Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/479

 Abyssinian journies, none of them, as far as I know, having ever made one step towards that country; nor is this indeed to be regretted by the republic of letters, because, besides a poor stock of scholastic divinity, not one of them that I saw had either learning or abilities to be of the smallest use either in religion or discovery.

was now the most brilliant period of the reign of Louis XIV. almost an Augustan age, and generally allowed so, both in France and among foreigners. Men of merit, of all countries and professions, felt the effects of the liberality of this great encourager of learning; public works were undertaken, and executed superior to the boasted ones of Greece or Rome, and a great number and variety of noble events constituted a magnificent history of his reign, in a series of medals. Religion alone had yet afforded no hint for these. His conduct in this matter, instead of that of a hero, shewed him to be a blind, bloody, merciless tyrant, madly throwing down in a moment, with one hand, what he had, with the assistance of great ministers, been an age in building with the other. The Jesuits, zealous for the honour of the king, their great protector, thought this a time to step in and wipe away the stain. With this view they set upon forwarding a scheme which might have furnished a medal superior to all the rest, had its inscription been, "The Kings of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts."

Fleuriau, a friend of father de la Chaife, the king's confessor, was employed to direct the consul of Cairo, that he should, in co-operation with the Jesuits privately send a fit person into Abyssinia, who might inspire the king of that country with a desire of sending an embassy into