The duchess arranged the most delightful¹ evenings at the palace, where so much gaiety had never been seen before. Never did she make herself more attractive than during this winter, in spite of the fact that she was living in circumstances of the greatest danger. Nevertheless, through all this critical time she never gave a thought of sadness, save on one or two occasions, to the strange alteration² which had taken place in Fabrizio. The young prince used to come very early to his mother’s pleasant evening parties, and she never failed to say to him:  
“Do go and attend to your government duties! I am certain there are more than a score of reports lying on your table, waiting for a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ from you, and I do not choose to have it said all over Europe that I am trying to turn you into a ‘Roi fainéant,’ so that I may reign⁴ in your stead.”
 
These remarks always suffered from the drawback of being dropped at the most inopportune moment—that is to say, just when his Highness had overcome his natural shyness and was enjoying himself very much, acting⁵ some charade⁶. Twice a week there were parties in the country, to which the princess, on the plea of reconquering the affections of his people for the young sovereign, invited the prettiest women of the middle class. The duchess, who was the soul of the merry court, was in hopes that these fair ladies, who all looked with an eye of mortal jealousy⁷ on the success of their fellow bourgeois⁸, Rassi, would make the prince acquainted with some of that minister’s endless rascalities. For, among other childish notions, the prince claimed to possess a moral ministry⁹.
 
Rassi had too much good sense not to realize how much harm these brilliant parties, managed by his enemy at the princess’s court, were likely to do him. He had not chosen to make over the perfectly¹⁰ legal sentence passed on Fabrizio, to Count Mosca. It had therefore become necessary that either he or the duchess should disappear from court.
 
On the day of that popular tumult¹¹, the existence of which it was now the correct thing to deny, money had certainly been circulated among the people. Rassi made this his starting-point. Dressed even more shabbily than was his wont¹², he found his way into the most wretched houses in the city, and spent whole hours in close confabulation with their poverty-stricken denizens¹³. His efforts were richly rewarded. After a fortnight spent in this fashion, he had made certain that Ferrante Palla had been the secret leader of the insurrection, and further, that this man, who had been as poor as a great poet should be, all his life, had sent eight or ten diamonds to be sold at Genoa.
 
Among others, five valuable stones were mentioned, really worth more than forty thousand francs, but for which thirty-five thousand francs had been accepted ten days before the prince’s death, because, so the vendors¹⁴ said, the money was wanted. The minister’s transports of delight over this discovery were indescribable. He had perceived that fun was being constantly poked¹⁵ at him in the princess dowager’s court, and several times over, when the prince was talking business with him, he had laughed in his face, with all the artlessness of youth. Rassi, it must be confessed, had some singularly vulgar habits. For instance, as soon as he grew interested in a discussion, he would cross his legs, and take hold of his shoe. If his interest deepened he would spread out his red cotton handkerchief over his knee. The prince had laughed heartily¹⁶ at a joke played by one of the prettiest women of Rassi’s own class, who, well aware that she herself possessed¹⁷ a very pretty leg, had given him an imitation of the graceful¹⁸ gesture habitual¹⁹ to the Minister of Justice.
 
Rassi craved²⁰ a special audience, and said to the prince:
 
“Would your Highness be disposed to give a hundred thousand francs to know the exact nature of your august father’s death? With that sum we should be able to bring the culprits to justice, if they exist.”
 
The prince’s answer was a foregone conclusion.
 
Within a short time, Cecchina informed the duchess that she had been offered a large sum of money if she would allow a jeweller to see her mistress’s diamonds—a proposal which she had scornfully refused. The duchess scolded her for having refused, and a week later Cecchina was able to show the diamonds. On the day fixed²¹ for their inspection²², Count Mosca placed two reliable men to watch every jeweller in Parma, and toward midnight he came to tell the duchess that the inquisitive²³ jeweller was no other than Rassi’s own brother. The duchess, who was in very gay spirits that evening (there was acting going on at the palace—a commedia dell’arte, in which each personage invents the dialogue as he proceeds, only the general plan of the play being posted up in the side scenes), the duchess, who was playing one of the parts, was to be supported, as the lover of the piece, by Count Baldi, the former friend of the Marchesa Raversi, who was present. The prince, who was the shyest man in his dominions²⁴, but very good-looking, and exceedingly soft-hearted, was under-studying Count Baldi’s part, which he desired to play at the second performance.
 
“I have very little time,” said the duchess to the count. “I come on in the first scene of the second act. Let us go into the guard-room.”
 
There, in the presence of a score of the body-guard, sharp fellows every one of them, and eagerly watching the colloquy²⁵ between the Prime Minister and the mistress of the robes, the duchess said to her friend, with a laugh:
 
“You always scold me if I tell secrets which need not be told. It is I who brought Ernest V to the throne. I wanted to avenge²⁶ Fabrizio, whom I loved much more than I do now, though very innocently, even then. I know very well you have not much belief in my innocence²⁷, but that matters little, since you love me in spite of my crimes. Well, this crime is a very real one. I gave all my diamonds to a very interesting kind of madman, by name Ferrante Palla, and I even kissed him, so as to induce him to destroy the man who wanted to have Fabrizio poisoned. Where was the harm?”
 
“Ah, then that’s how Ferrante got the money for his revolt!” said the count. “And you tell me all this in the guard-room!”
 
“I’m in a hurry, you see, and this fellow Rassi is on the track of the crime. It’s very true that I never hinted at insurrection, for I abhor²⁸ Jacobins. Think it all over, and tell me your advice, after the play is over.”
 
“I will tell you at once that you must make the prince fall in love with you … but in all honour, of course!”
 
The duchess was being called for on the stage, and fled.
 
A few days later, the duchess received, by post, a long ridiculous letter, signed with the name of a person who had once been her waiting-maid. The woman asked for employment about the court, but at the first glance the duchess realized that neither the writing nor the style were hers. When she unfolded the sheet, to read the second page, the duchess saw a little miraculous²⁹ picture of the Madonna folded within another leaf, that seemed to belong to an old printed book, flutter to her feet. After having glanced at the picture, the duchess read a few lines of the old printed leaf. Her eyes began to shine; these were the words she had read:
 
“The tribune took a hundred francs a month, no more. With the rest he strove to stir the sacred flame in souls which had been frozen by selfishness. The fox is on my track; that is why I made no attempt to see the adored being for the last time. I said to myself: ‘She has no love for the republic—she, who is so superior to me in mind, as in grace and beauty.’ And besides, how can I set up a republic where there are no republicans? Can I have been mistaken? In six months I shall be wandering, microscope in hand, through the small American towns. So shall I discover whether I should continue to love your sole rival in my heart. If you receive this letter, baroness³⁰, and if no profane³¹ eye has seen it before yours, cause one of the young ash trees which grow twenty paces from the spot where I first dared to address you, to be broken down. Then I will cause to be buried, under the great box tree in the garden, which you once noticed, in my happy days, a coffer containing those things which bring slander³² on men of my opinions. Be sure I should never have ventured to write this, but that the fox is on my track, and may possibly reach that angelic being. Look under the box tree a fortnight hence.”
 
“If he has a printing press at his command,” said the duchess, “we shall soon have a collection of sonnets³³! God knows what name he will give me in them!”
 
The duchess’s vanity inspired her with an experiment. She was laid up for a week, and there were no parties at court. The princess, who was very much scandalized by all that the fear of her son had forced her to do during the earlier period of her widowhood, spent that week in a convent attached to the church where the late prince had been buried. This break in the series of entertainments threw an enormous amount of time on the prince’s hands, and brought about an evident diminution³⁴ in the credit of the Minister of Justice. Ernest V realized all the dulness that threatened him if the duchess should leave his court, or even cease to shed gaiety upon it. The evening parties began again, and the prince took more interest than ever in the commedia dell’arte. He was dying to play a part himself, but did not dare to acknowledge this desire. At last, one day, he said to the duchess, reddening very much, “Why should I not act, too?”
 
“We are all at your Highness’s command. If you will honour me with the order I will have the plan of a play made out. All your Highness’s chief scenes shall be with me, and as every beginner must hesitate a little, if your Highness will be good enough to watch me a little closely, I will suggest the answers you should make.” Thus everything was settled, and in the most skilful³⁵ manner. The prince, shy as he was, was ashamed of his shyness, and the care the duchess took to prevent his suffering from this inherent nervousness impressed the young sovereign deeply.
 
On the day of his first appearance, the performance began earlier than usual, and when the company moved into the[451] theatre there were not more than eight or ten elderly women in the drawing-room. Their faces caused the prince no particular alarm, and besides, they had all been brought up at Munich, in the most thoroughly³⁶ monarchical³⁷ principles, and applauded dutifully. The duchess, by virtue³⁸ of her authority as mistress of the robes, locked the door by which the mass of the courtiers usually passed into the theatre. The prince, who had considerable literary intelligence, and was very good-looking, got through his first scenes very well, cleverly repeating the sentences he read in the duchess’s eyes, or which she suggested in an undertone. Just when the few spectators were applauding with all their might, the duchess made a sign; the great doors were thrown open, and in a moment the room was filled with all the pretty women of the court, who, thinking the prince’s face charming, and his whole demeanour thoroughly happy, burst into applause. The prince flushed with delight. He was playing the part of lover to the duchess. Far from suggesting words to him, she was soon obliged to beg him to shorten his scenes. He dilated³⁹ on “love” with a fervour which frequently put the actress quite out of countenance⁴⁰; some of his speeches were five minutes long. The duchess was no longer the dazzling beauty she had been a year previously⁴¹. Fabrizio’s imprisonment⁴², and still more, her stay on the Lago Maggiore with the Fabrizio who had grown gloomy and silent, had added ten years to the fair Gina’s appearance. Her features had grown sharper; there was more intelligence, and less juvenility⁴³, about them. Very seldom, nowadays, did they display the sprightly⁴⁴ humour of her youth. Yet on the stage, rouged⁴⁵, and with the advantage of all that art does for an actress’s appearance, she was still the prettiest woman at the court. The prince’s passionate⁴⁶ speeches roused the courtiers’ suspicions. That evening, every man said to his neighbour, “This is the Balbi of the new reign.” The count raged within himself. When the play was over, the duchess said to the prince, before the whole court:
 
“Your Highness acts too well. People will begin to say you are in love with a woman of eight-and-thirty, and that will spoil my marriage with the count. So I will not act any more with your Highness unless your Highness will promise you will only address me as you would a woman of a certain age—the Marchesa Raversi, for instance.”
 
The performance was repeated three times over. The prince was wild with delight, but one evening he looked very much worried.
 
“Unless I am very much mistaken,” said the mistress of the robes to the princess, “Rassi is trying to play us some trick. I would suggest that your Highness should have some acting to-morrow night. The prince will act badly, and in his despair, he will tell you something.”
 
As a matter of fact the prince did act very ill; he was hardly audible, and could not contrive⁴⁷ to wind up his sentences. By the end of the first act the tears were almost standing⁴⁸ in his eyes. The duchess kept close beside him, but she was cold and unmoved. The prince, finding himself alone with her for a moment in the green room, went over to the door and shut it. Then he said:
 
“I shall never be able to get through the second and third acts. I will not submit to being applauded out of good nature. The applause I was given to-night almost broke my heart. Advise me. What am I to do?”
 
“I will go upon the stage; I will make a deep courtesy to her Highness, and another to the audience, and I will announce that the actor who was playing the part of Lelio has been taken suddenly ill, and that therefore the play will be wound up with a little music. Count Rusca and the little Ghisolfi will be too delighted to have a chance of showing off their thin voices before such a brilliant assembly.”
 
The prince seized the duchess’s hand and kissed it passionately⁴⁹. “Why are you not a man?” he cried. “You would give me good advice! Rassi has just laid a hundred and eighty-two depositions⁵⁰ against the persons accused of murdering my father on my writing-table, and besides the depositions there is an indictment⁵¹ which covers more than two hundred pages. I shall have to read them all, and further, I have given my word not to say anything about them to the count. All this is sure to end in executions. Already he is pressing me to have Ferrante Palla, that great poet whom I admire so much, carried off from a place near Antibes, in France, where he is living under the name of Poncet.”
 
“From the day when your Highness hangs a Liberal, Rassi will be bound to the ministry by iron chains, and that is what he most earnestly desires. But it will not be safe for your Highness to let it be known you are going to take a drive, two hours before you start. Neither the princess nor the count shall hear, through me, of the cry of anguish⁵² which has just escaped you, but as my oath forbids me to keep any secret from the princess, I shall be glad if your Highness will tell your mother what you have just permitted me to hear.”
 
This idea diverted the sovereign’s mind from the distress⁵³ with which his failure as an actor had overwhelmed him.
 
“Very good. Go and call my mother. I will go straight to her cabinet.”
 
The prince left the theatre, crossed the drawing-room leading to it, and haughtily⁵⁴ dismissed the great chamberlain and the aide-de-camp in waiting, who had followed him. The princess, on her part, hastily left the auditorium⁵⁵. As soon as she had reached her own apartments the duchess courtesied profoundly to mother and son, and left them alone together. The excitement of the courtiers may be conceived; that is one of the things which makes a court so entertaining. In an hour’s time, the prince himself appeared at the door of the cabinet, and summoned the duchess. The princess was in tears, the prince looked very much disturbed.
 
“Here are two weak beings in a bad temper,” said the mistress of the robes to herself, “and looking about for some good pretext⁵⁶ for being angry with somebody else.” To begin with, mother and son took the words out of each other’s mouth in their anxiety to relate all the details of the matter to the duchess, who, when she answered, was most careful not to put forward any idea. For two mortal hours the three actors in this wearisome scene never ceased playing the parts we have just indicated. The prince himself went to fetch the two huge portfolios⁵⁸ Rassi had laid upon his writing-table. Coming out of his mother’s[454] cabinet, he found the whole court waiting for him. “Take yourselves off and leave me alone!” he exclaimed with a rudeness which had never been known in him before. The prince did not choose to be seen carrying the portfolios himself—a prince must never carry anything. In the twinkling of an eye the courtiers disappeared. When the prince came back, he found nobody in the apartment except the footmen, who were putting out the candles. He packed them off in a rage, and treated poor Fontana, the aide-de-camp in waiting, who, in his zeal⁵⁹, had stupidly stayed behind, in the same fashion.
 
“Every soul is set on trying my patience this evening,” he said to the duchess crossly, as he re-entered the cabinet. He believed in her cleverness, and was furious at her evident determination not to put forward any opinion. She, on her part, was quite resolved she would say nothing unless her advice was expressly asked. Thus another full half-hour went by before the prince, who was keenly alive to his own dignity, could make up his mind to say, “But you say nothing, madam!”
 
“I am here to wait on the princess, and to forget everything that is said before me, instantly.”
 
“Very good, madam,” said the prince, reddening deeply. “I command you to give me your opinion.”
 
“The object of punishing crimes is to prevent a repetition of them. Was the late prince poisoned? That is very doubtful. Was he poisoned by the Jacobins? That is what Rassi pines to prove; for thenceforward he becomes indispensable to your Highness for all time. In that case your Highness, whose reign is just opening, may expect many an evening like this one. The general opinion of your subjects, and it is a perfectly true one, is that your Highness’s nature is full of kindness. So long as your Highness does not have any Liberal hanged, this reputation will remain to you, and you may be very certain that no one will think of giving you poison.”
 
“Your conclusion is quite clear,” exclaimed the princess peevishly⁶⁰. “You don’t desire to have my husband’s murderers punished.”
 
“Madam, that, I suppose, is because I am bound to them by ties of the tenderest friendship.”
 
The duchess read clearly in the prince’s eyes that he believed her to be thoroughly agreed with his mother on some line of conduct to be dictated⁶¹ to him. A somewhat rapid succession of bitter repartees was exchanged between the ladies, at the end of which the duchess vowed⁶³ she would not say another word, and to this resolution she steadily⁶⁴ adhered. But the prince, after a long discussion with his mother, ordered her once more to tell him her opinion.
 
“I can assure both your Highnesses I will do nothing of the kind.”
 
“But this is mere⁶⁵ childishness!” exclaimed the prince.
 
“Duchess, I beg you will speak,” said the princess with much dignity.
 
“I beg your Highness will excuse my doing so. But,” continued the duchess, addressing herself to the prince, “your Highness reads French beautifully. To soothe⁶⁶ our agitated⁶⁷ feelings, would your Highness read us one of La Fontaine’s fables⁶⁸?”
 
The princess thought the expression “us” exceedingly impertinent, but she looked at once astonished and amused when the mistress of the robes, who had calmly gone over to the bookcase and opened it, came back carrying a volume of La Fontaine’s Fables. She turned over the leaves for a few minutes, and then, handing the prince the book, she said: “I beseech⁷⁰ your Highness to read the whole fable⁶⁹.”
 
LE JARD............