University of Virginia Library

Scene III.

This scene has been altered since the first publication of the play; if, as I believe, improved, I am indebted for the improvement to the remarks of an anonymous writer in a literary journal,—made, I think, with a true critical insight, though, I am sorry to say, not in a friendly spirit.—(Note in the Second Edition.)

—The Secret Cabinet in the Palace of the Duke of Orleans, hung round with Pictures, each concealed by a curtain. The Duke of Burgundy, the Bastard of Montargis, and an Attendant.
Montargis
(to the Attendant).
Withdraw the curtains and retire.

Burgundy.
Too true;
Wild as the winds, they tell me, wild as the winds.
He knows not those about him nor himself;
Son of Perdition, Scape-goat, Man of Sin,
He calls himself, and foams at all who say
“Your Grace,” “Your Highness,” or “my Lord the King.”
No madman who believes himself a King
Is so enamour'd of his royalties
As this poor King envenom'd is against them.
To see the Fleur de Lys most angers him,
And when he can he tears it. One alone
Hath power upon him (whence derived we know),
The Milanese enchantress Valentine,
My worthy Cousin's wife; who reads such books
As when the hangman burns, he puts on gloves
For fear of what may happen. In his rage
He seized the old Archbishop by the throat,
Bidding him cease philandering and fiddling
And dig himself a grave beneath the gallows.
The Archbishop, in a mortal terror, cried,
“Oh let me go and I will do it;” then
He squatted on the floor, and laugh'd.

Montargis.
This day,
If ever, shall your Highness seize the reins.
The people are inflamed; in every street
They gather, hurling curses at his head
Whose practice once again hath crazed the King.
The death, too, they demand, of that young Witch
Whose art the Duke hath used.

Burgundy.
That was decreed
Beforehand.

Montargis.
Sir, a Council should be call'd
Ere this cools down.

Burgundy.
Already it is call'd;
It meets at six.—Ho! here's a galaxy
Of glowing dames! Well done, my amorous Cousin!
Whate'er his errors at the Council-board,
By Becket's bones I cannot but commend
His choice of paramours. Banners are these
Ta'en in Love's warfare, and hung up to tell
Of many a Noble, many a Knight despoil'd.
Ha! were it not a frolic that should shake
Grim Saturn's self with laughter, could we bring
The husbands hither,—each to look round and spy
The blazon of his dire disgrace.

Montargis.
'Twere sport
That were I following my father's hearse
Would make me roar with merriment.

Burgundy.
Who's this?
Tell me the name and quality of each
In order as they come.

Montargis.
This is Adele,
Wife of the Seneschal de Montenay.
Beautiful vixen! for three years and more
He caged her in his castle on the Yonne,
To teach her tameness; and she learnt revenge;
Whereof her present love is part and lot.
Yond Cupid painted in the vault above
Poison'd his arrow when he shot at her.
She mimics gracefully a fondling softness,
But there's less danger in a bear's embrace
Than her caressings.

Burgundy.
God ha' mercy! Pass;
Who is the next?

Montargis.
Evangeline St. Cler,
The lily of Bordeaux, Count Raymond's daughter;
An easy, lazy lady, freely fraught
By nature with a full complacency
And swelling opulence of inward joy
Sufficient to itself, that knows no want,
Too careless happy to have need of love.
And leave her unmolested, she were chaste
As Thekla in the cave; but urged and press'd,
Resistance is too troublesome; she's kind,
And if a lover wring his hands and weep,
She can refuse him nothing.

Burgundy.
Weep for a wench!
I'd have the fool well whipp'd. I know the next;
She, if I err not, is De Chauny's spouse.

Montargis.
Pressing a portrait to her pouting lips,
Which once were not so pale; and whence the change
Ask her successor smiling opposite,
The Jew Rispondi's daughter fresh from Rhodes.
A polish'd corner of the Temple she,
Dove's eyes within her locks; an innocent child,
Sold as a toy and senseless as a toy,
Who hardly knew what love or sin might mean.
Her reign was short.

Burgundy.
And then the next!

Montargis.
Which! This?

Burgundy.
She with the timbrel dangling from her hand.

Montargis.
I know not this; this was not here before.
The one beyond it ....

Burgundy.
Not so fast; this face
I surely must have seen, though not, it may be,
For some time past; it hath a princely grace
And lavish liberty of eye and limb,
With something of a soft seductiveness
Which very strangely to my mind recalls
The idle days of youth; that face I know,
Yet know not whose it is.

Montargis.
Nor I, my Lord;
Albeit the carriage of the neck and head
Is such as I have somewhere seen.

Burgundy.
But where?
Familiar seems it, though in foreign garb;
And whether it be Memory recalls
Or Fancy feigning Memory ... Death of my soul!
It is my wife.

Montargis.
Oh no, my Lord, no, no,
It cannot be her Highness.

Burgundy.
Cannot, cannot—
Why, no, it cannot; for my wife is chaste,
And never did a breath of slander dim
Her pure and spotless fame; no, no, it cannot;
By all the Angels that keep watch above
It cannot be my wife ... and yet it is.
I tell thee, Bastard of Montargis, this,
This picture is the picture of my wife.

Montargis.
And I, my Lord, make answer it is not.
I could as soon believe that Castaly
Had issued into Styx. Besides, look here,—
There is a mole upon the neck of this,
Which is not on your wife's.

Burgundy.
That mole is hers;
That mole convicts her.

Montargis.
What? a mole? Well,—yes,
Now that I think of it, some sort of smirch,—
A blot, a blur, I know not what ...

Burgundy.
That mole.
Oh see, Montargis, look at her; she smiles,
But not on me,—but never more on me!
Oh would to God that she had died the day
That first I saw that smile and trusted her;
Though knowing the whole world of women false,
Still trusted her,—and knowing that of the false
The fairest are the falsest, trusted still,
Still trusted her—Oh my besotted soul!
Trusted her only—oh my wife, my wife!—
Believing that of all the Devil's brood
That twist and spin and spawn upon this earth
She was the single Saint—the one unfallen
Of this accursed Creation—oh my wife!
Oh the Iscariot kiss of those false lips!
With him too—to be false with him—my bane,
My blight from boyhood.

Montargis.
Verily therein
Was foul-play worse befoul'd ; no arts but his,
And theirs who taught him, with their rings and rods,
Powders and potions, could have breach'd the wall
Of that fair citadel.

Burgundy.
I'll have his blood.

Montargis.
My Lord, I do beseech you, be not rash.
I own this is not at all points the place
Where I could wish to find, hung up to view,
A portrait of her Grace of Burgundy:
But patience is a virtue which the times
Demand of married men; to shout one's shame
Were but to add to injury disgrace;
Make not an open scandal; keep it close;
Nor give to every mocking mountebank
A theme for jest.

Burgundy.
No scandal; there's no need;
But ere yon sun shall set, that villain dies.

Montargis.
'Tis just he should; and, as the world wags now,
There will be twenty triumph in his death
For two that seem to mourn.

Burgundy.
He dies, by God!
This hand shall kill him if none other.

Montargis.
Nay,
Such handiwork should not become your Grace.
Give me your warrant and the deed is done.

Burgundy.
Ere the sun sets.

Montargis.
A later hour were better;
We want not daylight for a deed like this.

Burgundy.
I sleep not till he's dead. Come thou with me,
And take thy warrant.

Montargis.
Sir, at your command.

Burgundy.
Look here, Montargis:
[Drawing his sword.
Should a breath be breathed
That whispers of my shame, the end is this.

[Stabs the portrait in the heart.