9. Formula of the Office of Count of the Patrimony, and its Excellency.

Office of Count of the Patrimony.

'To our distant servants we send long papers with instructions as to their conduct; but you, admitted to our daily converse, do not need these. You are to undertake the care of our royal patrimony.

'Do not give in to all the suggestions of our servants on these domains, who are apt to think that everything is permitted them because they represent the King; but rather incline the scale against them. You will have to act much in our sight; and as the rising sun discloses the true colours of objects, so the King's constant presence reveals the Minister's character in its true light. Avoid loud and harsh tones in pronouncing your decisions: when we hear you using these, we shall know that you are in the wrong. External acts and bodily qualities show the habit of the mind. We know a proud man by his swaggering gait, an angry one by his flashing eyes, a crafty one by his downcast look, a fickle one by his wandering gaze, at avaricious one by his hooked nails.

'Take then the office of Count of the Patrimony, and discharge it uprightly. Be expeditious in your decisions on the complaints of the tillers of the soil. Justice speedily granted is thereby greatly enhanced in value, and though it is really the suitor's right it charms him as if it were a favour.

'Attend also to the provision of suitable delicacies for our royal table. It is a great thing that ambassadors coming from all parts of the world should see rare dainties at our board, and such an inexhaustible supply of provisions brought in by the crowds of our servants that they are almost ready to think the food grows again in the kitchen, whither they see the dishes carried with the broken victuals. These banqueting times are, and quite deservedly, your times for approaching us with business, when no one else is allowed to do so.'