“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 Manor7
A devotee of gardening there was,
Between
