re both found. The judges were reduced to the disagreeable necessity
of reversing their sentence; but they condemned Zadig to pay four
hundred ounces of gold for having said that he had not seen what he had
seen. This fine he was obliged to pay; after which he was permitted to
plead his cause before the counsel of the grand desterham, when he
spoke to the following effect:

"Ye stars of justice, abyss of sciences, mirrors of truth, who have the
weight of lead, the hardness of iron, the splendor of the diamond, and
many properties of gold: Since I am permitted to speak before this
august assembly, I swear to you by Oramades that I have never seen the
queen's respectable spaniel, nor the sacred horse of the king of kings.
The truth of the matter was as follows: I was walking toward the little
wood, where I afterwards met the venerable eunuch, and the most
illustrious chief huntsman. I observed on the sand the traces of an
animal, and could easily perceive them to be those of a little dog. The
light and long furrows impressed on little eminences of sand between
the marks of the paws plainly discovered that it was a female, whose
dugs were hanging down, and that therefore she must have whelped a few
days before. Other traces of a different kind, that always appeared to
have gently brushed the surface of the sand near the marks of the
forefeet, showed me that she had very long ears; and as I remarked that
there was always a slighter impression made on the sand by one foot
than the other three, I found that the spaniel of our august queen was
a little lame, if I may be allowed the expression.

"With regard to the horse of the king of kings, you will be pleased to
know that, walking in the lanes of this wood, I observed the marks of a
horse's shoes, all at equal distances. This must be a horse, said I to
myself, that gallops excellently. The dust on the trees in the road
that was but seven feet wide was a little brushed off, at the distance
of three feet and a half from the middle of the road. This horse, said
I, has a tail three feet and a half long, which being whisked to the
right and left, has swept away the dust. I observed under the trees
that formed an arbor five feet in height, that the leaves of the
branches were newly fallen; from whence I inferred that the horse had
touched them, and that he must therefore be five feet high. As to his
bit, it must be gold of twenty-three carats, for he had rubbed its
bosses against