The Duchessa arranged a series of charming evenings at the Palace, which
had never seen such gaiety: never had she been more delightful than
during this winter, and yet she was living in the midst of the greatest
dangers; but at the same time, during this critical period, it so
happened that she did not think twice with any appreciable regret of the
strange alteration in Fabrizio. The young Prince used to appear very
early at his mother's parties, where she always said to him:
"Away with you and govern; I wager there are at least a score of reports
on your desk awaiting a definite answer, and I do not wish to have the
rest of Europe accuse me of making you a mere figurehead in order to
reign in your place."
These counsels had the disadvantage of being offered always at the most
inopportune moments, that is to say when His Highness, having overcome
his timidity, was taking part in some acted charade which amused him
greatly. Twice a week there were parties in the country to which on the
pretext of winning for the new Sovereign the affection of his people,
the Princess admitted the prettiest women of the middle classes. The
Duchessa, who was the life and soul of this joyous court, hoped that
these handsome women, all of whom looked with a mortal envy on the great
prosperity of the burgess Rassi, would inform the Prince of some of the
countless rascalities of that Minister. For, among other childish ideas,
the Prince claimed to have a moral Ministry.
_THE COURT_
Rassi had too much sense not to feel how dangerous these brilliant
evenings at the Princess's court, with his enemy in command of them,
were to himself. He had not chosen to return to Conte Mosca the
perfectly legal sentence passed on Fabrizio; it was inevitable therefore
that either the Duchessa or he must vanish from the court.
On the day of that popular movement, the existence of which it was now
in good taste to deny, someone had distributed money among the populace.
Rassi started from that point: worse dressed even than was his habit, he
climbed to the most wretched attics in the town, and spent whole hours
in serious conversation with their needy inhabitants. He was well
rewarded for all his trouble: after a fortnight of this kind of life he
had acquired the certainty that Ferrante Palla had been the secret head
of the insurrection, and furthermore, that this creature, a pauper all
his life as a great poet would be, had sent nine or ten diamonds to be
sold at Genoa.
Among others were mentioned five valuable stones which were really worth
more than 40,000 francs, and which, _ten days before the death of the
Prince_, had been sacrificed for 35,000 francs, because, the vendor
said, _he was in need of money_.
What words can describe the rapture of the Minister of Justice on making
this discovery? He had learned that every day he was being made a
laughing stock at the court of the Princess Dowager, and on several
occasions the Prince, when discussing business with him, laughed in his
face with all the frankness of his youth. It must be admitted that Rassi
had some singularly plebeian habits: for instance, as soon as a
discussion began to interest him, he would cross his legs and take his
foot in his hand; if the interest increased, he would spread his red
cotton handkerchief over his knee, and so forth. The Prince had laughed
heartily at the wit of one of the prettiest women of the middle class,
who, being aware incidentally that she had a very shapely leg, had begun
to imitate this elegant gesture of the Minister of Justice.
Rassi requested an extraordinary audience and said to the Prince:
"Would Your Highness be willing to give a hundred thousand francs to
know definitely in what manner his august father met his death? With
that sum, the authorities would be in a position to arrest the guilty
parties, if such exist."
The Prince's reply left no room for doubt.
A little while later, Cecchina informed the Duchessa that she had been
offered a large sum to allow her mistress's diamonds to be examined by a
jeweller; she had indignantly refused. The Duchessa scolded her for
having refused; and, a week later, Cecchina had the diamonds to shew. On
the day appointed for this exhibition of the diamonds, the Conte posted
a couple of trustworthy men at every jeweller's in Parma, and towards
midnight he came to tell the Duchessa that the inquisitive jeweller was
none other than Rassi's brother. The Duchessa, who was very gay that
evening (they were playing at the Palace _a commedia dell'arte_, that is
to say one in which each character invents the dialogue as he goes on,
only the plot of the play being posted up in the green-room), the
Duchessa, who was playing a part, had as her lover in the piece Conte
Baldi, the former friend of the Marchesa Raversi, who was present. The
Prince, the shyest man in his States, but an extremely good looking
youth and one endowed with the tenderest of hearts, was studying Conte
Baldi's part, which he intended to take at the second performance.
"I have very little time," the Duchessa told the Conte; "I am appearing
in the first scene of the second act: let us go into the guard-room."
There, surrounded by a score of the body-guard, all wide awake and
closely attentive to the conversation between the Prime Minister and the
Grand Mistress, the Duchessa said with a laugh to her friend:
"You always scold me when I tell you unnecessary secrets. It was I who
summoned Ernesto V to the throne; it was a question of avenging
Fabrizio, whom I loved then far more than I do to-day, although always
quite innocently. I know very well that you have little belief in my
innocence, but that does not matter, since you love me in spite of my
crimes. Very well, here is a real crime: I gave all my diamonds to a
sort of lunatic, a most interesting man, named Ferrante Palla, I even
kissed him so that he should destroy the man who wished to have Fabrizio
poisoned. Where is the harm in that?"
"Ah! So that is where Ferrante had found money for his rising!" said the
Conte, slightly taken aback; "and you tell me all this in the
guard-room!"
"It is because I am in a hurry, and now Rassi is on the track of the
crime. It is quite true that I never mentioned an insurrection, for I
abhor Jacobins. Think it over, and let me have your advice after the
play."
"I will tell you at once that you must make the Prince fall in love with
you. But perfectly honourably, please."
The Duchessa was called to return to the stage. She fled.
Some days later the Duchessa received by post a long and ridiculous
letter, signed with the name of a former maid of her own; the woman
asked to be employed at the court, but the Duchessa had seen from the
first glance that the letter was neither in her handwriting nor in her
style. On opening the sheet to read the second page, she saw fall at her
feet a little miraculous image of the Madonna, folded in a printed leaf
from an old book. After glancing at the image, the Duchessa read a few
lines of the printed page. Her eyes shone, she found on it these words:
"The Tribune has taken one hundred francs monthly, not more; with the
rest it was decided to rekindle the sacred fire in souls which had
become frozen by selfishness. The fox is upon my track, that is why I
have not sought to see for the last time the adored being. I said to
myself, she does not love the Republic, she who is superior to me in
mind as well as by her graces and her beauty. Besides, how is one to
create a Republic without Republicans? Can I be mistaken? In six months
I shall visit, microscope in hand, and on foot, the small towns of
America, I shall see whether I ought still to love the sole rival that
you have in my heart. If you receive this letter, Signora Baronessa, and
no profane eye has read it before yours, tell them to break one of the
young ash trees planted twenty paces from the spot where I dared to
speak to you for the first time. I shall then have buried, under the
great box tree in the garden to which you called attention once in my
happy days, a box in which will be found some of those things which lead
to the slandering of people of my way of thinking. You may be sure that
I should have taken care not to write if the fox were not on my track,
and there were not a risk of his reaching that heavenly being; examine
the box tree in a fortnight's time."
"Since he has a printing press at his command," the Duchessa said to
herself, "we shall soon have a volume of sonnets; heaven knows what name
he will give me!"
The Duchessa's coquetry led her to make a venture; for a week she was
indisposed, and the court had no more pleasant evenings. The Princess,
greatly shocked by all that her fear of her son was obliging her to do
in the first moments of her widowhood, went to spend this week in a
convent attached to the church in which the late Prince was buried. This
interruption of the evening parties threw upon the Prince an enormous
burden of leisure and brought a noteworthy check to the credit of the
Minister of Justice. Ernesto V. realised all the boredom that threatened
him if the Duchessa left his court, or merely ceased to diffuse joy in
it. The evenings began again, and the Prince shewed himself more and
more interested in the _commedia dell'arte_. He had the intention of
taking a part, but dared not confess this ambition. One day, blushing
deeply, he said to the Duchessa: "Why should not I act, also?"
"We are all at Your Highness's orders here; if he deigns to give me the
order, I will arrange the plot of a comedy, all the chief scenes in Your
Highness's part will be with me, and as, on the first evenings, everyone
falters a little, if Your Highness will please to watch me closely, I
will tell him the answers that he ought to make." Everything was
arranged, and with infinite skill. The very shy Prince was ashamed of
being shy, the pains that the Duchessa took not to let this innate
shyness suffer made a deep impression on the young Sovereign.
On the day of his first appearance, the performance began half an hour
earlier than usual, and there were in the drawing-room, when the party
moved into the theatre, only nine or ten elderly women. This audience
had but little effect on the Prince, and besides, having been brought up
at Munich on sound monarchical principles, they always applauded. Using
her authority as Grand Mistress, the Duchessa turned the key in the door
by which the common herd of courtiers were admitted to the performance.
The Prince, who had a _literary_ mind and a fine figure, came very well
out of his opening scenes; he repeated with intelligence the lines which
he read in the Duchessa's eyes, or with which she prompted him in an
undertone. At a moment when the few spectators were applauding with all
their might, the Duchessa gave a signal, the door of honour was thrown
open, and the theatre filled in a moment with all the pretty women of
the court, who, finding that the Prince cut a charming figure and seemed
thoroughly happy, began to applaud; the Prince flushed with joy. He was
playing the part of a lover to the Duchessa. So far from having to
suggest his speeches to him, she was soon obliged to request him to
curtail those speeches; he spoke of love with an enthusiasm which often
embarrassed the actress; his replies lasted five minutes. The Duchessa
was no longer the dazzling beauty of the year before: Fabrizio's
imprisonment, and, far more than that, her stay by Lake Maggiore with a
Fabrizio grown morose and silent, had added ten years to the fair Gina's
age. Her features had become marked, they shewed more intelligence and
less youth.
They had now only very rarely the playfulness of early youth; but on the
stage, with the aid of rouge and all the expedients which art supplies
to actresses, she was still the prettiest woman at court. The passionate
addresses uttered by the Prince put the courtiers on the alert; they
were all saying to themselves this evening: "There is the Balbi of this
new reign." The Conte felt himself inwardly revolted. The play ended,
the Duchessa said to the Prince before all the court:
"Your Highness acts too well; people will say that you are in love with
a woman of eight-and-thirty, which will put a stop to my arrangement
with the Conte. And so I will not act any more with Your Highness,
unless the Prince swears to me to address me as he would a woman of a
certain age, the Signora Marchesa Raversi, for example."
The same play was three times repeated; the Prince was madly happy; but
one evening he appeared very thoughtful.
"Either I am greatly mistaken," said the Grand Mistress to the Princess,
"or Rassi is seeking to play some trick upon us; I should advise Your
Highness to choose a play for to-morrow; the Prince will act badly, and
in his despair will tell you something."
The Prince did indeed act very badly; one could barely hear him, and he
no longer knew how to end his sentences. At the end of the first act he
almost had tears in his eyes; the Duchessa stayed beside him, but was
cold and unmoved. The Prince, finding himself alone with her for a
moment, in the actors' green-room, went to shut the door.
"I shall never," he said to her, "be able to play in the second and
third acts; I absolutely decline to be applauded out of kindness; the
applause they gave me this evening cut me to the heart. Give me your
advice, what ought I to do?"
"I shall appear on the stage, make a profound reverence to Her Highness,
another to the audience, like a real stage manager, and say that, the
actor who was playing the part of Lelio having suddenly been taken ill,
the performance will conclude with some pieces of music. Conte Rusca and
little Ghisolfi will be delighted to be able to shew off their harsh
voices to so brilliant an assembly."
The Prince took the Duchessa's hand, which he kissed with rapture.
"Why are you not a man?" he said to her; "you would give me good advice.
Rassi has just laid on my desk one hundred and eighty-two depositions
against the alleged assassins of my father. Apart from the depositions,
there is a formal accusation of more than two hundred pages; I shall
have to read all that, and, besides, I have given my word not to say
anything to the Conte. All this is leading straight to executions,
already he wants me to fetch back from France, from near Antibes,
Ferrante Palla, that great poet whom I admire so much. He is there under
the name of Poncet."
"The day on which you have a Liberal hanged, Rassi will be bound to the
Ministry by chains of iron, and that is what he wishes more than
anything: but Your Highness will no longer be able to speak of leaving
the Palace two hours in advance. I shall say nothing either to the
Princess or to the Conte of the cry of grief which has just escaped you;
but, since I am bound on oath to keep nothing secret from the Princess,
I should be glad if Your Highness would say to his mother the same
things that he has let fall with me."
This idea provided a diversion to the misery of the hissed actor which
was crushing the Sovereign.
"Very well, go and tell my mother; I shall be in her big cabinet."
The Prince left the stage, found his way to the drawing-room from which
one entered the theatre, harshly dismissed the Great Chamberlain and
the Aide-de-Camp on duty who were following him; the Princess,
meanwhile, hurriedly left the play; entering the big cabinet, the Grand
Mistress made a profound reverence to mother and son, and left them
alone. One may imagine the agitation of the court, these are the things
that make it so amusing. At the end of an hour the Prince himself
appeared at the door of the Cabinet and summoned the Duchessa; the
Princess was in tears; her son's expression had entirely altered.
"These are weak creatures who are out of temper," the Grand Mistress
said to herself, "and are seeking some good excuse to be angry with
somebody." At first the mother and son began both to speak at once to
tell the details to the Duchessa, who in her answers took great care not
to put forward any idea. For two mortal hours, the three actors in this
tedious scene did not step out of the parts which we have indicated. The
Prince went in person to fetch the two enormous portfolios which Rassi
had deposited on his desk; on leaving his mother's cabinet, he found the
whole court awaiting him. "Go away, leave me alone!" he cried in a most
impolite tone which was quite without precedent in him. The Prince did
not wish to be seen carrying the two portfolios himself, a Prince ought
not to carry anything. The courtiers vanished in the twinkling of an
eye. On his return the Prince encountered no one but the footmen who
were blowing out the candles; he dismissed them with fury, also poor
Fontana, the Aide-de-Camp on duty, who had been so tactless as to
remain, in his zeal.
"Everyone is doing his utmost to try my patience this evening," he said
crossly to the Duchessa, as he entered the cabinet; he credited her with
great intelligence, and was furious at her evident refusal to offer him
any advice. She, for her part, was determined to say nothing so long as
she was not asked for her advice _quite expressly_. Another long half hour
elapsed before the Prince, who had a sense of his own dignity, could
make up his mind to say to her: "But, Signora, you say nothing."
"I am here to serve the Princess, and to forget very quickly what is
said before me."
"Very well, Signora," said the Prince, blushing deeply, "I order you to
give me your opinion."
"One punishes crimes to prevent their recurrence. Was the late Prince
poisoned? That is a very doubtful question. Was he poisoned by the
Jacobins? That is what Rassi would dearly like to prove, for then he
becomes for Your Highness a permanently necessary instrument. In that
case Your Highness, whose reign is just beginning, can promise himself
many evenings like this. Your subjects say on the whole, what is quite
true, that Your Highness has a strain of goodness in his nature; so long
as he has not had any Liberal hanged, he will enjoy that reputation, and
most certainly no one will ever dream of planning to poison him."
"Your conclusion is evident," cried the Princess angrily; "you do not
wish us to punish my husband's assassins!"
"Apparently, Ma'am, because I am bound to them by ties of tender
affection."
The Duchessa could see in the Prince's eyes that he believed her to be
perfectly in accord with his mother as to dictating a plan of action to
him. There followed between the two women a fairly rapid succession of
bitter repartees, at the end of which the Duchessa protested that she
would not utter a single word more, and adhered to her resolution; but
the Prince, after a long discussion with his mother, ordered her once
more to express her opinion.
"That is what I swear to Your Highnesses that I will not do!"
"But this is really childish!" exclaimed the Prince.
"I beg you to speak, Signora Duchessa," said the Princess with an air of
dignity.
"That is what I implore you to excuse me from doing, Ma'am; but Your
Highness," the Duchessa went on, addressing the Prince, "reads French
perfectly: to calm our agitated minds, would he read _us_ a fable by La
Fontaine?"
The Princess thought this "_us_" extremely insolent, but assumed an air
at once of surprise and of amusement when the Grand Mistress, who had
gone with the utmost coolness to open the bookcase, returned with a
volume of La Fontaine's _Fables_; she turned the pages for some moments,
then said to the Prince, handing him the book:
"I beg your Highness to read the _whole_ of the fable."
_THE GARDENER AND THE LORD OF THE
MANOR[1]_
A devotee of gardening there was,
Between the peasant and the yeoman class,
Who on the outskirts of a certain village
Owned a neat garden with a bit of tillage.
He made a quickset hedge to fence it in,
And there grew lettuce, pink and jessamine,
Such as win prizes at the local show,
Or make a birthday bouquet for Margot.
One day he called upon the neighbouring Squire
To ask his help with a marauding hare.
"The brute," says he, "comes guzzling everywhere,
And simply laughs at all my traps and wire.
No stick or stone will hit him--I declare
He's a magician." "Rubbish! I don't care
If he's the Deuce himself," replied the other,
"I warrant he shan't give you much more bother.
Miraut, in spite of all his cunning,
Won't take much time to get him running."
"But when?" "To-morrow, sure as here I stand."
Next morning he rides up with all his band.
"Now then, we'll lunch! Those chickens don't look bad.
* * * * * * *
The luncheon over, all was preparation,
Bustle and buzz and animation,
Horns blowing, hounds barking, such a hullabaloo,
The good man feared the worst. His fear came true!
The kitchen-garden was a total wreck
Under the trampling, not a speck
Of pot or frame survived. Good-bye
To onion, leek, and chicory,
Good-bye to marrows and their bravery,
Good-bye to all that makes soup savoury!
* * * * * * *
The wretched owner saw no sense
In this grand style of doing things;
But no one marked his mutterings.
The hounds and riders in a single trice
Had wrought more havoc in his paradise
Than all the hares in the vicinity
Could have achieved throughout infinity.
So far the story--now the moral:
Each petty Prince should settle his own quarrel.
If once he gets a King for an ally,
He's certain to regret it by and by.
This reading was followed by a long silence. The Prince paced up and
down the cabinet, after going himself to put the volume back in its
place.
"Well, Signora," said the Princess, "will you deign to speak?"
"No, indeed, Ma'am, until such time as His Highness shall appoint me his
Minister; by speaking here, I should run the risk of losing my place as
Grand Mistress."
A fresh silence, lasting a full quarter of an hour; finally the Princess
remembered the part that had been played in the past by Marie de'
Medici, the mother of Louis XIII: for the last few days the Grand
Mistress had made the _lettrice_ read aloud the excellent _History of
Louis XIII_, by M. Bazin. The Princess, although greatly annoyed,
thought that the Duchessa might easily leave the country, and then
Rassi, who filled her with mortal terror, might quite well imitate
Richelieu and have her banished by her son. At this moment the Princess
would have given everything in the world to humiliate her Grand
Mistress; but she could not. She rose, and came, with a smile that was
slightly exaggerated, to take the Duchessa's hand and say to her:
"Come, Signora, give me a proof of your friendship by speaking."
"Very well! Two words, and no more: burn, in the grate there, all the
papers collected by that viper Rassi, and never reveal to him that they
have been burned."
She added in a whisper, and in a familiar tone, in the Princess's ear:
"Rassi may become Richelieu!"
"But, damn it, those papers are costing me more than 80,000 francs!" the
Prince exclaimed angrily.
"Prince," replied the Duchessa with emphasis, "that is what it costs to
employ scoundrels of low birth. Would to God you could lose a million
and never put your trust in the base rascals who kept your father from
sleeping during the last six years of his reign."
The words _low birth_ had greatly delighted the Princess, who felt that
the Conte and his friend had too exclusive a regard for brains, always
slightly akin to Jacobinism.
During the short interval of profound silence, filled by the Princess's
reflexions, the castle clock struck three. The Princess rose, made a
profound reverence to her son, and said to him: "My health does not
allow me to prolong the discussion further. Never have a Minister of
_low birth_; you will not disabuse me of the idea that your Rassi has
stolen half the money he has made you spend on spies." The Princess took
two candles from the brackets and put them in the fireplace in such a
way that they should not blow out; then, going up to her son, she added:
"La Fontaine's fable prevails, in my mind, over the lawful desire to
avenge a husband. Will Your Highness permit me to burn _these
writings_?" The Prince remained motionless.
"His face is really stupid," the Duchessa said to herself; "the Conte is
right: the late Prince would not have kept us out of our beds until
three o'clock in the morning, before making up his mind."
The Princess, still standing, went on:
"That little attorney would be very proud, if he knew that his papers
stuffed with lies, and arranged so as to secure his own advancement, had
occupied the two greatest personages in the State for a whole night."
The Prince dashed at one of the portfolios like a madman, and emptied
its contents into the fireplace. The mass of papers nearly extinguished
the two candles; the room filled with smoke. The Princess saw in her
son's eyes that he was tempted to seize a jug of water and save these
papers, which were costing him eighty thousand francs.
"Open the window!" she cried angrily to the Duchessa. The Duchessa made
haste to obey; at once all the papers took light together; there was a
great roar in the chimney, and it soon became evident that it was on
fire.
The Prince had a petty nature in all matters of money; he thought he saw
his Palace in flames, and all the treasures that it contained destroyed;
he ran to the window and called the guard in a voice completely altered.
The soldiers in a tumult rushed into the courtyard at the sound of the
Prince's voice, he returned to the fireplace which was sucking in the
air from the open window with a really alarming sound; he grew
impatient, swore, took two or three turns up and down the room like a
man out of his mind, and finally ran out.
The Princess and the Grand Mistress remained standing, face to face, and
preserving a profound silence.
"Is the storm going to begin again?" the Duchessa asked herself; "upon
my word, my cause is won." And she was preparing to be highly
impertinent in her replies, when a sudden thought came to her; she saw
the second portfolio intact. "No, my cause is only half won!" She said
to the Princess, in a distinctly cold tone:
"Does Ma'am order me to burn the rest of these papers?"
"And where will you burn them?" asked the Princess angrily.
"In the drawing-room fire; if I throw them in one after another, there
is no danger."
The Duchessa put under her arm the portfolio bursting with papers, took
a candle and went into the next room. She looked first to see that the
portfolio was that which contained the depositions, put in her shawl
five or six bundles of papers, burned the rest with great care, then
disappeared without taking leave of the Princess.
"There is a fine piece of impertinence," she said to herself, with a
laugh, "but her affectations of inconsolable widowhood came very near to
making me lose my head on a scaffold."
On hearing the sound of the Duchessa's carriage, the Princess was beside
herself with rage at her Grand Mistress.
In spite of the lateness of the hour, the Duchessa sent for the Conte;
he was at the fire at the Castle, but soon appeared with the news that
it was all over. "That little Prince has really shewn great courage, and
I have complimented him on it effusively."
"Examine these depositions quickly, and let us burn them as soon as
possible."
The Conte read them, and turned pale.
"Upon my soul, they have come very near the truth; their procedure has
been very cleverly managed, they are positively on the track of Ferrante
Palla; and, if he speaks, we have a difficult part to play."
"But he will not speak," cried the Duchessa; "he is a man of honour:
burn them, burn them."
"Not yet. Allow me to take down the names of a dozen or fifteen
dangerous witnesses, whom I shall take the liberty of removing, if Rassi
ever thinks of beginning again."
"I may remind Your Excellency that the Prince has given his word to say
nothing to his Minister of Justice of our midnight escapade."
"From cowardice and fear of a scene he will keep it."
"Now, my friend, this is a night that has greatly hastened our marriage;
I should not have wished to bring you as my portion a criminal trial,
still less for a sin which I was led to commit by my interest in another
man."
The Conte was in love; he took her hand with an exclamation; tears stood
in his eyes.
"Before you go, give me some advice as to the way I ought to behave with
the Princess; I am utterly worn out, I have been play-acting for an hour
on the stage and for five in her cabinet."
"You have avenged yourself quite sufficiently for the Princess's sour
speeches, which were due only to weakness, by the impertinence with
which you left her. Address her to-morrow in the tone you used this
morning; Rassi is not yet in prison or in exile, and we have not yet
torn up Fabrizio's sentence.
"You were asking the Princess to come to a decision, which is a thing
that always annoys Princes and even Prime Ministers; also you are her
Grand Mistress, that is to say her little servant. By a reversion which
is inevitable in weak people, in three days Rassi will be more in favour
than ever; he will try to have someone hanged: so long as he has not
compromised the Prince, he is sure of nothing.
"There has been a man injured in to-night's fire; he is a tailor, who,
upon my word, shewed an extraordinary intrepidity. To-morrow I am going
to ask the Prince to take my arm and come with me to pay the tailor a
visit; I shall be armed to the teeth and shall keep a sharp look-out;
but anyhow, this young Prince is not hated at all as yet. I wish to make
him accustomed to walking in the streets, it is a trick I am playing on
Rassi, who is certainly going to succeed me, and will not be able to
allow such imprudences. On our way back from the tailor's, I shall take
the Prince past his father's statue; he will notice the marks of the
stones which have broken the Roman toga in which the idiot of a sculptor
dressed it up; and, in short, he will have to be a great fool if he does
not on his own initiative make the comment: 'This is what one gains by
having Jacobins hanged.' To which I shall reply: 'You must hang either
ten thousand or none at all: the Saint-Bartholomew destroyed the
Protestants in France.'
"To-morrow, dear friend, before this excursion, send your name in to the
Prince, and say to him: 'Yesterday evening, I performed the duties of a
Minister to you, and, by your orders, have incurred the Princess's
displeasure. You will have to pay me.' He will expect a demand for
money, and will knit his brows; you will leave him plunged in this
unhappy thought for as long as you can; then you will say: 'I beg Your
Highness to order that Fabrizio be tried in _contradittorio_' (which
means, in his presence) 'by the twelve most respected judges in your
States.' _And_, without losing any time, you will present for his
signature a little order written out by your own fair hand, which I am
going to dictate to you; I shall of course include the clause that the
former sentence is quashed. To this there is only one objection; but, if
you press the matter warmly, it will not occur to the Prince's mind. He
may say to you: 'Fabrizio must first make himself a prisoner in the
citadel.' To which you will reply: 'He will make himself a prisoner in
the town prison' (you know that I am the master there; every evening
your nephew will come to see us). If the Prince answers: 'No, his escape
has tarnished the honour of my citadel, and I desire, for form's sake,
that he return to the cell in which he was'; you in turn will reply:
'No, for there he would be at the disposal of my enemy Rassi;' and, in
one of those feminine sentences which you utter so effectively, you will
give him to understand that, to make Rassi yield, you have only to tell
him of to-night's _auto-da-fè_; if he insists, you will announce that
you are going to spend a fortnight at your place at Sacca.
"You will send for Fabrizio, and consult him as to this step which may
land him in prison. If, to anticipate everything while he is under lock
and key, Rassi should grow too impatient and have me poisoned, Fabrizio
may run a certain risk. But that is hardly probable; you know that I
have imported a French cook, who is the merriest of men, and makes puns;
well, punning is incompatible with poison. I have already told our
friend Fabrizio that I have managed to find all the witnesses of his
fine and courageous action; it was evidently that fellow Giletti who
tried to murder him. I have not spoken to you of these witnesses,
because I wished to give you a surprise, but the plan has failed; the
Prince refused to sign. I have told our friend Fabrizio that certainly I
should procure him a high ecclesiastical dignity; but I shall have great
difficulty if his enemies can raise the objection in the Roman Curia of
a charge of murder.
"Do you realise, Signora, that, if he is not tried and judged in the
most solemn fashion, all his life long the name of Giletti will be a
reproach to him? It would be a great act of cowardice not to have
oneself tried, when one is sure of one's innocence. Besides, even if he
were guilty, I should make them acquit him. When I spoke to him, the
fiery youngster would not allow me to finish, he picked up the official
almanac, and we went through it together choosing the twelve most
upright and learned judges; when we had made the list, we cancelled six
names for which we substituted those of six counsel, my personal
enemies, and, as we could find only two enemies, we filled up the gaps
with four rascals who are devoted to Rassi."
This proposal filled the Duchessa with a mortal anxiety, and not without
cause; at length she yielded to reason, and, at the Minister's
dictation, wrote out the order appointing the judges.
The Conte did not leave her until six o'clock in the morning; she
endeavoured to sleep, but in vain. At nine o'clock, she took breakfast
with Fabrizio, whom she found burning with a desire to be tried; at ten,
she waited on the Princess, who was not visible; at eleven, she saw the
Prince, who was holding his levee, and signed the order without the
slightest objection. The Duchessa sent the order to the Conte, and
retired to bed.
It would be pleasant perhaps to relate Rassi's fury when the Conte
obliged him to countersign, in the Prince's presence, the order signed
that morning by the Prince himself; but we must go on with our story.
The Conte discussed the merits of each judge, and offered to change the
names. But the reader is perhaps a little tired of all these details of
procedure, no less than of all these court intrigues. From the whole
business one can derive this moral, that the man who mingles with a
court compromises his happiness, if he is happy, and, in any event,
makes his future depend on the intrigues of a chambermaid.
On the other hand in America, in the Republic, one has to spend the
whole weary day paying serious court to the shopkeepers in the street,
and must become as stupid as they are; and there, one has no Opera.
The Duchessa, when she rose in the evening, had a moment of keen
anxiety: Fabrizio was not to be found; finally, towards midnight, during
the performance at court, she received a letter from him. Instead of
making himself a prisoner _in the town prison_, where the Conte was in
control, he had gone back to occupy his old cell in the citadel, only
too happy to be living within a few feet of Clelia.
This was an event of vast consequence: in this place he was exposed to
the risk of poison more than ever. This act of folly filled the Duchessa
with despair; she forgave the cause of it, a mad love for Clelia,
because unquestionably in a few days' time that young lady was going to
marry the rich Marchese Crescenzi. This folly restored to Fabrizio all
the influence he had originally enjoyed over the Duchessa's heart.
"It is that cursed paper which I went and made the Prince sign that will
be his death! What fools men are with their ideas of honour! As if one
needed to think of honour under absolute governments, in countries where
a Rassi is Minister of Justice! He ought to have accepted the pardon
outright, which the Prince would have signed just as readily as the
order convening this extraordinary tribunal. What does it matter, after
all, that a man of Fabrizio's birth should be more or less accused of
having himself, sword in hand, killed an actor like Giletti?"
No sooner had she received Fabrizio's note than the Duchessa ran to the
Conte, whom she found deadly pale.
"Great God! Dear friend, I am most unlucky in handling that boy, and you
will be vexed with me again. I can prove to you that I made the gaoler
of the town prison come here yesterday evening; every day your nephew
would have come to take tea with you. What is so terrible is that it is
impossible for you and me to say to the Prince that there is fear of
poison, and of poison administered by Rassi; the suspicion would seem to
him the height of immorality. However, if you insist, I am ready to go
up to the Palace; but I am certain of the answer. I am going to say
more; I offer you a stratagem which I would not employ for myself. Since
I have been in power in this country, I have not caused the death of a
single man, and you know that I am so sensitive in that respect that
sometimes, at the close of day, I still think of those two spies whom I
had shot, rather too light-heartedly, in Spain. Very well, do you wish
me to get rid of Rassi? The danger in which he is placing Fabrizio is
unbounded; he has there a sure way of sending me packing."
This proposal pleased the Duchessa extremely, but she did not adopt it.
"I do not wish," she said to the Conte, "that in our retirement, beneath
the beautiful sky of Naples, you should have dark thoughts in the
evenings."
"But, dear friend, it seems to me that we have only the choice between
one dark thought and another. What will you do, what will I do myself,
if Fabrizio is carried off by an illness?"
The discussion returned to dwell upon this idea, and the Duchessa ended
it with this speech:
"Rassi owes his life to the fact that I love you more than Fabrizio; no,
I do not wish to poison all the evenings of the old age which we are
going to spend together."
The Duchessa hastened to the fortress; General Fabio Conti was delighted
at having to stop her with the strict letter of the military
regulations: no one might enter a state prison without an order signed
by the Prince.
"But the Marchese Crescenzi and his musicians come every day to the
citadel?"
"Because I obtained an order for them from the Prince."
The poor Duchessa did not know the full tale of her troubles. General
Fabio Conti had regarded himself as personally dishonoured by Fabrizio's
escape: when he saw him arrive at the citadel, he ought not to have
admitted him, for he had no order to that effect. "But," he said to
himself, "it is Heaven that is sending him to me to restore my honour,
and to save me from the ridicule which would assail my military career.
This opportunity must not be missed: doubtless they are going to acquit
him, and I have only a few days for my revenge."
[Footnote 1: For this translation of La Fontaine's fable I am indebted
to my friend Mr. Edward Marsh, who allows me to reprint the lines from
his _Forty-two Fables of La Fontaine_ (William Heinemann, Ltd., 1924).