The King of France is the most powerful ruler in Europe. He has no goldmines like the king of Spain, his neighbour, but his riches are greater, because he extracts them from his subject’s vanity, which is more inexhaustible than mines. He has been known to undertake or sustain major wars with no other funds but what he gets from selling honorific titles, and by a miracle of human vanity, his troops are paid, his fortress supplied, and his fleets equipped.
Moreover, this king is a great magician. He
exerts authority even over the minds of his subjects; he makes them think what
he wants. If there are only a million
crowns in the exchequer, and he needs two million, all he has to do is persuade
them that one crown is worth two, and they believe it. If he is involved in a difficult war, without
any money, all he has to do is get into their heads that a piece of paper will
do for money, and they are immediately convinced of it. He even succeeds in making them believe that
he can cure them of all sorts of diseases by touching them, such is the force
and power he has over their minds.[1]
Montesquieu,
Persian Letters (1721)
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