The Ducal Audience
by
As Played at Breschau, May 3, 1755
“Venez, belle, venez,
Qu’on ne s�auroit tenir, et qui vous mutinez.
Void vostre galand! à moi pour recompence
Vous pouvez faire une humble et douce reverence!
Adieu, l’evenement trompe un peu mes souhaits;
Mais tous les amoureux ne sont pas satisfaits.”
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
GRAND DUKE OF NOUMARIA, formerly LOUIS DE SOYECOURT, tormented beyond measure with the impertinences of life.
COMTE DE CH�TEAUROUX, cousin to the Grand Duchess, and complies with circumstance.
A COACHMAN and two FOOTMEN.
GRAND DUCHESS OF NOUMARIA, a capable woman.
BARONESS VON ALTENBURG, a coquette.
SCENE
The Palace Gardens at Breschau.
THE DUCAL AUDIENCE
PROEM:–In Default of the Hornpipe Customary to a Lengthy Interval between Acts
Louis de Soyecourt fulfilled the promise made to the old Prince de G�tinais, so that presently went about Breschau, hailed by more or less enthusiastic plaudits, a fair and blue-eyed, fat little man, who smiled mechanically upon the multitude, and looked after the interests of France wearily, and (without much more ardor) gave over the remainder of his time to outrivalling his predecessor, unvenerable Ludwig von Freistadt, who until now had borne, among the eighteen grand dukes (largely of quite grand-ducal morals) that had earlier governed in Noumaria, the palm for indolence and dissipation.
At moments, perhaps, the Grand Duke recollected the Louis Quillan who had spent three months in Manneville, but only, I think, as one recalls some pleasurable acquaintance; Quillan had little resembled the Marquis de Soyecourt, rake, tippler and exquisite of Versailles, and in the Grand Duke you would have found even less of Nelchen Thorn’s betrothed. He was quite dead, was Quillan, for the man that Nelchen loved had died within the moment of Nelchen’s death. Hé, the poor children! his Highness meditated. Dead, both of them, both murdered four years since, slain in Poictesme yonder…. Eh bien, it was not necessary to engender melancholy.
So his Highness amused himself,–not very heartily, but at least to the last resource of a flippant and unprudish age. Meantime his grumbling subjects bored him, his duties bored him, his wife bored him, his mistresses bored him after the first night or two, and, above all, he most hideously bored himself. But I spare you a chronique scandaleuse of Duke Louis’ reign and come hastily to its termination, as more pertinent to the matter I have now in hand.
Suffice it, then, that he ruled in Noumaria five years; that he did what was requisite by begetting children in lawful matrimony, and what was expected of him by begetting some others otherwise; and that he stoutened daily, and by and by decided that the young Baroness von Altenburg–not excepting even her lovely and multifarious precursors,–was beyond doubt possessed of the brightest eyes in all history. Therefore did his Highness lay before the owner of these eyes a certain project, upon which the Baroness was in season moved to comment.
I
“The idea,” said the Baroness, “is preposterous!”
“Admirably put!” cried the Grand Duke. “We will execute it, then, the first thing in the morning.”
“–and, besides, one could take only a portmanteau–“
“And the capacity of a portmanteau is limited,” his Highness agreed. “Nay, I can assure you, after I had packed my coronet this evening there was hardly room for a change of linen. And I found it necessary to choose between the sceptre and a tooth-brush.”
“Ah, Highness” sighed the Baroness von Altenburg, “will you never be serious? You plan to throw away a duchy, and in the act you jest like a school-boy.”
“Ma foi!” retorted the Grand Duke, and looked out upon the moonlit gardens; “as a loyal Noumarian, should I not rejoice at the good-fortune which is about to befall my country? Nay, Amalia, morality demands my abdication,” he added, virtuously, “and for this once morality and I are in complete accord.”