pickpockets.

I was chiefly disgusted with modern history. For having strictly
examined all the persons of greatest name in the courts of princes, for a
hundred years past, I found how the world had been misled by prostitute
writers, to ascribe the greatest exploits in war, to cowards; the wisest
counsel, to fools; sincerity, to flatterers; Roman virtue, to betrayers
of their country; piety, to atheists; chastity, to sodomites; truth, to
informers: how many innocent and excellent persons had been condemned to
death or banishment by the practising of great ministers upon the
corruption of judges, and the malice of factions: how many villains had
been exalted to the highest places of trust, power, dignity, and profit:
how great a share in the motions and events of courts, councils, and
senates might be challenged by bawds, whores, pimps, parasites, and
buffoons. How low an opinion I had of human wisdom and integrity, when I
was truly informed of the springs and motives of great enterprises and
revolutions in the world, and of the contemptible accidents to which they
owed their success.

Here I discovered the roguery and ignorance of those who pretend to write
anecdotes, or secret history; who send so many kings to their graves with
a cup of poison; will repeat the discourse between a prince and chief
minister, where no witness was by; unlock the thoughts and cabinets of
ambassadors and secretaries of state; and have the perpetual misfortune
to be mistaken. Here I discovered the true causes of many great events
that have surprised the world; how a whore can govern the back-stairs,
the back-stairs a council, and the council a senate. A general
confessed, in my presence, "that he got a victory purely by the force of
cowardice and ill conduct;" and an admiral, "that, for want of proper
intelligence, he beat the enemy, to whom he intended to betray the
fleet." Three kings protested to me, "that in their whole reigns they
never did once prefer any person of merit, unless by mistake, or
treachery of some minister in whom they confided; neither would they do
it if they were to live again:" and they showed, with great strength of
reason, "that the royal throne could not be supported without corruption,
because that positive, confident, restiff temper, which virtue infused
into a man, was a perpetual clog to public business."

I had the curiosity to inquire in a particular manner, by what methods
great numbers had procured