“His (Deschamps’) complaint of court life was the same as is made of government at the top in any age: it was composed of hypocrisy, flattery, lying, paying and betraying; it was where calumny and cupidity reigned, common sense lacked, truth dared not appear, and where to survive one had to be deaf, blind, and dumb.”

Source: A Distant Mirror (1978), p. 450

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Barbara W. Tuchman 45
American historian and author 1912–1989

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