XVII. The second is the abbot Boileau, a famous preacher at Paris in the reign of Louis the Fourteenth. This eminent man, in a treatise he published, entitled _Choice Thoughts or Reflexions_, drew such a picture of the court of Versailles, as shews the Urbanity exercised there, had degenerated not only into dissimulation, but even into treachery, although he admits, this was not the practice of every one who attended it. These are his words: XVIII. “What are the manners and behaviour of a courtier? Why they consist in flattering his enemies while he is afraid of their power; and in endeavouring to destroy them whenever he finds an opportunity for doing it; in being civil to, and making use of his friends when he stands in need of their assistance, and in turning his back upon them when they can be of no further service to him; in seeking out powerful protectors, whom he fawns on, and idolizes exteriorly, and frequently despises in secret. XIX. “Courtly Urbanity, consists in converting dissimulation and deceit, into the law or rule of a man’s actions; and representing all sorts of people in such colours, as your interest dictates to you that you should paint them; in bearing slights and disappointments with a forced reserve, and in awaiting with a strained appearance of modesty and composure, the favours of Fortune. XX. “In a court, for the most part there is no sincerity, but almost every thing you see there, is compounded of hypocrisy, deceit, and malevolence; for example, in peoples doing underhand ill offices to each other; in contriving and laying snares that nobody can be aware of; in bearing painful and mortifying disgusts with a smiling countenance; and in hiding under an apparent shew of modesty, the pride of Lucifer. It is very common in a court, for a man not to be permitted to love whom he likes, to do what he should, nor to speak what he thinks. It is necessary to keep silence, in order to conceal your sentiments, and it is also necessary, to acquire a facility at changing them. You must applaud, abuse, love, abhor, speak, and live, not according to your own liking or inclination, but in conformity to the arbitrary will and caprice of other people. XXI. “In what do the other manners and mode of a man’s conducting himself consist in a courtier? Why in dissembling injuries, and in revenging them; in flattering his enemies, and in destroying them; in promising every thing for the sake of obtaining a dignity or promotion, and in performing none of these promises after he has got it; in repaying favours with words, services with plausible assurances, and debts with threatenings. At court, they in the same breath implore and execrate Fortune, applaud and despise merit; and they also disguise the truth, under an ostentatious appearance of frankness.”