University of Virginia Library

Scene II.

—The French Court at Arras.—An Antechamber in the Maison de Ville. Tristram of Lestovet, Clerk of the Council, and Sir Fleureant of Heurlée.
Sir Fleureant.
When I forgive him, may the stars rain down
And pierce me with ten thousand points of fire!
His whore! his leman!

Lestovet.
Had she been his wife
A small transgression might have pass'd. Learn thou
To keep thy hands from meddling with men's whores;
For dubious rights are jealously enforced,
And what men keep for pleasure is more precious
Than what need is they keep.

Sir Fleureant.
He'll be the worse,
And knows it. When I fled I left behind
A notion of my purpose. There's none here
Can know like me his weakness and his strength.
Let but the Council hear me, I shall tell
What shall be worth to them ten thousand spears.

Lestovet.
'Tis now their time; but youth lies long a-bed;
The King is always tardy. Who comes here!
My Lord of Burgundy, I think—yes, he.

Enter Duke of Burgundy.
Burgundy.
Good-morrow, Sirs, good-morrow! So, your stars,
They tell me, are your good friends still, good Flurry;
You always come clear off;—well, I'm glad on't.

Sir Fleureant.
I give your Highness thanks.

Burgundy.
Well, Lestovet,
My brother of Bourbon keeps his mind, they say;
He is for Tournay still! 'tis wonderful,
A man of sense to be so far astray!

Lestovet.
His Grace of Bourbon is misguided much;
He is deluded by a sort of men
That should know better.

Burgundy.
They shall rue it: Lo!
To turn aside ten leagues, ten Flemish leagues,
With sixty thousand men!—mad, plainly mad.

Lestovet.
Sir Fleureant here, who left the rebel camp
No longer past than Wednesday, says their strength
Lies wholly eastward of the Scheldt.

Sir Fleureant.
The towns
Betwixt the Scheldt and Lis, your Grace should know,
Are shaking to their steeple-tops with fear
Of the French force; and westward of the Lis
You need but blow a trumpet and the gates
Of Ypres, Poperinguen, Rousselaere,
And Ingelmunster, gape to take you in.

Burgundy.
They are my words, they are my very words;
Twenty times over have I told him so.
But he's as stubborn as a mule; and oh!
That Constable! Oh, Oliver of Clisson!
That such a man as thou, at such a time,
Should hold the staff of Constable of France!
Well! such men are!

Lestovet.
My Lord, forgive my zeal
For so exorbitantly shooting past
The line of duty as to tender words
Of counsel to your Highness; but my thoughts
Will out, and I have deem'd that with his Grace,
Your royal brother, you have dealt too shortly;
The noble frankness of your nature breaks
Too suddenly upon the minds of men
That love themselves and with a jealous love
Are wedded to their will: not he alone,
But others of the Council at his back
Would on a gentler provocation yield
That stiffen with a rougher.

Burgundy.
That may be;
But, Lestovet, to sue to them to yield!
I cannot do it.

Lestovet.
May it please your Grace
To leave it in my hands. With easier ear
They listen to a man of low condition;
And under forms that in your Grace to use
It were unseemly, I can oft approach,
And with a current that themselves scarce see
Can turn the tenour of their counsels.

Burgundy.
Nay;
But how can I be absent from the board
At such a time as this?

Lestovet.
A seizure, say,
Of sudden illness. They'll be here anon;—
I think I hear them now.

Sir Fleureant.
A sound, I think,
Of horses' feet.

Burgundy.
Then try it, Lestovet;
You are a wise and wary man; this day
I leave the field to you; say that the gout
Confines me to my chamber.

Lestovet.
Hark, my Lord,
They come.

Burgundy.
Farewell to you; improve your time.

[Exit.
Lestovet.
Ha! ha! the Council! they are mettlesome men.
Arouse their passions, and they'll have opinions;
Leave them but cool, they know not what to think.

Sir Fleureant.
You'll tell them I am here.

Lestovet.
Before they rise
You shall be heard at large; but leave to me
To choose the fitting moment. Hide without
Until the Usher have a sign: the mace
Shall trundle from the board, which he shall hear;
Then come at once as one that from his horse
Leaps down, and, reeking, hurries in to tell
A tale that will not wait.