Young and handsome, he would be all powerful with his Imperial bride. Wealthy and high-spirited, he would neither from necessity nor inclination be amenable to his own dictation. Proverbially amiable, and chivalrously generous, he was already the idol of his province, and would soon become that of the capital; while his grasp of intellect and soundness of judgment, would render it equally impossible to degrade him into a dupe, or to use him as a tool.
Thus, then, the experienced courtier, whose career has been perhaps without parallel in Turkish history—whose beard has grown grey under the shadow of the Imperial throne—who has seen a hundred favourites rise into greatness, flourish for a brief season, and finally leave their dishonoured heads to bleach beneath a fierce sun, impaled above the fatal Orta Kapoussi, or Middle Gate of the Seraglio, or niched in gory grandeur beside the gilded entrance of the Sublime Porte; who throughout his long career has never failed in any important undertaking —the experienced courtier at once decided that Mustapha Pasha must not be permitted to fill a station, which would invest him with the privelege of thwarting his own plans, or of opposing his own party.[3]
Every Bey of the Imperial Household was in the interest of the Seraskier. It could not well be otherwise; for, during the long years of unchecked prosperity and unfailing favour which I have described, it will be readily conceived that there was not an individual among them who was not indebted to him for some benefit, which could be repaid only by devotion to his wishes.
Nor were there wanting many among the Pashas themselves who were easily taught to look with distrust and suspicion on the threatened rivalry of the young and high-spirited Mustapha; and who readily enlisted in the adverse party. Suffice it that the intrigue prospered: the Sultan first insisted—then wavered—and finally, driven, despite himself, to a compromise with the nobles in immediate contact with his person, ultimately proposed the extraordinary expedient to which I have already alluded; and with a weakness of purpose for which it were difficult to account in a despotic monarch, determined to cast the obloquy of irresolution from his own shoulders by leaving the fortunes of his daughter in the hands of Fate—that blind divinity in whom the Turks put such implicit trust, and on whom they philosophically fling the odium of every untoward circumstance.