The previous week's discussion of Selim III's note to his vizier had provided an opportunity to consider the question of Ottoman "voices" and the difficulty of accessing them through documentation that was fairly poor in texts that could be described as "ego-documents". A closer reading of this document reveals the naive way in which the sultan boasted to his vizier that he knew more about European culture and savoir-vivre than he did, and indulged in the illusion that his exchange of portraits with Napoleon placed him on an equal and intimate footing with the most powerful man on earth. These are precious details that open the doors to an Ottoman's mental universe, and which we owe to the nature of this document: an almost verbal note, hastily written without sacrificing to the conventions of an epistolary or administrative style.
Yet, in contrast to their strong presence in Western Europe, Ottoman memoirs and journals are extremely rare, as is correspondence between members of a small minority of people who mastered the pen - dignitaries, bureaucrats, literati... Everywhere, official, impersonal documentation dominates, varying from the administrative and fiscal jargon of the Empire's day-to-day management to the pompous style of high bureaucracy that only the kâtib or scribes truly mastered. Not surprisingly, the sultans were to some extent exempt from this rule: they were hardly subject to convention and etiquette, which allowed them to use a much more direct style; their "imperial writings"(hatt-ı hümayun) had the force of decree and were always in their own handwriting; and their words, like their writings, were collected and preserved with particular care. As a result, it is easier to "hear" the sultans' thoughts and feelings in love letters, at the turn of a decree, or in the writings of court chroniclers.
