in any other royal palace of Europe; indeed, the very monotony and seclusion of the life led by the inmates gave an added force to their jealousies and ambitions. Those little jewel-crowned heads from their perfumed and luxurious prisons bent the court, the Divân, the entire Seraglio, to their will. By means of the eunuchs they were enabled to hold direct communication with the muftis, viziers, and the aghas of the Janissaries, and, as they were allowed to have interviews with the administrators of their personal property from behind a curtain or through a grating, they had opportunities of keeping themselves thoroughly informed as to every minutest detail of the court and city, knew what especial dangers threatened them, and were perfectly familiar with the name and character of every official from whom they had anything to hope or fear. Thus equipped, they move with a sure hand and infinite patience all the tangled threads of those conspiracies by which they compassed the overthrow of their enemies and the elevation of their especial favorites. Every department of the court, every corner of the empire, had a root, a hundred roots, in the harem, nourished in the hearts of the validéh sultan, the sisters of the Pâdishah, the _kadyns_ and odalisques. There was a continual plotting and scheming for the education of this one’s son, the marriage of that one’s daughter, to secure a dowry, to obtain precedence at the fêtes, or the royal succession for one of the princes--to bring about war or peace. The whims of these spoiled beauties sent armies of thirty thousand Janissaries and forty thousand spahis to strew the banks of the Danube with dead bodies, and fleets numbering a hundred sails to dye the blue waters of the Archipelago and Black Sea with blood. European princes provided themselves with letters to the harem in order to ensure the success of their missions. Little white hands assigned the government of provinces and positions of rank in the army. It was the caresses of Roxalana which drew the noose about the necks of the viziers Ahmed and Ibrahim, and the kisses of Saffié, the beautiful Venetian, “pearl and shell of the khalifate,” that maintained for so many years friendly relations between the Porte and the Venetian republic. Murad III.’s seven _kadyns_ ruled the empire for the last twenty years of the sixteenth century, while the beautiful Makpeiker, “image of the moon,” the _kadyn_ of the two thousand seven hundred shawls, held undisputed sway over two seas and two worlds from the reign of Ahmed I. to the accession of the fourth Muhammad.