L'Aiglon Part 49

Ah!

FLAMBEAU.

In Tuscany.

So we conspire with singlestick and rapier.

Next there's a post of danger vacant here; They give me forged credentials; here I am.

I'm here; but every day I see the Countess, For I have found the cave your Highness dug With your preceptor Colin in the garden To play at little Robinson. All right!

I hide in it. I find it has two openings: This in an ant-heap; that, a bed of nettles.

I wait. Your cousin brings her sketch-book, and There in the shadow of the Roman thingummies, She on her camp-stool, I amid the mud, She looking like an English tourist sketching, I whispering from my cavern like a prompter, We plan the means to make you Emperor.

THE DUKE.

And for such loyalty, so long maintained, What do you ask of me?

FLAMBEAU.

Just pull my ear.

THE DUKE.

What?

FLAMBEAU.

As your Father used to when we'd pleased him.

THE DUKE.

But I--

FLAMBEAU.

I'm waiting. Come. The thumb and index.

[THE DUKE _pulls his ear._]

That's not the way to pull an ear, my Lord!

You don't know how: you're much too gentlemanly.

THE DUKE.

Ah, do you think so?

MARMONT.

Clumsy thing to say!

FLAMBEAU.

Well, in a French Prince that's but half a fault.

THE DUKE.

But can you see I'm French in these surroundings?

FLAMBEAU.

Yes, you don't match. It's rich; it's heavy.

MARMONT.

What!

Can you see that?

FLAMBEAU.

My brother's an upholsterer.

He works in Paris for Fontaine and Percier-- They try to imitate us here; but, Lord!

They've got a curious kind of Louis-Quinze!

I'm not an expert, but I've got an eye.

[_He lifts up a chair._]

Just look how finnicking this wood-work is.

[_He puts it down and looks at it._]

But then the tapestry! What taste! what mystery!

It sings. It laughs. It crushes all the room.

Why? Don't you know? Why, these are Gobelins!

How plain it is that cunning craftsmen made them.

This taste, this elegance swears with the rest-- And you my Lord, were also made in France!

MALMONT.

He must go back.

FLAMBEAU.

And on the Cross of Honor Once more engrave a little Emperor.

THE DUKE.

Whom have they put there now?

FLAMBEAU.

Henry the Fourth-- Well, d.a.m.n it all, it had to be a fighter!

But, _basta_! How Napoleon must laugh To wear King Henry's mask upon his face!