Les Bijoux Indiscrets, or, The Indiscreet ToysDiderot, Denis
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Les Bijoux Indiscrets, or, The Indiscreet Toys
Diderot, Denis
Erotic fiction; Louis XV, King of France, 1710-1774 -- Fiction
It was on the fifteenth of the moon of ----, that Orcotomus had read
his memoir to the academy, and communicated his thoughts on the tattle
of the Toys. As he then did with the greatest assurance promise to
produce infallible experiments, which he had repeated several times,
and always with success; the majority of people was struck with his
doctrine. For some time the public preserved the favorable impressions
they had received: and for full six weeks Orcotomus pass'd for having
made considerable discoveries.
Nothing was wanting to complete his triumph, but performing before
the academy the famous experiments, which he had preached so loudly.
The assembly that met on this occasion was extremely brilliant. The
ministers of state graced the meeting: the Sultan himself did not
disdain to be there, but invisible.
As Mangogul was a great Monologue maker, and the futility of the
conversations of his time had tainted him with the habitude of
soliloquy: "Either Orcotomus," said he, "must be an arrant quack,
or the Genius my protector, a great fool. If the academician, who
certainly is not a conjurer, can restore speech to dead Toys; the
Genius who protects me was in the wrong to make a compact, and sell his
soul to the devil, for the sake of communicating it to Toys full of
life."
Mangogul was puzzling himself with such reflections, when he found
himself in the middle of his academy. Orcotomus had for spectators,
as appears, all those in Banza, who were knowing in the subject of
Toys. In order to be satisfied with his audience, all he wanted was
to give them satisfaction: but the issue of his experiments proved
very unhappy. Orcotomus took up a Toy, put his mouth to it, blew into
it till he was out of breath, quieted it, returned, tried another:
for he had brought a variety of them with him, of all ages, sizes,
conditions and colours: but in vain did he blow; nothing was heard but
inarticulate sounds, vastly different from what he had promised.
Then ran a buzzing murmur thro' the company, which disconcerted him for
a moment: but he recovered himself, and alledged that such experiments
were not easy to be made before so great a number of people: and he
was right.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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