University of Virginia Library

ACT II

Scene I

Twelve years later
Paris. Les Tourelles. A gallery. François Duc de Guise and the Connétable Anne de Montmorency.
Guise.
You have been vanquished and undone by her
Who is the Catholic, all-swaying Power
That France must move to.

Montmorency.
Ay.

Guise.
The Catholic,
High Power that bound our throne in solemn pact
With Spain, when I drove back beyond Saint-Quentin
Its Paris-aiming chivalry in rout.
It was Diane, remember, who at Cateau-
Cambrésis made a peace for all the world:
It is Diane who, of herself, has taught
Her King to reign, converting into prudence
The slowness of his nature, and his gloom
Converting into dignity, inspiring
His faults to seek their virtues, and his silence
To seek its speech, as the rock-muffled river
Vaults from its source to all the praise of men.

Montmorency.
Ay so!

Guise.
She is the Catholic,
Supreme Power that has sanctified a league
Between our Christian King and Rome, between
Our crown and the tiara. Could you dream
That any fancy of a day or days
Could scare from the King's vision that white Eagle
Of his dominion? Fie! Your King and your young Beauty
You bedded them. . . . Well, fie!

Montmorency.
Seeing this Dian ride her moon and gather
The reins of all the elements and forces
Men, counsellors, their sovereign's friends, should sway,
Prevailing, I was jealous; and, when April
Drew the King heavy-browed among the hawthorn
And spangle of the time, proclivity
Was urged with sight of a regaling Eve.
Ah, well, he tasted Spring awhile—oh, heigh,
It passes with the shedding of the Spring.
My rival keeps her slave upon our throne:
Well, well! I, at Ecouen,
Before my door, have slaves worth any homage—
The envied twain
Of Michel-Ange. I shall retire awhile
To my Ecouen. Wholly it surpasses
Her Anet—its erection and its treasure—
Through critic grip of my obtainment, richer
Than she by avarice can impropriate.
The King!

Guise.
His step and eyes toward you. Repent!
[Exit Guise hurriedly.

Enter King Henri
Henri.
Is she removed? . . . Assure me!

Montmorency.
Sire,
The Lady Fleming is removed.

Henri.
Connétable,
O my dear traitor-friend, I am absolved,
Forgiven!—above me all my cloud of sins
Turned by the Moon and her smile's shepherding
To snowy tendance round her amplitude,
Garde royale of her bounty. O wide pleasure,
For which to sin is almost recompense,
As spots float into graces! I have pleaded,
Montmorency, for you.
She must forgive you . . . but she will not hear
Even my confession: she will only speak,
Dieu, of our love, herself grown beautiful
As if to speak its glory. O divine!
I pleaded for my friend—
She will not hear your name.

Montmorency.
Nor do I kneel
For Madam's absolution. Gracious sire,
I have not sought it.

Henri.
But my love for you—
Her great indulgence!

Montmorency.
You are trembling, Sire;
I have no dread of Madam.

Henri.
Fool!

Montmorency.
But for your sake . . .

Henri.
One day, and soon, your hand
Touched by her clement hand, shall make accord;
I can be happy then—at peace.

Montmorency.
Nay, Sire,
The little Scottish woman was complaisant
Of white and rose and kissing breath as any
The floweriest orchard-tree on the sun's side.

Henri.
Peace, peace! My Princess—I would think of her!
Montmorency, you must be friends, as soon
As she will hear your name.
And listen, friend;
You shall assist a festival of joy,
I have dreamed forth already. When to-night
The moon emerges, I and my little Dauphin,
The king and heir of France, will ride together
In robes of silk, mystic with every blue
And sheen and orient of the lovely moon;
Our followers armoured as in opal shells
Plated for Neptune's wars: we shall ride round
The Rue Saint-Antoine, where we hold the jousts,
And dance like Centaurs, we on our white horses,
To eastern music, such
As yields the moon her moonlight back—such music
As in its passion quits the nightingale
To rise of its own voice where groves are exiled
And day can boast a throat. O such a music
As comes from old religion of old Mages,
From incense of white, Indian incense-flowers.
We shall ride out from Les Tourelles, and you,
With half the riding-company I lead,
From the Hôtel Montmorency.
[Arresting Montmorency from speech.
Consider!
The moon! The eastern music!
Think, as Centaurs
To ride, yet move in harmony, yet dance
For one so heavenly. The cavalcade,
The curvets, circlings and the caprioles,
The feat on feat of crowning horsemanship!
And stars, we must have stars—
Hundreds of torches . . . for the stars are watchers
How night performs her miracles.
The Dauphine Marie Stuart enters
What, Marie,
Drooping along the gallery, no Dauphin
Lurking about you with his secrets, child?

Marie
(running up to him).
Where is my Gouvernante? No one has seen her!
Where is my Lady Fleming?

Montmorency
(pinching her cheek).
Fie, fie, bonnie Scotland!
Fie, fie!

Henri.
Will you not be a Queen? Then, little Marie,
You will see many come and go: consider
Only how you remain. You shall continue
Your studies with the princes, and henceforth
Rest, where I love to see you, in the arms
Of the great Lady Sénéchale. Consider
How she effects the king in your young prince!
She can effect in any prince a king;
In any princess at her charge a queen.
[He kisses her forehead.
Come, Marie, for our Ronsard waits my coming—
‘Apollo of the Muses.’ Gracious words
Of your young adoration!
(To Montmorency.)
Friend, to-night
Our moonstruck chivalry—to dance, to dance
In clouded film of dazzlement and joy!
‘Aux rais connus de la Lune
Assemblez sous la nuit brune!’
Come to our poet! Queenlet Marie, come!

Scene II

Paris. A bedroom at Saint-Germain
Catherine de Médicis, recovering from childbed, is seated by a great hearth, sunk in a velvet chair. Near her is the cradle of her third son Henri. Two pale children, François and Charles, come in and out from time to time. The old nurse, Angela de Florence, is on her knees at the side of the hearth opposite to Catherine's chair: she holds her eye against a hole in the floor.
Catherine.
The boys are in the passage with the dog;
You hear him yap and yawn as Carlo scolds . . .
To you—ah, Angela—to you my children
Have been Italian.
Is not this our moment? . . .
Babe, you are sealed away and safe. . . . Bambino
Angela, O my jewel,
My eye of light, reflect, O magic crystal,
Not what shall be, what is.
Are they together?

Angela.
Madonna says the truth, they are together?

Catherine.
Can you see, Angela—in flagrant deed?

Angela.
A fire . . . and the King kneels. I cannot reach
Above her bosom, for her head is tilted
Beyond my peep-hole; but the hearthside fire
Is rose-red on his hand that covers hers.

Catherine.
Begging for deed, or is it gratitude?
Ha, ha! A queen and goddess in the heavens,
My Jove! And peacocks that have eyes, my Jove!
And Juno born again,
At Florence, of the patient Médicis. . . .
Angela, I turn faint. My camphire-flask!
No, no! Re-set your jewel,
Nor loose it from its socket if I die.
Are the boys running hither? Carlo buffets
The dog or pulls his coat out, while Francesco
Protests his brother cruel. . . . Hear his voice,
As little as a viola de gamba's!
What do you see?

Angela.
The hand rose-red on hers.

Catherine.
Have not the fingers tightened, Angela?

Angela.

No, Madonna! They are laid as before:
they are not clasping: so I have seen my own
father, sitting under the grapes of his door,
when it was dusk—'las, in the old days—hide
my mother's hand with his. Lifting herself.)

How my eye waters, and aches, Holy Virgin!
This eye of mine should be twice as big as the
other, and little wires twang in the ball. . . .
Dear Saints! She is swooning. . . . Poor little
head, poor little paleness, drooped, drooped!
Frail mother of fragile children, her births almost

most deaths. La, la, la! But with each she
is stronger, birth by birth, child by child—her
taint of death is drawn away by their new flesh
—and each is pale as my apron and weak as an
old chair in the damp. . . . La, la, la! Smell
the camphire—Ecco! We see light again! We
revive!

Catherine.
A grey, old woman,
Grey as a nun. . . .
(Laughing.)
In Greece there were Grey Women
Who had one eye among them. . . .
Miserable,
You are not looking. Clap your eye to—look!

Angela.
I only see the rose-red hand again.

Catherine.
And laid flat in the firelight?
Basta! basta!
Lift up your head!—The children!

Enter François and Charles
François.
Mother dear,
Charles is so cruel; he has wrenched a tuft
Of Lolo's hair.

Catherine.
The creature has not bitten?
Carlo, your finger? Go to Angela.

Angela.

Nothing, carissimo, nothing. Come with
me. . . . I will put on Madonna Valentina's
Euphorbium ointment. Come, Carlo. . . .
Frightened at a bite! You should not play
with wicked dogs.

Catherine.
Give him some aqua vitæ: he is shaken.
The beast shall be destroyed.

François.
But Carlo hurt her;
The blood sprang in her coat.

Catherine
(to Angela).
Send out a page to drown her.

Charles.
They love me, how they love me, all the dogs!
And I love them—to put them in the river.

Catherine.
You with your cold! Go in to Angela.

[Exit the Nurse with Charles.
François
(kneeling and laying his head against her knee).
Lolo is mine—
Let her be sent away where Charles can never
Creep up to her and hug her and then hurt.
He follows like a shadow, croons above her,
Then all at once her yell screams out. O maman,
Send her away—but do not kill my Lolo,
Ma Petite! Maman, maman,
Send her away . . .
My Marie loves her dearly.

Catherine.
Marie Stuart
Must weep your snapping cur. Now do not cry . . .
You will awake your brother.
Pish, pish, François,
Go in to Angela and stay within:
But tell her I await her. Go!
[Exit François.
(She looks at her hands.)
. . . I fatten!
I shall live on; I shall have age.
And some day that proud woman, there below,
His hand is on, will feel the hand of death
Inevitable. La Vieille—
That is her name, when courtiers meet and laugh.
One day she will be taken by the years—
The twenty years between her and the King—
Forth to her sepulchre, and I alive,
If Fate confirm my youth; for I am waxing
In flesh; I shall live on—I shall have age.
Re-enter Angela
Quick, quick! your senses mine at loophole—seeing
And hearing, mine! Peep through, then lay your ear
Flat on the floor.

Angela.
They have not stirred, Madonna.

Catherine.
Not! Dio mio, how they love! . . .
Now listen!

Angela
(alternately peeping and listening).

He murmurs
how he has loved their child—how he
loves Madonna Diane de France. . . . Yes—La
Valentina has moved her hand from under his.
. . . And he says that while your children
are princes her daughter is unacknowledged. . . .
She has risen . . . and he says he will suffer it
no more. . . . I see Madonna Valentina now:

they have risen; she carries a high head. . . .
He says he will acknowledge his daughter.

Catherine.

Henri, my little son, my cradle-babe!
Henri!

Angela.

He says this act is the witness of his heart,
that he has no fatherhood till a child of his love
is a princess. . . . Madonna Valentina stands
loftily, as if her feet were on stone, as a statue's.
. . . He says there shall be no pause in the
vehemence with which that blessed writing of
his pride as a father shall be prepared, and with
it titles, honour. . . . She stretches out her arms,
as women do when soldiers break into the
house.

Catherine.

But she is silent? Grovel, Angela!
Your ear, your ear!

Angela.

His voice—the warm, beelike drone of his
voice: joy, fatherhood, his living flower! Now,
now it stops—her voice!—Let me see! She
has pushed him on the chest with her hands;
he is out of my sight. . . . Let me hear! She
says, ‘I have belonged to you because I love
you.’

Catherine.

Ah!

Angela.

And she says no decree of his Parliament
shall ever make her his concubine. . . . ‘I will
not suffer it.’ But is she gone? I hear his feet
about the chamber. A sob? No! Is it a
moan? No, no—something other, not of that
kind; I have heard such cry out of doors. It

is in the room with the fire where he was. And
Madonna la Duchessa is gone away.

Catherine.
She acts, O cunning Wanton, as her Normans
Bargain about their pippins—‘Leave them, leave them!
Who wants to sell?’
The King? But is he sighing
Or humming purblind as a heavy bee
Black at the honey? Is he still below?

Angela.

There is a sigh . . . he is still pacing. He
whistles. He cannot tell what he should think
. . . he raps his knuckles on the table and his
rings chime out. Madonna, he has unbolted
the little door of your staircase. I believe he
is coming up . . .

[She rises from the ground.
Catherine.
My Jove ascending, tired of vagrancy,
His mistress fled away? Is this kind father
Coming to grudge the princedom of his heirs?
The queenship of his wife?
I cannot raise me . . .
My place is by my Henri's cradle. Trim it!
Nurse, wimple the white round my hair, and waken
The baby that it cry up from the ground.
Call Carlo and Francesco . . . set them by me,
For in these pledges
Of royalty the bankers of the Arno
Do homage to the Queen they bred for France.
Princes of France! . . . Call Charles
And call the Dauphin François.
[Exit Angela.
Ha, ha, ha!
To peep from the same hole at the same treason
Year after year, to play divinity
Over the criminals of many a sin,
To clasp their secrets and be tolerant
As Time is, and as Fate, and as Great God
Himself . . .
Enter King Henri
Sire, you confound me! In the twilight
I never had a visit from your Highness.
The hour is unprepared, or we had shown you
Less of forlornness; we had lighted lights,
And slipped the ermine round us. You surprise
What we had gladly screened of our estate.

Henri.
You have been languid—
They told me.

Catherine.
Henri. . . . I am stronger now . . .
Henri is feeble—ah, so feeble still,
He cries—you hear him—like an orphaned lamb.

Henri.
Monsieur le Docteur—
These chambers are his very pharmacy—
What does he promise?

Catherine.
Sire, he promises
When the harsh winds decline . . .
Can you not touch
Your flesh and blood?

Henri.
Madam, where are your sons
François and Charles?

Catherine.
They are sent for, Majesty.
Why did you visit me, so like a spectre
At eve? And all my fire gone down to dust,
Forgotten on the stones . . .
Come, Angela,
Bring in the Princes.
[The Nurse enters with the boys.
We have lost the fire,
Talking together. Kindle it! My Dauphin,
Salute your father; Charles, salute your father.

[They kneel. The King gives them each a hand indifferently.
Henri.
A spectre do I come? Alas, you call me
These little spectres in—
(Between his teeth.)
A Vampire litter!
This boy—how hollow-chested? What is ailing?

Catherine.
Charles was dog-bitten. Nurse, you have applied
Madame de Valentinois'
Most rare Euphorbium ointment? Did you pour him
The aqua vitæ? He is mortal pale.

Angela.
Ay, till carissimo was choked, Madonna.

Henri.
Take him to bed!
Always Italian here and always ailments!
Charles, have you given
Your verses in the flower-of-lily book
To the Maître Ronsard?

Charles.
No, Sire.

Henri.
I will give them.
He has perused my verses, our great Master,
Our Oriole of the fountain and fresh grove.
Send me your tutor with the little book.
Now hide your cold a-bed.
Ah, Monsieur Dauphin,
What is your ailment, that you bind your forehead,
Chéri, with hand and fingers?

Catherine.
He has cruel,
Most thrilling pain. Shut your left ear—Mon enfant,
Is it your father?—No, he does not answer;
He cannot hear me. Put the hand away.
Monsieur le Docteur says a cold has struck him
Too inwardly.

Henri
(with eagerness).
Come with me to la Duchesse,
And let us ask her help. Madame la Duchesse,
Knows of kind herbs, is wise in powders rare,
Made from Licornus. O my little spectre,
She can enweave into her remedy
A dead man's hair! Come, she will ease this aching.
And, Madame, you are languid—by-and-by
She shall prescribe a quick restorative;
Yea, and appoint you better tendance, Madam,
Not ashes on the hearth, nor a poor cradle-child
Puling for milk.

Catherine.
Your little Catherina. . . .
A kiss. . . . You are so careful of my health.
[She fawns on his velvet cloak. He lets a caress fall on her brow.
Your little Catherina. . . . Non, ta Catherine.

Henri.
Your Dauphin shall be rendered back to you
And swiftly by his tutor. François, come!
She has the mysteries of life? Your hand!

[Exit with the boy.
Catherine
(closing her eyes).
How beautiful!
Gallant and stately, King and Paladin,
Snow on his forehead! Even his youthful hair
Worships her into greyness, and his eyes
Have turned from dull and twilight into dark
With vivid stars to wait on her.
Re-enter Angela
He climbed
My tower to find excuse for new approach
To her. . . . My child, my eldest-born, my son,
My King-to-be shall link them in again
After their quarrel. . . . I have cunning wit—
Ah, and my Paladin, a soul so simple,
He lays himself before my wit as naked
As he was born.
My child shall link them in!
He calls our children phantoms. By-and-by
His mistress will lift up to me her drugs,
Her powder of the fat of unicorn;
And I, a Médicis, a Florentine,
Dare drink the potion. . . . She would have me live,
And breed my phantom-children; as a friend
She will arrange my house; but never part us,
Angela, my own eye and my own ear,
Never—for all her dominance!
I tarry . . .
I thrive—for I am spreading round the chin
A ripple of more chin,
That spreads a circle of deep augury.
You find me fatter, though by childbed wearied
And faint, do you not, Nurse? I shall have age!
And I have hatred, soft,
Ah, it is soft as worms that hunger on
In graves they will disburthen by-and-by:
So soft, so blind, so constant—hate!

Angela.
Madonna,
La Valentina and Carissimo.

Enter Diane with François
Diane.
The King reports you languid, Mignonne—Ah,
What heat beneath these braids!
Let me shed on your forehead a clear shower,
As if an April shower—and from this cloud . . .
But you would hold the phial? As you will!
Now waft my Spanish fan . . .
'Tis breeze and shower
Together that re-animate . . .

Catherine.
Where is the King?

Diane.
The King? He left me for the Racquet Court.

Catherine.
They tell me, Madam, there
All note his errors, as he were not King,
Speak his mistakes or put him in the wrong.

Diane.
Why not? He loves the game.

Catherine
(as if talking in her sleep).
All note his errors,
And watch, and sometimes put him in the wrong.

Diane.
I leave my Spanish fan. . . .
Nurse, come within.
This child is ill with fever.

Catherine.
Tell the King . . .

Diane.
I shall not see him, Mignonne. Any message
Will find him in the Racquet Court. . . .

Catherine.
By magic
Can you work spells, emptying your physic jars,
To ease the Dauphin?

Diane.
Then you are eased, ma chère?
We must foment this ailing little head.
Come, nurse—where is your readiness? Neglect
All round the Queen! Take heed
Or you will lose your honourable place.

Catherine
(starting up).
Never! She is of many years beloved.
We do not part.

Diane.
Softly! We would not fret you.
And if she serves you well . . .

Catherine.
She serves me well.
What were a leaping fire upon the hearth
To a kind tongue that stories the blank hours?
What were a lamp in twilight to an eye
That sees with us our far-off land, that sees
With us the basking lizards on the stones
Of the Bargello or the Vatican?
She serves me as I need . . .
Take back your fan,
Madam, it has made air enough.

Diane.
Mon François.
Fetch me my fan, and come, pauvre petit, come.

[They go out with Angela.
Catherine.
Her cheeks are hot and lines upon her temples.
She sprayed me fresh! . . . O rainbow of my scutcheon,
Come to me from her shower! Henri—ah, Henri—
To-night he will be lonesome on his bed,
Because he is in quarrel with his Moon,
His scorched Moon. . . . Ah, to-night
He will lie scorched and desolate above
His keys of office . . . but no starry usher
Will give him entrance to his Dian's grace—
Locked! He will sleep in bane! He is defeated,
And I avenged—no royal child I bore him
Could link the paramours. He is defeated!
I bless his scorched Moon. He will sleep in bane.

Scene III

The forest of Evereux, by Anet, at crossways—one road leading to a hermitage, where a red light burns, the other to deeper forest in snow. Diane, under a cloak and veil, turns back to a Messenger, who stands below her, panting.
Diane.
I cannot see the King, I may not see him;
It is forbidden me, amid these snows,
And sharpest cold. I cannot see the King.

Messenger.
Madam . . .

Diane.
I left command
Before I started for the little chapel
Beyond there in the snows. I must go forth
Through the winter to my shrift.
Dismiss the King.

Messenger.
And shall I say? . . .

Diane.
I keep my solitude.
[Exit Messenger. She makes a few steps upward, then leans against a bare Spanish chestnut, breathing heavily.
Anet! It is itself a sepulchre;
Its chapel guards my husband's memory.
Here I am honourable, here
A dedicated widow . . . for De Brézé
Haunts not; his ghost is laid.
Enter through snowy briars Diane de France. She bows, almost prostrating herself before La Sénéchale.
You startled me!
What are you, child, and whence?

Diane de France.
I am from the King.

Diane.
And with what suit?

Diane de France.
The King
Stooped down and kissed my forehead; he complained
To find me distant from you; for he said
He had given me to you, and so fair a gift
Must needs be cherished. Madam, he was gentle;
And while he waited in my cabinet
I strove to entertain him duteously.
Gentle!—but when you so repulsed him, Madam,
He bade me to your presence as I was,
Muttering in harshest tones he would not take
Refusal of your lips save from my lips.

Diane.
Then from your lips refusal, and retire,
Your errand done, to study of your books.

Diane de France.
Madam, it is a fête.

Diane.
Entreat the King
To go with you a-hunting—his indulgence,
Or my command. Do not return to me
[Exit Diane de France.
There are two children sleeping in my tomb:
Would that my children were all sleeping there!
This mortal issue is not of a strength
To blazen me his goddess. Dian breeds
No progeny. . . . Endymion alone,
That boy, hid shining in a cave, attests
Her reckoning with the mortal hours, her fondness,
And all that she would leave of trace on earth.
Henri! But he shall suffer the extreme
Of love's humiliation till he raise me
Supreme in honour to the world. His Queen,
And at my pleasure and when I decree,
A slave, has borne him children; at my pleasure. . . .
Colder and colder—I will grow more cold!
Henri! If I have fought for you with Time
Till he has wondered at me and stood by;
If I have made a spring for you where fiercely
Winter was at his ravening underground—
Shall I not guard for you your Dream intact,
Something most steadfast, lighting you before?
Henri! But you must suffer thousand pains
If I can keep this Vision, clear and deathless
And never-wavering, in your faith. . . . Beloved,
I am old and weary: one of us must die.
[She stands for a while mute, her eyes on the snow. Rousing herself.
But I must leave him for this winter journey—
Leave him . . . and offer penance for my dear,
Inevitable sinning, while he fondles
That younger Diane . . .
[Suddenly Henri springs up the forest, now dusk. He carries a torch that throws its red light on her face.
(In a half-raised voice.)
I take rest . . .
Go back!

Henri.
Diane, this torture, all this rank dismissal,
Your eyes grown spiked and ruddy as the stars:
I cannot find my fault.
You will not speak
More than the fatal winds; you are as dumb
As the jailer who conveyed me fort to fort:
I did not heed if I were borne to death,
Not then, nor now. . . . Diane, you will not speak?
You cannot?—Something I have done
You will not look upon? The offence must be
Airy and in conception . . . as to tread
Rashly on hallowed pavements . . . for in knowledge
I cannot sin.
You treat me
As I had offered to you in my speech
Insult so gross you are cut off from speech.
Or do you dare in jealousy to doubt
I honour you completely, without rival?
Diane, if I have lacked
In honour to you—as through sleepless nights
Sometimes I have accused myself, no more
You shall accuse.
My fault?
As hawk in anchored flight I ride the air
To fall on any guilt or speck of error
Toward you, my one and only Princess.

Diane.
Sire,
You have offended the Uranian Love
We read of in our Plato, in the book
Tri-spotted with our fleurs-de-lis, between
The strait embrace of our name-letters. Henri,
It was as when the East thrusts on the South
Its closure of dark clouds, when on my ear,
Open to heaven in your voice, there gathered
Discourse of proclamation and of law;
An edict of your parliament.

Henri.
I could not
Think that your high aloofness drew from that.
I would have honoured you in the clear day:
The Dian born of us is given to night.

Diane.
There she belongs—our secret, beautiful
By nature and by nurture: there she ends,
In quiet of the majesty of night.
I who was made to give you heirs, of you
To rear up children of a royal race,
Because I love you, Henri, am your Mistress;
And this dear name you have brought very low,
Proclaiming it, rejecting it. I am
Your Mistress; but no favours of my love,
Till you have so exalted this dear name,
It is breathed low throughout all Christendom.
Shall law and equity, at your appeal,
Blazen me forth yonr concubine? It haunts!
So Lucifer made hell for God—a creature
Of his immortal essence fallen, grown false.

Henri.
Diane, you rouse me! Such contamination
Was never of my thoughts. I would atone . . .

Diane.
Peace, peace—atone! Love's Worshipper atone!
Oh, we are fallen indeed, a man and woman
Beneath the Curse,—no more beneath our Dream.
You make us sinners, Henri. . . . Then, atone!
Before the altar of our God, before
Yon little altar-shrine, apostate-love,
Vow me in expiation many a pile
Blazing round those who disallow their God.
So in the fuel heaped for burning, so
By holocaust, by sacrifice, offences
Your weakness lays on us as cardinal,
Shall sink to venial through the cleansing fire.
Light me the flames!
The Universe shall see your expiation,
The heretics shall tremble and the Church
Be re-exalted in this Huguenot
And doubting France . . .
Light me the flames, light up the Universe!
So Love, the terrible, Uranian Love
Shall glow forgiveness on you. My dimned lover,
Promise me holy pyres to cleanse this sin,
This heresy, this brutish ignorance!—
That I to you could be your concubine,
And not the Mistress of Love's Temple Court,
Once and for ever past all circumstance.
Your oath!

Henri.
My oath!
I will condemn the heretics to anguish
That burns as mine.
Diane, but I was dull
In my impiety! What desecration!
You lead me to the bridge-way from whose key
The gulf of Hades can be measured out—
I will light fires!
But how atone to you? I know not how!
This fiery cleansing of my realm for God
Of treason and apostasy . . . I know not! . . .
The fires will blaze His glory, as the morning
Or evening blaze the glory of the Sun:
But you?
If I were hoist on some Himalayan spire
To offer incense fo the utmost stars—
Vain would it be, vain as to touch with homage,
That breathes up through the firmament, your glory,
Assured against Death, against Time assured.
You ask an oath: with loyalty more firm
Than ever hath been sworn to a new Prince
I yield you my obedience; and my torch
Pledges its element to your command.
But something I must do of my own self
To reassure you to the Universe
Goddess, the Queen and Mistress of my soul,
The worship of my royalties.
Not yet,
Not yet can I conceive!

Diane.
Thy faith, mon ami.
I cried for that.

Henri.
Not yet,
Not yet can I conceive . . .

Diane
(in a whisper).
Till Christendom
Breathe low before my glory.

[They begin to move up to the hermitage.
Henri.
Hark, Diane,
How the dogs howl! They say the dead are passing
When dogs howl on so hollowly . . . and redder
Than blood the torch! . . . Diane, my only Mistress,
My faith, my faith—till Christendom breathe low.
Come to the shrine.
O night of deeper forest
Than daylight tells of, hear the incantation
Of one who as a poet would conceive!
. . . How strained a note
The dogs are wailing on! Come, vows and deeds!
My torch—a snaky litter!
Queen of Spirits,
Divine as Luna or as Hecate,
This breath of forests!
So the world shall breathe,
And Christendom breathe low, and time to come.

[They are lost behind the bare Spanish chestnuts.

Scene IV

Paris. Les Tourelles. Madame Diane's apartment, steps at the back leading down into her private chapel. To the right a bed of white satin; to the left a window filled with red light that dyes the bed. Her Women, the Demoiselles Cassandre, Astrée, Hélène and Héloïse, are laying silken sheets on the bed and laying out a dressing-robe of cloth of silver.
Cassandre.
Her hunting done, tissue of cloud awaits her,
The sylvan turned celestial . . . but to-day,
See, the moon-chamber blushing fierily—
See, the struck glow!

Astrée.
'Las, I have some compassion;
You none, Cassandre. Is not a man, poor devil,
Ruled on those flames straight as a line?
They tell me
The heretics go naked to their ash,
However clothed for tying to the stake.
Think of the poor Couturier—and no clothes!
A foolish, mincing, modest fellow once!

Hélène.
A Huguenot—a fellow
So modest he could scarcely find the face
To speak those words that clothe a gallant.

Astrée.
Zut!
Words do not clothe.

Hélène.
Not a Couturier's words?
Without them stitchery were spider-labour.
And how were gallants clothed?

Cassandre.
I would be there!

Astrée.
Poor devil! 'Las!
Not even a thread to join the tindered rents!
'Las, I have pity—'las!

Cassandre.
I, none! Our King has none. Close to those flames,
That glow the bed, he waits to see the losel
Burn into dust.

Héloïse.
Not for religion's sake.

Astrée.
But for our Mistress' sake, and for her cause.

Cassandre.
Think of the infamy, the jibe! A preacher
To swear she had infected France, to roar—
When she made mention of a Catholic,
And ever-living doctrine of her faith—
‘Mix not your ordure with God's Sacred Things.’
Those were his words.

Astrée.
Ordure!

[They all laugh.
Cassandre.
A stable-groom
Had hardly tongued the word this Huguenot
On his rank breath flung at Our Sovereign-Duchess,
And flung before the flashed eyes of the King!

Hélène.
I would be there to see the King—
His eyes, his white plumes sharp on his white hair,
Such hair of April snow,
And his white feathers like the milkier blossoms
Dangling and laughing at the snow! Our King
Adorable! His Paris loves him well,
His Court and all the ladies of his Court . . .
He lifts you a dropped fan—

Astrée.
Your own is broken.
How often have you let it fall, ma chère?

Hélène.
And I am told he was a boy so awkward
A lady's trinket falling at his feet
Appalled him as a spectre.

Astrée.
La Vieille
Has wrought him debonair and unembarrassed.
And how his laugh is soft—a little brisker
With us and Marie Stuart and his children
Than with our Mistress!
[Astrée turns to the book.
I am curious. . . .
Girls, La Vieille is busy with her Plato.
See, the King's portrait stamped upon the boards
In gold upon the brown. . . . See this!

[A poem in the King's handwriting slips from the book. The Demoiselles gather round, elbowing each the other for a sight of the manuscript.
Hélène.
A poem of the King's—the adorable,
The last chivalrous King.

Cassandre
(laughing and reading).
Hélas, mon Dieu, combien je regrette
Le temps que j'ai perdu en ma jeunesse.

Astrée.
Combien de fois je me suis souhaité
Avoir Diane pour ma seule Maîtresse.

Héloïse.
Mais je craignais qu'elle qui est déesse
Ne se voulût abaisser jusque-là
De faire cas de moi . . .

Diane has entered in hunting-gear, with every sign of weariness and dejection; but a smile breaks over her face as she lays a hand on Héloïse's shoulder.
Diane.
Undress me, child . . .
[The Demoiselles in confusion stand round Cassandre, who holds the poem.
Yet stay! This is the bearer
Of a king's letter . . . for my hand.
Present it . . .
Retire!
[Cassandre, Hélène and Astrée go out.
(To Héloïse.)
Undress me, child.

[Héloïse removes her hunting-gear and lays round her the loose silver robe, completely covering her.
Héloïse.

Full moon, Madame la Duchesse, a full
and argent moon!

Diane
(searches the face of Héloïse).

You shall read
to me a little, Héloïse. Stay, you may read
me perhaps to sleep.

[She takes the face of Héloïse between her hands.

Héloïse, is there any that you love?

[In terror the girl struggles from her gaze.
Héloïse.

Madam is weary; Madam must not
occupy herself with the heart—nothing is so
fatiguing. But, if Madam will deign to look
in her long mirror, she will see what will
delight . . .

Diane.

No, Héloïse.

Héloïse.

From the window and reflected again in
the mirror, are the flames of the bonfire lighted
at noon for Monsieur le Couturier. If Madam
would deign to raise herself . . .

[Diane leans on her elbow and gazes out.
Diane.

So, to purge what is noxious from the
air! . . . So, to make breathing clean! Héloïse,
you must never give your heart to a heretic.
Rose-red!—I shall not sleep. How the flower
dances for me in the mirror!

Héloïse.

I shall give my heart to one who is constant
like the King.

Diane.

The King is constant—

Héloïse.

Madam, yes. It makes no difference if
Madam is a little slow in her walking—the King
will curb himself as proudly as a well-trained
charger. It makes no difference if at hunt Madam

cannot fix the animal pursued, nor the stoop of
the falcon—no matter! He affects blindness;
he is full of sympathy. I shall love a man constant
as the King; and then when wrinkled and
in years I shall have some one to flatter me with
assurance I am beautiful . . .

Diane.

Would you like to be flattered, Héloïse?

Héloïse.

I should like to resemble you in every
point. I should like when I am older to
be esteemed; I should like to have great
power.

Diane.

Should you like to be loved when you are
old, little, plain Héloïse?

Héloïse.

I cannot conceive that possible. If
now I am plain, I have youth; I am in
flower.

Shall I read to Madam?

[She turns over the pages.

Though the King has grey hair, he is young. It
is as if he had chosen a colour to make his eyes
more dark. The white hair is absurd and like a
masque, but the King's eyes are melancholy and
full of the softness of youth.

[Diane goes up to her reading-stand.

It is said, Madam, the King has adopted the tint
of his hair to match your own—it is said that,
though you will not dye your hair, he has made
sacrifice instead.

Diane.

O Héloïse, my white skin is mine, and the
King's white hair is his own. You do not read

to me! Finish the long strip of broidered silver
for my cloak.

[Héloïse lays a mirror near the bed.

No, Héloïse, you do not read to me. I think
you will be latest married of all among my maidens.

[Exit Héloïse.
[Diane looks out steadily at the flame from the heretic's fire.
To ash now—it is flickering down to ash,
Even that fire. . . . Lo, every fire
Fails, and burns down. . . . More fondly still
He loves me, but his tenderness creeps in,
And damps the flame.
[She rises and looks in her mirror.
No goddess, but a woman,
And flushed and full of tears.
Cardinal Lorraine enters: she speaks in response to his greeting.
No, Cardinal;
To-day I am with Hecate and the tombs—
Most dusk!

Cardinal.
With prouder head,
With lovelier bloom upon your cheek, your quiver
Disordered on the bed. Who has offended?
And who must fall?

Diane
(deeply sighing).
. . . Now when we walk together
Mine is the heavier tread: he gives me books
Dim to my eyes; I lay them down
In the little coffer of his gift—for once
My Henri bade me read to him a chanson
Of Ronsard, and I could not see; the page
Was as a dungeon-wall against my eyes.
My gentle Henri! I have learned the chanson
By heart, but the King does not ask for it . . .
The dew falls not as then when he besought
His pleasure in my voice. I failed him; now
I shall more often fail.

[She lays herself back on her bed.
Cardinal.
Not if his pleasure be the voice and not
While he can break such sighs.

Diane.
He will be constant,
And tender, and fatigue me. Marie Stuart
Will play about the rooms, play as a child,
And pick me up my kerchief or my missal
Caressingly, with long, caressing eyes
Loitering on Henri.

[With a movement of weariness Diane closes her eyes.
Cardinal.
Bien!
Marie is very noble, very simple;
The Court is hers—
The Dauphin's Court; and if you disenchant . . .
Is there a bird flown in? The air is limpid!
What is it? She is fallen fast asleep.
The sculpture, the serenity, the bloom
Of marble in its whiteness and its rose!
How shall I rally her? She has no age,
Save this infirmity of sleep—
The senses disobedient to the wit!
Diane! The King more madly dotes on her,
Or, shall I rather say, lingers more fond
Before the fountain where he finds her goddess,
Or the great portrait where he finds her fair.
Dieu Sauveur! He is mad to pass her by
For statue or for image of herself.
She can pace, even as the Church, this woman,
A sovereign power: her fame should fill the world:
And it will dwindle down a little cloud,
Till it become a little cloud and pass.
How shall I aid her? To my breviary,
No vantage taken of the moment's slackness!
Saint Horace! You have here the phrase for her—
[He draws from a fold of his robe a volume of Horace's Odes.
(Murmuring.)
Diva triformis . . . though in years,
By count of time and season, she is mortal
And aged as Lyce, when the poet jibed—
(Reading.)
Nec Coae referunt jam tibi purpurae
Nec cari lapides tempora, quae semel
Notis condita fastis
Inclusit volucris dies.
And yet and yet. . . . Infernal sorcery!

[She opens her eyes and smiles.
Diane.
A little, healing sleep . . . your judgment, Paris?

Cardinal.
Incomparable Wisdom!

Diane.
Ay, to-day
My beauty is profound, I have no rival:
Nothing beneath the sun is of this texture.

[She lays her bare arm across her quiver.
Cardinal.
My creed!

Diane.
I cannot die!
I shall pass on into a perfect age.
O Cardinal, and I so love my life—
In this I have the goddess, I could count
The centuries as days; I could become
More beautiful, more golden, softer far,
And slip into the goddess, unperceived
As Daphne to her laurel-tree.

Cardinal.
My creed!

Diane
(laying her hand on the Cardinal's).
Yet am I restless as King François grew
In his last sickness. . . . You remember it!
How of a sudden Fontainebleau displeased him,
As all her woods were grey, and he would speed
On to Saint Germain, to La Muette—on
To Demprierre, to Loche: then at Rambouillet,
When the end came, as still within the forest,
He startled, quickening to those magic sounds
That the winds strike. . . . It was held fast
By them of saner judgment he was searched
And haunted by that stag that is appointed
Sometimes to lure and maze men to their death.
Whom should it beckon? I were glad to follow.

Cardinal.
Not you, most gracious Sénéchale.

Diane.
Not Henri?

Cardinal.
Nay, nay, the King is of a lusty health.
You must not thus contract his joy—discretion!
If you can bear with such shrewd counsel as
The Mouse, that glides behind the royal curtains,
Then nibbles at the women's sweets, and tends
His whiskers at confession of a crime,
Can proffer—you will smile beside the King.
These marriages of his fair child and sister
To Spain and to Savoy sting him with passion
For feasts and tourneys. In the ardency
And in the full absorption of the pageant
He plays Chevalier to every woman
Who challenges his courtesy—

Diane.
These jousts,
These bridals, and the King to lead the jousts!

Cardinal.
The King is caught by little brilliant flowers
In the parterre, by little brilliant flowers.
These brides and . . . yes, Montmorency miscarried;
He forced the King; he pressed into his hand
A velvet moth: it is the things that flit,
Poise of themselves and flit, that are pursued—
The brides and the young Dauphiness . . .
Most honoured,
You must not move among the flock unwary.
If you could stoop a little! There are arts . . .
Enchantress, if you disenchant, the world
Is disenchanted. Do not misconceive.
A little herbe d'amour in its lithe crimson
Shoots to the eye more vivid in desire
Than any drooping rose.

Diane.
Entreat me not,
Good Cardinal, to falter from myself.
[She stands erect before him.
I shall continue . . .
While these little flowers,
The brilliant flowers of the parterre, change hue
Chameleon-like and differ with the days,
Self-same I shall abide.

Involuntarily she seizes her bow. Henri enters; he pauses before her
Henri.
The Majesty!
And Donec impleat orbem—the great oath!
Diane, you have not heard?
It fell on me at vespers in a dream—
I have sent forth the cartels to the world—
That all these jousts are solely in the honour
Of my sole Princess. Insignificant
And foolish pastimes now are like the ripple
Of an oar that spreads its ripples to a beach.
Yes, Cardinal, it came to me at vespers
How for my Lady I should front the world.

Cardinal
(bowing).
Her glory is assured. I would all kings
So dreamed across their prayers!

[Exit.
Henri.
Diane, Diane!
I am triumphant, carried far away
As in a revelation. Though the fires
Have burned out all my guiltiness for sin
Most heretic, appalling to myself,
Yet on your face I found that cloud a sinner
Leaves on the mournful eyelids of his God.
Then fell on me this glory, given in dreams
Of one who rode triumphant in the lists:
The gonfalon, the shield,
And the plumed helmet, all were of Saint-Michel,
Pure white . . . and then the rider's face was turned:
He wore your favour, and he wore your smile.
Vigour is on me of my single aim
To overthrow the chivalry of earth.
We will sweep up to heaven!
Diane, what is it?
Your brow is as the moving clouds. What portent?
It cannot be of cloud.

[She caresses him, averting her face.
Diane.
Your visage is too bright—a revelation
Too bright, too bright!

Henri
(clouding).
Ma mie,
I should not thus have boasted. You misdoubt—
You think this is a legend? I confided
My hope to you. . . . 'Tis foolish to confide
Hope to a woman, for she dashes it.

Diane.
Henri, I do not doubt, or if I doubt
It is that I can ever live to bear
A miracle so infinite, such love.
Henri!—Come with me. . . . Listen!
There is music
Below there in the Chapel. You shall choose
More music, and . . . I shall recover strength.

[From below the steps leading down to the Chapel at the back a solemn music is heard. Henri and Diane are moving toward the Chapel when Montmorency and Nostradamus enter.
Henri.
My Master of the Ceremonies, greet him!
He is all ours.

Diane
(holding out her hand).
My own!

Montmorency
(grasping her hand).
Then, Madam, 'tis to you I make my prayer,
And as your humblest, faithful servitor . . .
For I have tidings, rather I should say
A warning of such fearful vehemence
And evil omen—

Henri
(hotly).
O Montmorency,
How dare you bring the glittering, tainted fears
Here, where we have our royalty! Beloved,
There is a rumour running through the Court
To stop this pageant; a conspiracy
To drown your honour. It is jealous spite,
Vile, jealous spite! Montmorency, retire—
Be it your business to shut up these mouths;
Command the Queen to keep her peace; forbid
The spreading of infection by such threat
Of my displeasure . . .

Nostradamus.
At the word of doom?

Henri.
You are ashen white . . . The liar's hue, my faith!

Nostradamus.
I am ashen white: so white will be your face
Upon the sod, in this appointed joust,
If you encounter . . .

[At Henri's clenched hand, he retreats.
Diane.
I would hear this man;
I would encounter him. Step forward, kneel,
And take an oath of truth.

Nostradamus.
The King is doomed.

Diane
(leaning on the shoulder of the King).
Henri, speak you to the astrologer.

Henri
(supporting her).
Give us the worst, as you were charged with news
Of sorrow to our kingdom. What is written
By fate is written, if the moment speak.

Nostradamus.
You fall and in a duel.

Henri.
Then indeed
You kindle me. Good Nostradamus, welcome!—
Not of the poison-bowl, beloved, nor fading
Of a slow sickness, nor with glazèd eyes
To leave you . . . sudden, of a sudden stroke,
And from my peer, and in some cause of honour
Between contending royalties. Look up!
Beloved, my life in all its flow
Is yours: now in a symbol take my death.

Nostradamus.
The King is willing for his death, he loves you;
They all are willing for their death who love.
Leaving the marble of the forcèd word—
Will you consent
The King shall die in duel? Then dissuade him
From entering the jousts where two and two
The combatants contend.

Montmorency.
For sake of France!
[Diane seats herself on her white satin bed.
You have made for France a king:
He sways above us, as a bowering tree
Full of deep scents and riches of the treasure
Whereof our kingdom hums. Will you cut off
This glory? Will you leave our France a desert?
[Diane stretches her long hands over her knees.
You dare not say you are not moved, you dare not
Make light of the inscription on the wall.

Diane.
No: I am superstitious. . . . No!
I have been very ailing, very sad.
It may be but the shadow of my sickness
That has brought transit of so many shapes
Before my eyes. . . . One day
I met a royal stag that looked on me
With eyes so mournful, lingeringly enslaved,
I took it as a token I must die.
But it may otherwise be read: King François
Was haunted by a vision such as this . . .
He bade us mark how noble was its gesture,
Serene in triple-antlered majesty,
An hour before his death. I have unbosomed:
[In answer to an impatient movement of Henri's.
Nor have I yet the clue . . .

Nostradamus.
Though sad with your own omens and constrained
To utter them aloud!

Montmorency.
What hinders you?
Madam, what hinders? It is in your power
To stay the lists, to stay all circumstance.

Diane
(her eyes fixed on Henri's).
I cannot stay the lists.

Montmorency.
He comes,
This mighty soothsayer, from the Queen's chamber.
The Queen in wifely terror at her dreams—

Diane.
Then she had dreams? Quick, say what she beheld.

Nostradamus.
She beheld nothing: but a great unrest.
Surged in her bosom like an apparition,
And coupling this with her anxiety . . .

Montmorency.
Think,
If you should lose your great Chevalier, Madam,
You were left desolate.

Diane
(rising and standing by Henri).
That has no force.
I cannot stay the lists.

[He stoops and kisses her hand.
Montmorency.
O Madam,
You are proud, very cold; you would be famed
For an unwavering mind. This is ambition
And selfishness of heart and vanity.

Diane
(closing her eyes).
Peace! . . . If it should be vanity! . . . Repeat
The omen once again; repeat it slow.

Nostradamus.
The young lion shall surmount the old,
Upon a field of war, in strangest duel;
Shall drive his eyes out in a cage of gold,
And by two wounds portend him death most cruel.
The stars conjure, the stars
Conjure us to take warning: you alone—

Diane.
How on a sudden, Stars,
Shall I have strength? It may be I believe
This thing will come to pass. For there is nothing,
Nothing so sure, not even the fashioning
In secret of a child's bones in the womb,
As dreams of their fulfilment. On his part
The King has had a vision: as Saint-Michel
He saw himself. Each portent may be death.

Montmorency.
Madam, let this decide; if you believe
The King will perish in this duel, dare you
Send him disheartened to the lists? 'Tis murder;
We will not see it done, we standing by.

Henri.
Diane?

Diane.
The King has had a vision.—Henri!

[He puts his arm round her.
Henri.
We are lovers: we can part.
(Laughing.)
Pledged to a vision,
And honourably, I shall take my death
In duel . . . was it not, astrologer?
Come, Steward of the Ceremonies, come,
Montmorency . . . for I must choose a horse.

Diane.
Le Turc.
[Henri smiles, and lifting his plumed cap, bows low to her and goes out with Montmorency, followed by Nostradamus, who turns at the door, and fixes on her a gaze of reproach before leaving.
I will go down into the Chapel,
To hear the music. . . . And I go alone.
[She caresses a mantle of the King's, thrown down; then, passing to the Chapel, she pauses at the sound of requiem-music played by the organ.
And there is music breaking from the tombs!
O terrible, for they are lost, these spirits,
That are so tempted, being lost,
To wander down, and further off, more strange.
[She closes her ears.
I could have stopped the lists. . . . I am forbidden,
And must be Queen down here, among the dead,
For my great vanity. . . . I am forbidden!

[To funeral music she descends into the chapel.