and there are numerous examples of princes, with whose lives we are familiar, filling offices which appear to have demanded at least a temporary residence in the palace, as, for instance, the charge of the royal wardrobe.  When the king travelled, the great vassals were compelled to entertain him and his suite, and to escort him to the frontier of their domain.  On the occasion of such visits, the king would often take away with him one of their sons to be brought up with his own children:  an act which they on their part considered a great honour, while the king on his had a guarantee of their fidelity in the person of these hostages.  Such of these young people as returned to their fathers’ roof when their education was finished, were usually most loyal to the reigning dynasty.  They often brought back with them some maiden born in the purple, who consented to share their little provincial sovereignty, while in exchange one or more of their sisters entered the harem of the Pharaoh.  Marriages made and marred in their turn the fortunes of the great feudal houses.  Whether she were a princess or not, each woman received as her dowry a portion of territory, and enlarged by that amount her husband’s little state; but the property she brought might, in a few years, be taken by her daughters as portions and enrich other houses.  The fief seldom could bear up against such dismemberment; it fell away piecemeal, and by the third or fourth generation had disappeared.  Sometimes, however, it gained more than it lost in this matrimonial game, and extended its borders till they encroached on neighbouring nomes or else completely absorbed them.  There were always in the course of each reign several great principalities formed, or in the process of formation, whose chiefs might be said to hold in their hands the destinies of the country.  Pharaoh himself was obliged to treat them with deference, and he purchased their allegiance by renewed and ever-increasing concessions.

Their ambition was never satisfied; when they were loaded with favours, and did not venture to ask for more for themselves, they impudently demanded them for such of their children as they thought were poorly provided for.  Their eldest son “knew not the high favours which came from the king.  Other princes were his privy counsellers, his chosen friends, or foremost among his friends!” he had no share in all this.  Pharaoh took good care not to reject a petition presented so humbly:  he proceeded to lavish appointments, titles, and estates on the son in question; if necessity required it, he would even seek out a wife for him, who might give him, together with her hand, a property equal to that of his father.  The majority of these great vassals secretly aspired to the crown:  they frequently had reason to believe that they had some right to it, either through their mother or one of their ancestors.  Had they combined against the reigning house, they could easily have gained the upper hand, but their