University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

A room in the house of Marion de Lorme; a table towards the front of the stage (with wine, fruits, &c.), at which are seated Baradas, Four Courtiers, splendidly dressed in the costume of 1641–2;—the Duke of Orleans reclining on a large fauteuil;—Marion de Lorme, standing at the back of his chair, offers him a goblet, and then retires. At another table, De Beringhen, De Mauprat, playing at dice; other Courtiers, of inferior rank to those at the table of the Duke, looking on.
ORLEANS
(drinking).
Here's to our enterprise!—

BARADAS
(glancing at Marion).
Hush, Sir!—

ORLEANS
(aside).
Nay, Count,
You may trust her; she doats on me; no house
So safe as Marion's. At our statelier homes
The very walls do play the eaves-dropper.
There's not a sunbeam creeping o'er our floors
But seems a glance from that malignant eye
Which reigns o'er France; our fatal greatness lives
In the sharp glare of one relentless day.
But Richelieu's self forgets to fear the sword
The myrtle hides; and Marion's silken robe
Casts its kind charity o'er fiercer sins
Than those which haunt the rosy path between
The lip and eye of beauty.—Oh, no house
So safe as Marion's.

BARADAS.
Still, we have a secret,
And oil and water—woman and a secret—
Are hostile properties.

ORLEANS.
Well—Marion, see
How the play prospers yonder.

Marion goes to the next table, looks on for a few moments, then Exit.
Baradas
(producing a parchment).
I have now
All the conditions drawn; it only needs
Our signatures: upon receipt of this,
(Whereto is joined the schedule of our treaty
With the Count-Duke, the Richelieu of the Escurial,)
Bouillon will join his army with the Spaniard,
March on to Paris,—there, dethrone the King:
You will be Regent; I, and ye, my Lords,
Form the new Council. So much for the core
Of our great scheme.

ORLEANS.
But Richelieu is an Argus;
One of his hundred eyes will light upon us,
And then—good bye to life.

BARADAS.
To gain the prize
We must destroy the Argus:—ay, my Lords,
The scroll the core, but blood must fill the veins,
Of our design;—while this despatched to Bouillon,
Richelieu despatched to Heaven!—The last my charge!
Meet here to-morrow night. You, Sir, as first
In honour and in hope, meanwhile select
Some trusty knave to bear the scroll to Bouillon;
Midst Richelieu's foes I'll find some desperate hand
To strike for vengeance, while we stride to power.

ORLEANS.
So be it;—to-morrow, midnight.—Come, my Lords.

Exeunt Orleans, and the Courtiers in his train. Those at the other table rise, salute Orleans, and re-seat themselves.
DE BERINGHEN.
Double the stakes.

DE MAUPRAT.
Done.

DE BERINGHEN.
Bravo; faith it shames me
To bleed a purse already in extremis.

DE MAUPRAT.
Nay, as you've had the patient to yourself
So long, no other doctor should despatch it.

De Mauprat throws and loses.
OMNES.
Lost! Ha, ha—poor De Mauprat!

DE BERINGHEN.
One throw more?

DE MAUPRAT.
No; I am bankrupt (pushing gold)
. There goes all—except
My honour and my sword. (They rise.)


DE BERINGHEN.
Long cloaks and honour
Went out of vogue together, when we found
We got on much more rapidly without them;
The sword, indeed, is never out of fashion,—
The devil has care of that.

First gamester.
Ay, take the sword
To Cardinal Richelieu:—he gives gold for steel,
When worn by brave men.

DE MAUPRAT.
Richelieu!

DE BERINGHEN
(to Baradas).
At that name
He changes colour, bites his nether lip.
Ev'n in his brightest moments whisper “Richelieu,”
And you cloud all his sunshine.

BARADAS.
I have mark'd it,
And I will learn the wherefore.

DE MAUPRAT.
The Egyptian
Dissolved her richest jewel in a draught:
Would I could so melt time and all its treasures,
And drain it thus (drinking)
.

DE BERINGHEN.
Come, gentlemen, what say ye,
A walk on the Parade?

OMNES.
Ay; come, De Mauprat.

DE MAUPRAT.
Pardon me; we shall meet again ere nightfall.

BARADAS.
I'll stay and comfort Mauprat.

DE BERINGHEN.
Comfort!—when
We gallant fellows have run out a friend
There's nothing left—except to run him through!
There's the last act of friendship.

DE MAUPRAT.
Let me keep
That favour in reserve; in all beside
Your most obedient servant.

Exeunt De Beringhen, &c. Manent De Mauprat and Baradas.
BARADAS.
You have lost—
Yet are not sad.

DE MAUPRAT.
Sad!—Life and gold have wings,
And must fly one day:—open, then, their cages
And wish them merry.

BARADAS.
You're a strange enigma:—
Fiery in war—and yet to glory lukewarm;—
All mirth in action—in repose all gloom—
These are extremes in which the unconscious heart
Betrays the fever of deep-fix'd disease.
Confide in me! our young days roll'd together
In the same river, glassing the same stars
That smile i'the heaven of hope;—alike we made
Bright-winged steeds of our unform'd chimeras,
Spurring the fancies upward to the air,
Wherein we shaped fair castles from the cloud.
Fortune of late has sever'd us—and led
Me to the rank of Courtier, Count, and Favourite,—
You to the titles of the wildest gallant
And bravest knight in France;—are you content?
No;—trust in me—some gloomy secret—

DE MAUPRAT.
Ay:—
A secret that doth haunt me, as, of old,
Men were possess'd of fiends!—Where'er I turn,
The grave yawns dark before me!—I will trust you;—
Hating the Cardinal, and beguiled by Orleans,
You know I join'd the Languedoc revolt—
Was captured—sent to the Bastile—

BARADAS.
But shared
The general pardon, which the Duke of Orleans
Won for himself and all in the revolt,
Who but obey'd his orders.

DE MAUPRAT.
Note the phrase;—
“Obey'd his orders.” Well, when on my way
To join the Duke in Languedoc, I (then
The down upon my lip—less man than boy)
Leading young valours—reckless as myself,
Seized on the town of Faviaux, and displaced
The Royal banners for the Rebel. Orleans,
(Never too daring,) when I reach'd the camp,
Blamed me for acting—mark—without his orders:
Upon this quibble Richelieu razed my name
Out of the general pardon.

BARADAS.
Yet released you
From the Bastile—

DE MAUPRAT.
To call me to his presence,
And thus address me:—“You have seized a town
Of France, without the orders of your leader,
And for this treason, but one sentence—Death.”

BARADAS.
Death!

DE MAUPRAT.
“I have pity on your youth and birth,
Nor wish to glut the headsman;—join your troop,
Now on the march against the Spaniards;—change
The traitor's scaffold for the soldier's grave;—
Your memory stainless—they who shared your crime
Exil'd or dead—your king shall never learn it.”

BARADAS.
O tender pity!—O most charming prospect!
Blown into atoms by a bomb, or drill'd
Into a cullender by gunshot!—Well?—

DE MAUPRAT.
You have heard if I fought bravely.—Death became
Desired as Daphne by the eager Daygod.
Like him I chas'd the nymph—to grasp the laurel!
I could not die!

BARADAS.
Poor fellow!

DE MAUPRAT.
When the Cardinal
Review'd the troops—his eye met mine;—he frown'd,
Summon'd me forth—“How's this?” quoth he; “you have shunn'd
The sword—beware the axe!—'twill fall one day!”
He left me thus—we were recall'd to Paris,
And—you know all!

BARADAS.
And, knowing this, why halt you,
Spell'd by the rattle-snake,—while in the breasts
Of your firm friends beat hearts, that vow the death
Of your grim tyrant?—Wake!—Be one of us;
The time invites—the King detests the Cardinal,
Dares not disgrace—but groans to be deliver'd
Of that too great a subject—join your friends,
Free France, and save yourself.

DE MAUPRAT.
Hush! Richelieu bears
A charmed life:—to all, who have braved his power,
One common end—the block.

BARADAS.
Nay, if he live,
The block your doom;—

DE MAUPRAT.
Better the victim, Count,
Than the assassin.—France requires a Richelieu,
But does not need a Mauprat. Truce to this;—
All time one midnight, where my thoughts are spectres.
What to me fame?—What love?—

BARADAS.
Yet dost thou love not?

DE MAUPRAT.
Love?—I am young—

BARADAS.
And Julie fair! (Aside)
It is so,
Upon the margin of the grave—his hand
Would pluck the rose that I would win and wear!
(Aloud)
Thou lovest—

DE MAUPRAT.
Who, lonely in the midnight tent,
Gazed on the watch-fires in the sleepless air,
Nor chose one star amidst the clustering hosts
To bless it in the name of some fair face
Set in his spirit, as that star in Heaven?
For our divine Affections, like the Spheres,
Move ever, ever musical.

BARADAS.
You speak
As one who fed on poetry.

DE MAUPRAT.
Why, man,
The thoughts of lovers stir with poetry
As leaves with summer-wind.—The heart that loves
Dwells in an Eden, hearing angel-lutes,
As Eve in the First Garden. Hast thou seen
My Julie, and not felt it henceforth dull
To live in the common world—and talk in words
That clothe the feelings of the frigid herd?—
Upon the perfumed pillow of her lips—
As on his native bed of roses flush'd
With Paphian skies—Love smiling sleeps:—Her voice
The blest interpreter of thoughts as pure
As virgin wells where Dian takes delight,
Or Fairies dip their changelings!—In the maze
Of her harmonious beauties—Modesty
(Like some severer Grace that leads the choir
Of her sweet sisters) every airy motion
Attunes to such chaste charm, that Passion holds
His burning breath, and will not with a sigh
Dissolve the spell that binds him!—Oh those eyes
That woo the earth—shadowing more soul than lurks
Under the lids of Psyche!—Go!—thy lip
Curls at the purfled phrases of a lover—
Love thou, and if thy love be deep as mine,
Thou wilt not laugh at poets.

BARADAS
(aside).
With each word
Thou wak'st a jealous demon in my heart,
And my hand clutches at my hilt—

DE MAUPRAT
(gaily).
No more!—
I love!—Your breast holds both my secrets;—Never
Unbury either!—Come, while yet we may,
We'll bask us in the noon of rosy life:—
Lounge through the gardens,—flaunt it in the taverns,—
Laugh,—game,—drink,—feast:—If so confined my days,
Faith, I'll enclose the nights.—Pshaw! not so grave;
I'm a true Frenchman!—Vive la bagatelle!

(As they are going out, Enter Huguet, and four arquebusiers.)
HUGUET.
Messire De Mauprat,—I arrest you!—Follow
To the Lord Cardinal.

DE MAUPRAT.
You see, my friend,
I'm out of my suspense!—the tiger's play'd
Long enough with his prey.—Farewell!—Hereafter
Say, when men name me, “Adrien de Mauprat
Lived without hope, and perished without fear!”

[Exeunt De Mauprat, Huguet, &c.
BARADAS.
Farewell!—I trust for ever! I design'd thee
For Richelieu's murderer—but, as well his martyr!
In childhood you the stronger—and I cursed you;
In youth the fairer—and I cursed you still;
And now my rival!—While the name of Julie
Hung on thy lips—I smiled—for then I saw
In my mind's eye, the cold and grinning Death
Hang o'er thy head the pall!—Ambition, Love,
Ye twin-born stars of daring destinies,
Sit in my house of Life!—By the King's aid
I will be Julie's husband—in despite
Of my Lord Cardinal—By the King's aid
I will be minister of France—in spite
Of my Lord Cardinal;—and then—what then?
The King loves Julie—feeble Prince—false master—
(Producing and gazing on the parchment.)
Then, by the aid of Bouillon, and the Spaniard,
I will dethrone the King; and all—ha!—ha!—
All, in despite of my Lord Cardinal.

[Exit.