It is very fortunate that kings cannot err.  Hence their contradictions never perplex us.  In approving always, one is sure to be always right—­which is pleasant.  Louis XIV. would not have liked to see at Versailles either an officer acting the cock, or a prince acting the turkey.  That which raised the royal and imperial dignity in England and Russia would have seemed to Louis the Great incompatible with the crown of St. Louis.  We know what his displeasure was when Madame Henriette forgot herself so far as to see a hen in a dream—­which was, indeed, a grave breach of good manners in a lady of the court.  When one is of the court, one should not dream of the courtyard.  Bossuet, it may be remembered, was nearly as scandalized as Louis XIV.

IV.

The commerce in children in the 17th century, as we have explained, was connected with a trade.  The Comprachicos engaged in the commerce, and carried on the trade.  They bought children, worked a little on the raw material, and resold them afterwards.

The venders were of all kinds:  from the wretched father, getting rid of his family, to the master, utilizing his stud of slaves.  The sale of men was a simple matter.  In our own time we have had fighting to maintain this right.  Remember that it is less than a century ago since the Elector of Hesse sold his subjects to the King of England, who required men to be killed in America.  Kings went to the Elector of Hesse as we go to the butcher to buy meat.  The Elector had food for powder in stock, and hung up his subjects in his shop.  Come buy; it is for sale.  In England, under Jeffreys, after the tragical episode of Monmouth, there were many lords and gentlemen beheaded and quartered.  Those who were executed left wives and daughters, widows and orphans, whom James II. gave to the queen, his wife.  The queen sold these ladies to William Penn.  Very likely the king had so much per cent. on the transaction.  The extraordinary thing is, not that James II. should have sold the women, but that William Penn should have bought them.  Penn’s purchase is excused, or explained, by the fact that having a desert to sow with men, he needed women as farming implements.

Her Gracious Majesty made a good business out of these ladies.  The young sold dear.  We may imagine, with the uneasy feeling which a complicated scandal arouses, that probably some old duchesses were thrown in cheap.

The Comprachicos were also called the Cheylas, a Hindu word, which conveys the image of harrying a nest.

For a long time the Comprachicos only partially concealed themselves.  There is sometimes in the social order a favouring shadow thrown over iniquitous trades, in which they thrive.  In our own day we have seen an association of the kind in Spain, under the direction of the ruffian Ramon Selles, last from 1834 to 1866, and hold three provinces under terror for thirty years—­Valencia, Alicante, and Murcia.