François-René de Chateaubriand. Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem et de Jérusalem à Paris (originally 1884). Translated as Record of a Journey from Paris to Jerusalem and Back by A. S. Kline © Copyright 2011.
Three passages mention eunuchs:
During dinner, we received compliments from what in the Levant is termed the ‘nation’: this nation is composed of French merchants or the dependents of France living in the various Ports of Call. In Athens there are only one or two houses of this kind: they trade in oil. Monsieur Roque did me the honour of a visit: he had a family, and he invited me to visit, accompanied by Monsieur Fauvel, then he began to speak of Athenian society: ‘A foreigner settled for some time in Athens seemed to have felt or inspired a passion that was the talk of the town ... There was gossip about the House of Socrates, and chatter concerning the gardens of Phocion ... The Archbishop of Athens had not yet returned from Constantinople. No one knew if they would receive justice from the Pasha of Negropont (Chalcis), who threatened to exact a levy on Athens. To maintain a defence against sudden attack, the perimeter wall had been repaired; however everything was to be hoped for from the leader of the black eunuchs, the governor of Athens, who certainly had more credit with His Highness than the Pasha. (O Solon! O Themistocles! The leader of the black eunuchs as governor of Athens, and all the other cities of Greece envying the Athenians that emblem of happiness!) ‘...For the rest, Monsieur Fauvel had done well to drive out the Italian priest who inhabited the Lantern of Demosthenes (one of the most beautiful monuments in Athens), and give his place to a French Capuchin. The latter possessed good manners, was affable, intelligent, and received hospitably those foreigners who, according to custom, intended to visit the French monastery...’ Such was the gossip, and the subject of conversation in Athens: one can see that the world was continuing as usual, and a traveller who let it go to his head too much might be somewhat confused by meeting his village concerns on arriving in Tripods Street.
* * *
This changeability in human affairs is all the more striking because it contrasts with the immobility of the rest of nature. As if to mock the instability of human society, wild animals experience no alteration in their empires or change of habits. I saw, when we were on the Hill of the Museum, storks forming their battalion and taking flight for Africa. (See, for a description of Athens in general, most of the XV book of Les Martyrs, and the notes.) For two thousand years they had made the same journey, and were as free and happy in the city of Solon as they are in the city of the commander of the black eunuchs. From the heights of their nests, that revolution cannot reach, they have witnessed the race of mortals altering beneath them: while impious generations were raised over the graves of religious generations, the young stork has always supported his aged father (see Aristophanes: Birds: 1355). Let me halt these reflections by saying that the stork is beloved by travellers; she, like them ‘in the heavens knoweth her appointed times’ (Jeremiah 8:7). These birds were often the companions of my travels in the wilds of America; I often saw them perched on the Indian wigwams; finding them in a different kind of wilderness, the ruins of the Parthenon, I could not help but talk a little of my old friends.
* * *
Attica, with a little less wretchedness, offers no less servitude; Athens is under the immediate protection of the head of the black eunuchs of the Seraglio. A disdar, or commander, represents that monstrous protector amidst the people of Solon. This disdar inhabits the citadel, filled with masterpieces by Phidias and Ictinus, without asking what people have left these fragments behind, without deigning to leave the hut he has had built beneath the ruins of the monuments of Pericles: very occasionally the tyrant crawls mechanically to the door of his den; sitting cross-legged on a dirty carpet, while the smoke of his pipe ascends between the columns of the Temple of Athene, he casts his gaze stupidly over the shores of Salamis and the Sea of Epidaurus.
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