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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow LETTER XXIII.: Usbek to his Friend Ibben, at Smyrna. - Complete Works, vol. 3 (Grandeur and Declension of the Roman Empire; A Dialogue between Sylla and Eucrates; Persian Letters)

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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: History
Collection: Banned Books

LETTER XXIII.: Usbek to his Friend Ibben, at Smyrna. - Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Complete Works, vol. 3 (Grandeur and Declension of the Roman Empire; A Dialogue between Sylla and Eucrates; Persian Letters) [1721]

Edition used:

The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu (London: T. Evans, 1777), 4 vols. Vol. 3.

Part of: Complete Works of Montesquieu, 4 vols.

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LETTER XXIII.

Usbek to his Friend Ibben, at Smyrna.

AFTER a sail of forty days, we have reached Leghorn. It is a new city, a proof of the great genius of the dukes of Tuscany, who have raised the most flourishing city in Italy from a marshy village. Here the women are greatly indulged: they may look at men through certain windows, called jealousies; they may go out every day, accompanied only by some old women; they wear only a single veil * . Their brothers-in-law, uncles, and nephews may visit them; at which the husband is scarcely ever offended. The first view of a Christian city is a great sight to a Mahometan. I do not mean such things as at first view strike every spectator, as the difference of buildings, dress, and principal customs; there is, even to the minutest thing, a singularity which I know not how to describe, though I can feel it. We set out for Marseilles tomorrow; our continuance there will be short; for Rica and I design to go immediately to Paris, which is the seat of the European empire. Great cities are always the desired objects of travellers; for they are a kind of common country to all strangers. Farewel; be assured I shall always love you.

[* ]The Persian women wear four.