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 shown 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 playacting 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 tomorrow 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 tonight’s fire; he is a tailor, who, upon my word, showed an extraordinary intrepidity. Tomorrow 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 lookout; 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.’
“Tomorrow, 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
