s manner did
she govern Babylon. Everybody regretted the loss of me. The king, who
till the moment of his resolving to poison me and strangle thee, had
been a tolerably good kind of man, seemed now to have drowned all his
virtues in his immoderate fondness for this capricious fair one. He
came to the temple on the great day of the feast held in honor of the
sacred fire. I saw him implore the gods in behalf of Missouf, at the
feet of the statue in which I was inclosed. I raised my voice, 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 lawliness of the most profound respect
those rash and forward perso