I cried out, 'The gods reject the prayers of
a king who is now become a tyrant, and who attempted to murder a
reasonable wife, in order to marry a woman remarkable for nothing but her
folly and extravagance.' At these words Moabdar was confounded and his
head became disordered. The oracle I had pronounced, and the tyranny of
Missouf, conspired to deprive him of his judgment, and in a few days his
reason entirely forsook him.

"Moabdar's madness, which seemed to be the judgment of Heaven, was the
signal to a revolt. The people rose and ran to arms; and Babylon, which
had been so long immersed in idleness and effeminacy, became the theater
of a bloody civil war. I was taken from the heart of my statue and placed
at the head of a party. Cador flew to Memphis to bring thee back to
Babylon. The Prince of Hircania, informed of these fatal events, returned
with his army and made a third party in Chaldea. He attacked the king, who
fled before him with his capricious Egyptian. Moabdar died pierced with
wounds. I myself had the misfortune to be taken by a party of Hircanians,
who conducted me to their prince's tent, at the very moment that Missouf
was brought before him. Thou wilt doubtless be pleased to hear that the
prince thought me beautiful; but thou wilt be sorry to be informed that he
designed me for his seraglio. He told me, with a blunt and resolute air,
that as soon as he had finished a military expedition, which he was just
going to undertake, he would come to me. Judge how great must have been my
grief. My ties with Moabdar were already dissolved; I might have been the
wife of Zadig; and I was fallen into the hands of a barbarian. I answered
him with all the pride which my high rank and noble sentiment could
inspire. I had always heard it affirmed that Heaven stamped on persons of
my condition a mark of grandeur, which, with a single word or glance,
could reduce to the lowliness of the most profound respect those rash and
forward persons who presume to deviate from the rules of politeness. I
spoke like a queen, but was treated like a maidservant. The Hircanian,
without even deigning to speak to me, told his black eunuch that I was
impertinent, but that he thought me handsome. He ordered him to take care
of me, and to put me under the regimen of favorites, that so my complexion
being improved, I might be the more worthy of his favors when he should be
at leisure to honor me with them, I told him that rather than submit