Accordingly, the prince appeared next day, with a splendid retinue, at
the court of the bassa. But he soon found that the lives of courtiers
are a continual succession of plots and detections, stratagems and
escapes, faction and treachery. Many of those who surrounded the bassa
were sent only to watch him, and to report his conduct to the sultan. At
last the letters of revocation arrived, the bassa was carried in chains
to Constantinople, and in a short time the sultan that had deposed him
was murdered by the Janissaries.

The princess, who, in the meantime, had insinuated herself into many
private families, proved equally unsuccessful in her inquiries. She
found not one house that was not haunted by some fury that destroyed its
quiet.

"In families where there is or is not poverty," said she, "there is
commonly discord. The love of parents and children seldom continues
beyond the years of infancy; in a short time the children become rivals
to their parents. Each child endeavours to appropriate the esteem or
fondness of the parents, and the parents betray each other to their
children. The opinions of children and parents, of the young and the
old, are naturally opposite, by the contrary effects of hope and
despondence, of expectation and experience. Age looks with anger on the
temerity of youth; and youth with contempt on the scrupulosity of age."

"Surely," said the prince, "you must have been unfortunate in your
choice of acquaintance. I am unwilling to believe that the most tender
of all relations is thus impeded in its effects by natural necessity."

"Domestic discord," answered she, "is not inevitably necessary; but it
is not easily avoided. We seldom see that a whole family is virtuous.