Women in the Ottoman Balkans: Gender, Culture and History
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37.) The dedication in this work is signed John Greaves, who underscores
the authenticity and reliability of the account by noting: “The name of the
author being unknown, upon inquiry I find it since to be the work of Mr.
Robert Withers; who by the assistance of the English Embassador, procuring
admittance into the Seraglio (a favour unusual) … had time and opportunity
to perfect his observations.” (Ibid., A3.) In fact, Withers had translated it
from Ottaviano Bon’s original.
31. De la Porte 1757: 176–77. The degree of blackness and facial deformity
was also a determinant in the hierarchical order of black slave girls: “The
Black-moor girles, are no sooner brought into the Seraglio, … but they are
carried to the women’s lodgings where they are brought up and made fit
for all services: by how much the more ugly, by so much the more they are
valued and esteemed by the Sultana’s [ sic]. Wherefore the Bashawe of Cairo
… is diligent to get the most ill favoured, coal black, blabber-lipped, and flat
nosed girles that may be had through all Egypt … to send them for presents
to the Grand Signor.” (Withers 1653: 101–102.)
32. Withers 1653: 101.
augustinos, eastern ConCuBines, Western mistresses
37
33. De la Porte 1757: 176–77.
34. La Motraye 1727, 1: 221.
35. Montesquieu 1960: 15.
36. DelPlato 2002: 20.
37. Prévost 1978: 30, 39.
38. Montesquieu 1960: 168.
39. Hill 1709: 110–11.
40. Kinglake 1982: 36–37. A less evocative but more accurate description of the
bundled oriental woman in public space was given by Thevenot almost two
hundred years before Kinglake: “When they go out they have a Feredge,
whose sleeves are so long, that one can see only the tips of their fingers. …
Also, when they are in the street, they have their head wrapped in a linen
which also covers their front until the eyes and grips their nose and mouth,
and is tied behind the head, leaving absolutely no part of their face uncovered
except their eyes.” (Thevenot 1665: 106.)
41. Lady Montagu to the Countess of Mar, her sister, 1 April 1717. (Montagu
1837, 1: 258. )
42. Grasset [de] Saint-Sauveur 1796, 1: 136.
43. Melman 1992: 84.
44. Lady Montagu to the Countess of Mar, 18 April 1717. (Montagu 1837, 1:
273.) A similar ceremonious visit took place several decades later when the
wife of another ambassador, Lord Elgin, accepted the invitation of the Valide
Sultan [Queen Mother] in 1801. The reception ritual had changed little and
her hostess exhibited the same courteousness and genuine interest, “really
quite in the style Lady Mary Montagu talks of.” (Elgin 1926: 131.)
45. Lady Montagu to the Countess of Mar, 18 April 1717. (Montagu 1837, 1:
277.)
46. DelPlato 2002: 24.
47. Me D… 1822, 3: 115–18.
48. Prévost 1978: 12–13.
49. Ibid., 35. Hill contrasted even more emphatically the Greeks’ present decline
with their past Byzantine nobility: “Their very Nature seems to have changed
with their Conditions, as their Principles had sunk with their Nobility, whom
Mahomet the Great (on his taking Constantinople) endeavor’d to extirpate by
a general Massacre. … I was never more sensibly afflicted at the Misfortunes
of another than when I saw at Constantinople … a Man [who] demonstrated
by undeniable proof, that he was Lineally Descended from the Emperours of
Greece; but he was most sordidly Illiterate … yet he had a peculiar Majesty
in his Person … an Awful Gravity adorned his Countenance, and his silent
Postures had somewhat Naturally Noble.” (Hill 1709: 173–74.)
50. Göçek 1987: 126.
51. For the Hellenization of the Greek space by European travelers, see
Augustinos 2002.
38
Women in the ottoman Balkans
52. For an examination of the origins of Prévost’s novel emphasizing the Aïssé
connection, see Bouvier 1948: 113–30; and Breuil 1968: 390–400.
53. Cited by Bouvier 1948: 122.
54. Sainte-Beuve 1846: 66. These verses were included in the first edition of the
Lettres (1787).
55. For more details, see Nour and Soulogiannis 1973: 16.
56. Croutier 1989: 103.
57. [Monterzi] 1764: ix.
58. Ibid., 49.
59. Some of the more popular ones were: Bédacier 1712, 1713; Belin de La
Faye 1722; Meusnier de Querlon 1748, 1784, 1894, 1900; [Pajon] 1742;
[Rustaing de Saint-Jory] 1711.
60. Peirce 1993: 230.
61. For the life of this extraordinary woman, see [Gomez] 1722, 3: 66–89,
151–71, 202–10, and 4: 4–11, 76–78; Peirce 1993: 232–52; Chassepol 1676:
79–98.
62. Guillet 1675: 245.
63. Istria 1861: 345–46.
64. Catherine Bédacier gave a series of portraits of ancient Greek courtesans,
such as Aspasia and Lais, replete with romantic encounters, courtly elegance
and urbanity, very much in the manner of Parisian society. But this was a
pagan society and these women, unlike Greek men, set an example to be
avoided. “I believe,” stated the author by way of a disclaimer, “that not a
single one of my expressions will alarm the strictest modesty; and I am even
certain that the examples that I give are more appropriate to turn someone
away from vice than to lead her to disorderly conduct whose very portrayal
will fill her with horror.” (“Préface”, Bédacier 1712: iii.)
65. For descriptions, analyses, and excerpts of these romances, see Bossuat
1962: 47–55; Loomis 1963: 44–47. Loomis and Loomis 1957: 233–41. For
a synoptic overview of representations of Greece from the Middle Ages to
the seventeenth century, see Mirambel 1951: 40–50.
66. Troyes 2000: 76, 124.
67. The pseudonymous “Me D…” writes of a wandering stranger, “thinking of
these enchantresses of Thessaly, who at midnight go to cemeteries, in the
midst of tombs … pronouncing their deceptive oracles.” (Me D… 1822: 70.)
These “enchantresses” received fuller treatment in Lussan 1731–32.
68. Ibid., 1–2.
69. Lafayette 1982: 115.
70. Ibid., 120.
71. Ibid., 30. Similar traits characterized a nineteenth-century Greek woman,
who described her own beauty as follows: “In my features were immediately
recognized that cast of countenance for which the Grecian girls are
conspicuous: every trait was marked, my eyes, large and black, were fringed
with long lids, … a distinguishing characteristic of all the women of Chio
augustinos, eastern ConCuBines, Western mistresses
39
and Smyrna. This cast of beauty is not found in Europe, … and it is at least
attractive on the plea of originality.” [Panam] 1823: 22.
72. Jewish women often served as intermediaries between harem women and
the outside world. “The Sultana’s [ sic] have leave of the Grand Signor, that
certain Jew-women may at any time come into the Seraglio unto them; who
being extraordinarily subtill, and coming in under colour of teaching them
some fine … needle work … do make themselves by their
crafty insinuations
so welcome to the Kings [ sic] women, that they … prevail with them, in
whatsoever they shall attempt for their own ends. … And hence it is that all
such Jew-women as frequent the Seraglio do become very rich.” (Withers
1653: 52–53; see also Grasset [de] Saint-Sauveur 1796: 31.)
73. [Chèvremont] 1695: 35–36.
74. Gérard de Nerval, who had a similar experience of incommunicativeness
with his Javanese slave in Cairo in 1843, reacted in a different manner. In
his case, which is also characteristic of the nineteenth century, the charm of
the exotic was stronger than the need for verbal contact. “There is something
extremely captivating … in a woman from a faraway country … she speaks
an unknown language … I had the impression … that I owned a magnificent
bird in a cage.” (Nerval 1984: 48.)
75. This is how Voltaire expressed the relation between universality and
diversity: “As a result, … it becomes clear that everything that is intimately
related to human nature is the same from one end of the world to the other;
everything that depends on custom is different. … The hold of custom is
infinitely vaster than that of nature; it extends over manners, all sorts of
usages, and it spreads variety in the scene of the universe; nature spreads
unity; it establishes everywhere a small number of invariable principles;
thus the basis is everywhere the same, and culture produces diverse fruits.”
(Voltaire 1963, 2: 810.)
76. P. Bénichou, Morales du grand siècle, cited in Singerman 1987: 223.
77. Douthwaite 1992: 45.
78. Prévost 1978: 13.
79. “There is no distinction between the children of wives and those of
concubines, but both are held to possess the same rights.” (Busbecq 1968:
118.) The naturalist Belon remarked: “If a Turk married the daughter of a
grand seigneur and was also married to the daughter of one of the poorest
laborers, the daughter of the laborer is the companion of the daughter of the
grand seigneur.” (Belon 1555: 329.) In 1843, the slave merchant who showed
Nerval some Abyssinian slaves temporarily housed in his home explained:
“They’re in my harem, they’re treated just like the members of my family,
taking their meals in the company of my wives.” (Nerval 1984: 45.)
80. Montagu 1837: 299.
81. Voltaire 1924, 1: 131.
82. Prévost 1978: 19.
83. Ibid., 34.
40
Women in the ottoman Balkans
84. Théophé’s Greekness is identified with Christianity, not Hellenism. “Must
I remind you,” the Frenchman warns the Sélictar [ silâhdar], “that Théophé
is Christian? I believe that her inclination for Christianity springs from her
blood, or at least from the knowledge she has always had of her country.”
(Prévost 1978: 90.) Mirambel’s assertion that her goût de l’intellectualité
[intellectual propensity] was a mark of her Hellenic connection is at best
indirect. See Mirambel 1951: 42.
85. Prévost 1978: 25.
86. Ibid., 26.
87. Ibid., 22.
88. Yeazell 2000: 5.
89. Prévost 1978: 13.
90. Ibid., 81, 92.
91. Ibid, 94. Mlle Aïssé also refused to marry the chevalier d’Aydie to safeguard
her independence as a foreigner. “How would the world look at him,” she
asked, “if he married ‘ une inconnue’ [a stranger]? What an embarrassment if
I found out all that was said about me. Could I flatter myself that the chevalier
would continue to have the same opinion about me?” (Mademoiselle Aïssé
to Madame Calandrini, November 1726, in Aïssé 1846: 142.)
92. Graffigny 1993: 168.
93. Singerman 1987: 244.
94. Ibid., 222.
95. Prévost 1978: 11.
96. Singerman 1987: 222.
97. Prévost 1978: 51.
98. Ibid., 13, 29. The “bad faith” of the Greeks spanned the gamut from Cicero
to Bayle. The latter wrote: “Those people [the Cappadocians] outdid the
Greek nation, although it had brought this vice [bearing false witness] to a
great excess, if we refer to Cicero’s … eloquent words on the bad qualities
of Greek witnesses.” (“Cappadoce,” in Bayle 1720: 1: 753.)
99. Prévost 1978: 29.
100. For
an analysis of the theme of incest in Prévost’s work, see Sgard 1995:
156–57.
101. Prévost 1978: 90.
102. Letter
cited by Sainte-Beuve 1846: 14. The figure of the protector-father-
seducer also appears in Madame Panam’s Memoirs. At the age of fourteen,
she was led astray by the promises of the Duke of Saxe-Cobourg: “He treated
me like a child; he embraced and encouraged me to call him my father. I
wept in his arms and gave him the title … of the benefactor of our family.”
([Panam] 1823: 25.)
103. Prévost 1978: 80.
104. Ibid., 120.
augustinos, eastern ConCuBines, Western mistresses
41
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