Introduction

Two Persian noblemen, Usbek and Rica, leave Isfahan for the Paris of Louis XIV's last years and the Regency, and over eight years exchange letters with friends and family at home. To the eyes of these outsiders everything in France looks strange and absurd: the king is a great magician who can make people believe that a piece of paper is money; the pope is a greater magician still, who can make them believe that three are one; Parisians are mad about fashion, and scholars quarrel furiously over meaningless questions. Meanwhile the wives Usbek has left in his harem are plotting a revolt. Satirising French absolutism, the Church and society through the mouths of foreigners, this novel in letters was an immediate sensation and began the Enlightenment tradition of criticising one's own country through foreign eyes.