Here are all the medicines and all the ingredients known by name and property on the face of the earth, and all the honest dealings of earning and trading, whether for the skilled or the poor. Even a child who can only speak of small things, if you give him a coin, he rejoices and says with his hand, meaning in Arabic, "I have earned a dirham." If their earnings were not mostly mixed with usury, they would be the best of nations in earning. If one of them's trade becomes stagnant, as is common in those lands, his situation deteriorates, and his affairs lead to seeking money from the hands of people. He might even take a letter from one of his sheikhs as proof of his stagnant situation and that he deserves assistance. This often happens in this city. Even if there is much giving and taking, and the passage of nations, wind, and storms, it does not prevent a person from going out to his work. They say in their current state: "An empty hand hastens to spread, and an empty heart hastens to fame." The people of Paris are very rich, so much so that the average person among them is richer than a great merchant from Cairo. They do not accept the poet's saying: "Do not go out except with the best and the most valuable, and wealth is not gathered without effort." Rather, they are eager for wealth and seek ways of greed, crowding together, saying that it increases sustenance, and they do not accept the poet's saying: "And the sustenance of a greedy person is not increased, even if he rides a camel to increase it." There may be found among them, from the people of lowly crafts, those who desire more than a hundred thousand francs annually, due to the abundance of their wealth. This is what is imposed upon them in the principles of their policies. Therefore, the rule of a king or a minister among them does not last long if it is known that he once transgressed and was unjust. There is no doubt that they find comfort in their hearts in the poet's saying: "And you are the loss and the ruin, with no guide nor intercessor."