Selected quad for the lemma: king_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
king_n	black_a	cover_v	white_a	21,734	5	10.4245	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26841	The history of the court of the king of China out of French.; Histoire de la cour du roy de la Chine. English	Baudier, Michel, 1589?-1645.	1682 (1682)	Wing B1165; ESTC R13758	39,916	119

Vertuous That the Children of great Personages cannot be admitted to the Employes of their Fathers nor partake the Glory of their Reputation if they do not equal or surpass them fixing thus Nobility to the Person and not to the Blood Fo●rthly that the Children of Merchants and Artificers how rich soever they be cannot rise any higher than to the exercise of their Fathers Trade except some rich Endowment of Mind so far advantages some one of them above other men that he is able usefully to serve the State and Publick Then by the express permission of the King after long Study and many painful Exercises he is made a Loytias that is a Gentleman with the lustre of a pompous Solemnity whereof we shall speak in its place Fif●hly that Idleness is punished as a capital Crime and for to banish it out of the Realm they forbid under great Penalties the giving of Alms to those that shall demand it For poor maimed or s●ck persons are sent to their Relations whom the Law constrains by force to tax themselves and make a Purse for the furnishing of those poor afflicted ones with Food and other Necessaries But if their Relations are poor the Kings Purse and publick Charity nourishes them in Hospitals and other Houses founded for this purpose but the Blin● and Lame who can work eat not th● Bread of the Poor they are forced to ge● their Living by turning at Mils and doing other Works the Wages whereo● supplies their Necessi●i●s Now this great Realm under the conduct of so good Laws is governe● by one Soveraign King who resides ordinarily in the Province of Paguie or Pagule in the City of Taybin or otherwise Suntien which signifies in their Language the City of Heaven Marcu● Paulus Venetus calls it also Quinsay so great that it fills with admiration the mind of those that read the Extent thereof and being but a small Pattern of the Kingdom shews manifestly what the Piece is Its Diameter o● Length is as much as a man on horseback can well travell in one day for it requires so much time to go from on● Gate to the other Its Breadth is hal● its Length and its Circuit very vast The Suburbs which are many contain all together as much as the Town The Chineses have heretofore raised in this City upon the pressing Necessity of an important War an hundr●● thousand Foot and as many Hor●● I was present in the yeer 1616. when a Flem●sh Iesuit newly arrived from China related to the King in the Louvre the marvels of this Royal City he a●●irmed the Length thereof to be twice as much as from Paris to Pontoise the Rarities which he recounted thereof are conformable to History Himself appeared in the Kings Closet clothed in the Chinese Garb the Fashion whereof was pleasant and agreeable Three Royal Palaces are built in this great Town one in the entrance towards the East another in the midst thereof and the third at the farther end towards the VVest The King of China has chosen the first for his abode of so vast a Greatnesse that to view the Particularities thereof will take up no less than four whole Dayes It is encompassed with seven Walls so great and spatious that in the Distances between them are easily kept ten thousand Souldiers which make the ordinary Guard of the Palace The number of fair Chambers rich Wardrobes and costly ' Closets amounts to above five hundred There are seventy nine Halls all richly built and of admirable Artifice four whereof make what is most remarkable in this Palace The first is made of cast Metal curiously wrought with a great number of Statues The second has the Floor and the Cieling made of Silver of a rich value The third is of massy Gold excellently enamelled But the Lustre Glory and Value of the fourth far excels the three others it is filled with many Jewels of price therein shines a Royal Throne set all over with Diamonds and so great a number of Carbuncles that with the other pre●ious Stones they dart forth such Brightness that the Hall is as light in the darkest Night as if it had many Torches lighted therein This fourth is called the Hall of the Kings Treasure which is there also kept In these four Halls ●he King gives Audience to the Ambassadors of forreign Princes and measures the Honor he will do them by their Reception in these Halls For those of the lesser Princes his Tributaries are received but in the first Hall the more eminent in the second those of great Kings who acknowledge him not in the third and fourth He keeps also his Court in these Halls and gives Audience therein to the Principal Officers of his Crown The Queen Mother Maria de M●dicis a Princ●ss who was the Honor and Admiration of her Age the Lustre of whose rare and incomparable Vertues spread the Glory of her Name in the most remote Regions of the Earth sent him in the year 1616. a stately Present of rich Tapestry and her excellent Piety had for her Aim in this Present the Glory and Honor of him who had caused her to be born the greatest Princess in the World for she did it to the end this Prince might give fre●er Access to those who wen● into his Kingdom to withdraw by the light of the Gospel deceived Souls from the false worship of Idols and put them in the way of their Salvation He that had the charge to present it which was the Fl●ming of whom we have spoken assured me that the King of China would cause a rich Hall to be built expressely according to the dimensions of the Tapestry where he would cause it to be extended and would esteem it the richest Moveable of his Palace for China which has found before us the fairest Inventions of Arts has not yet that of rich Tapestry But this superb Palace affords the King the Delights of walking There are therein very curious Gardens enamelled with all sorts of Flowers watered with Fountains of clear water where the sweet Murmurings of their little Bubbles allure an assembly of pretty Birds who by a naturall Concert of agreeable Musick in the fair Allies thereof charm the Troubles and Cares that ●ollow Royalty and spring ●p under Crowns The number of Women which he entertains make his most ordinary Company He pleases himself by beholding in their beautiful Faces more Roses and Flowers than the Parterres of his Gardens do produce On the sides of his Gardens are many goodly Orchards which bring forth all sorts of delicious Fruits and farther on are extended great Woods some trimmed and others growing up to a great height where he sometimes takes the pleasure of hunti●g They are in severall places compassed with many large Ponds covered all over with River-Fowl amongst which the Swans who under their white F●athers have a Skin hideously black appearing fairest in the Eyes of the Prince taci●ly teach him this wise Lesson that the fair Appearances of

the World and of the Court cover many Deformities and conceal many Per●idies The Kings of China have often experienced this The Divisions of their State and the Troubles thereof which lasted one and forty yeers the Treasons Massacres which were committed even upon the Persons of the Kings under the unfortunate Reigns of Yanthei Laupi G●itgey Quiontey and Sontey are veritable Proofs thereof in their Histories This is the cause that at this day they live very retiredly in their great Palaces and instead of Pages and Gentlemen Attendants are served only by Women with whom they ordinarily converse giving them the Care of their Nourishment and trusting them with the Conservation of their Health not but that their persons are guarded by Men. There are as we have elswhere said ten thousand armed men in Guard without the Royal Palace not counting those who are at the Gates and on the Stairs of the same Palace as also in the Hals For the Chinese Princes have not been exempted from the malice of Women King Tronson taken with the singular Beauty of his Fathers Widow found by his pursuits in the vain Enjoyment of his Love the loss of his Life This fair Queen named Caus● and who was the Cause of Misfortunes to a whole State weary of the Inquietudes of the World and Vanities of the Court abandoned them after the Decease of the King her Husband for to give her s●lf up being removed from them to the Calm and Repose wherein the Soul enjoying it self finds its Good and Felicity She shut her self up in a Monastery of Chinese Nuns in which the Devil under the worship of Idols makes himself be adored by the fairest women of the East there laying at his Feet the Crown she had upon her Head she vailed her self like the rest and lived in the simplicity of this Order Tronson her Son-in-Law who was a greater Adorer of her Attractions than she was of the false Deities is advertized thereof He follows her giving ●s thereby an Example that Kings as well as other men live in their Beloveds He entertains her at the Grate caresses her perswades her to quit her Vail and put again a second time the Royall Crown upon her Head Cause hearkens to him believes him and coming sorth from the Monastery shews that the Devotions of women are frequently like to Crystal Glasses which are broken with the first knock She is married to him But what Good can proceed from this unconstant Change and Backsliding from the World to the Cloister from the Cloister to the World Certainly a woman voluntarily unfrockt is a dangerous Animal in a State or Family Cause reassumes the Ambition which she had trampled under foot and that she might reign alone in the Name and during the Minority of her Son causes King Tronson her Husband to be slain Then being Mistress of her Will as well as of the Realm she abandons her Reason her Honor and the glory of her Majesty to her lascivious Passions She becomes the Wife of many Husbands or Gallants There was not any great man about the Court to whom her Embraces were not permitted ●ay even proffered This debauched Life of a Princess who ought to be an Example of Vertue in a State gives offence to every one as being a publick Scandal To cover it in some measure she marries again but that she may continue her Enormities she takes a man of no Quality who permits her every thing Vices follow one another From Lubricity she proceeds to Cruelty Her Children more careful of her Honour than her self testify only by their Regrets the Displeasure they conceive at her ill Conduct She causes their Throats to be cut to make way for a Nephew of hers to the Crown of China who serves h●r for a Support and Upholder in her Lubricities in which she reigns forty years a Reign too long for so wicked a woman In fine the Chineses grow weary of those Disorders they send to search out a N●tural Son of her Husbands Crown him an● acknowledg● him for their King He named Tantzon seized this impudent Woman brought her to Tryal and put an end to her detestable Lif● by the hand of the Executioner This was the end of the Princess Cause who had caused so many Disorders in the State and was in fine the Cause of her own shameful Destruction But the Kings of China have for some Ages past lived extremely retired in their stately Palaces There has been such an one as never came forth in publick but on the Day that he was Crowned King and took the accustomed Oath If the People at any time see them ' ●is through an interposed Glass They say they do thus to conserve the Royal Dignity and the Respect due th●reunto and moreover to prevent such Treasons as might be contrived against them This manner of living thus sequestred diminishes not the Love and Reverence which the people owe to their persons for the Governors and Magistrates well know how to keep it up and make them observe it and moreover in the principal Provinces of the Realm where the Vice-royes make their Residence they are accustomed to hang up in a publick place a rich Tablet of pure Gold w●erein the Ef●●●ies of their King is represented to the life vailed with a Curtain embroidered with Gold The Loytias who are the Knights and the Officers of Justice go every day ●efore it to pay their Respects in a solemn and submiss manner giving the Publick this Example of an exterior Reverenc● towards their Soveraign w●ich often-times excites an interior Love On their solemn Festival Dayes which they celebrate every new Moon this Tablet is unvailed the people see it discovered and every one runs thereunto to o●fer up their Submissions In the perpetual recess therefore of these delectable Palaces the Monarchs of China have ordinarily scar●e any other Conversation or Company but Women For besides those that serve them which are in very great number they have thirty Concub●●es the fairest that can be found in their Re●lm and on● only Queen whom they espouse and make Companion of their Scepter Th●y w●re heretofore accustom●d who● they had an intent to marry to invite to a Royal and solemn Feast all the Knights and great●●● Lords of ●he Court and command●● them to br●ng with them their Sons a●d Daugh●ers They were very diligent in obeying this Command hoping they might place in the Throne of China some one of their Daughters and therefore advantaged their Beauties by all the Ornaments of Arti●ice The Feast being ended these Virgins were placed in a great Hall according to the Order of their Birth and not to the Degree of their Quality Then the King if he were not married or if he were the Princes his Sons came into this Hall to entertain the Ladies and to choose from amo●gst them those the Graces and Perfections of whose Beauties were most capable to captivate their Affections by the sweetness of their Charms