Page:Works of Heinrich Heine 07.djvu/234

214 everything in the state is done by his will. But as only very few men have any will of their own, or rather as most men unwittingly wish for only that which their surrounding will, it comes to pass that the latter generally rule in place of the absolute king. We call the surrounding of a king his court, and it is the courtiers who rule in those absolute monarchies, where the kings are not of stubborn nature and impassable to foreign influences. The art of courts consists in hardening soft princes so that they may become a club in the hand of the courtier, and in so taming the wild that they willingly lend themselves to every game or to all postures and actions, like the lions of M. Martin; just as the latter knows how to tame the king of beasts by weakening him, so courtiers know how to tame many a king of men when he is too stubborn and wild by enervating vices, and to govern them through mistresses aided by cooks, comedians, voluptuous music, dancing, and similar intoxication of the senses. It too