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THE 
 
 )UCHESS DE LA VALLIERE 
 
 a Pag 
 
 IN FIVE ACTS. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR 
 
 OF 
 
 EUGENE ARAM," ^'THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII; 
 " R I E N Z I," &c. 
 
 Ne pour les passions et pour le repentir." 
 
 Voltaire, Irene, Actb, Sc, I. 
 
 LONDON 
 SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET. 
 
 1836. 
 
THOMAS C. SAVILL, 
 
 PRINTRR, 
 107, ST. BIARTI>f'S lANK, CHAHrNG CROSS. 
 

 CASE 
 6 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 TO 
 
 W. C. MAC READY, ESQ., 
 
 . FOR SCIENCE AND GENIUS 
 UNSURPASSED IN HIS PROFESSION, 
 
 AND 
 
 FROM WHOM THE ARTISTS, 
 
 OF WHAT PROFESSION SOEVER, 
 
 MAY LEARN THAT 
 
 ART IS THE POETRY OF NATURE, 
 
 EXPRESSING 
 
 T H E T R U E 
 
 THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF 
 
 THE IDEAL. 
 
 Albany, October, 1836. 
 
 ivisoeo^s 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It seems among the caprices of literature, that one 
 whose hfe has excited an interest so unfading and 
 universal, and whose destinies — even more than the 
 splendors of his reign, the solemn graces of his 
 court, or the stately muses of Racine — invest with no 
 unreal poetry the memory of Louis the Fourteenth, 
 — that one whose very fate was a poem, whose very 
 struggles were a drama, should have furnished so 
 little inspiration to the poet, and escaped altogether 
 the resuscitation of the stage. If it be true (as I hold 
 it indisputable) that the great material of dramatic 
 representation Hes not so much in the analysis of 
 
 A 2 
 
Vlii PREFACE. 
 
 one, as in the delineation of adverse and opposing, 
 passions, perhaps few subjects can be found more 
 adapted to the skill of the dramatic poet than the 
 love and the repentance, the fall and the atone- 
 ment, of Madame de La Valliere. The strongest 
 contrast of motives, the most tragic struggle of 
 impulse and of principle, in the breast of a woman, 
 is ever that which is created by the conflict of the 
 Affections and the Conscience : Nor does the spec- 
 tacle fail of a great and an impressive moral, if, 
 after all the concessions and most of the triumphs 
 of the first, the last becomes eventually the victor. 
 The mind of Madame de La Valliere was not of 
 the highest order. With her the reasoning faculty 
 was seated in the heart ; but her very weakness, 
 united and embellished as it was with so much 
 genuine tenderness of sentiment and honest depth 
 of emotion, ought to render her character yet more 
 affecting on the stage. For pathos is rarely de- 
 rived from the sternness of qualities purely intel- 
 lectual ; and we are led, by our sympathies with 
 the infirmities of our nature, to conclusions that 
 purify and exalt it. The philosophy of the drama 
 is the metaphysics of the passions. 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 But if the character of Madame de La Valh^re 
 be dramatic, it is a task, I allow, of considerable 
 difficulty, to concentrate the events of her life into 
 the Hmits of a drama. The ProbabiUties require us 
 to extend the period of action over the eight years 
 of her historical career ; that sad, not sudden, but 
 unceasing, progress from innocence to splendour — 
 from the idolized to the deserted — from the deserted 
 to the penitent and devout. In the interval be- 
 tween the second and third act more especially, the 
 reader will tacitly supply the lapse of time that may 
 seem to him required by such harmonies as Fiction, 
 insensibly, as it were, establishes with Fact. 
 
 The time is past for discussing the propriety of 
 the Unities, which even the dazzling example of 
 the Author of Sardanapalus could not prove to be 
 other than the sacrifice of Nature, from a mis- 
 guided superstition for the Natural. The unity of 
 character — the only one, indeed, on which Aristotle 
 very peremptorily insists — is also the only one 
 which all time and all criticism must recognise 
 as essential and indispensable. When the Stagi- 
 rite condemns Euripides for violating the unity 
 of his character of Iphigenia, by ascribing to 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 her, in one sentence, sentiments wholly inap- 
 posite to, and irreconcileable with, the character 
 which preceding sentences had portrayed, that 
 great philosopher proved by the most illustrious 
 example, what common sense might suffice to teach 
 us — viz., that no poetry of expression can atone for 
 that anomaly in poetical creation by which the 
 creatures are made inconsistent with themselves. 
 It may, however, be noticeable, that when fidelity 
 to truth compels us to waive the minor unity of 
 time, nicer and more delicate refinements of art are 
 sometimes afi*orded us in our treatment of the 
 unity of character. Maintaining the paramount 
 qualities that individualize our creation, we are en- 
 abled subtilely, and (to the uninvestigating) almost 
 insensibly, to shew how we have served ourselves 
 of the lapse of time, to modify them or develop. 
 Macbeth in the fifth act is not the Macbeth of the 
 first. But the bold, the ruthless, never the hard- 
 ened tyrant, is precisely that which years and events 
 would necessarily ripen, from the brave, but vacil- 
 lating, the tender but ambitious thane, who requires 
 omen and prediction, the urgings of hell, and the 
 familiar inspirations of a feller and more powerful 
 
PREFACE. Xi 
 
 mind, to shape the thought into the action, the 
 "Dare not," to '^ I will." 
 
 In the Play now submitted to the reader, the 
 supposed interval of time between the second and 
 third act produces, though not perhaps very mark- 
 edly, its effect on the character of Louis, — it brings 
 (as that interval of time did in life) into more visible 
 display his infirmer and vainer qualities, his gorgeous 
 and sovereign selfishness, his morbid craving for 
 amusement, (the mental vision aching beneath the 
 glare of his own pomp,) the properties of a tem- 
 perament restless, eager, susceptible, yet cold, with 
 pampered energies and uncultivated resources. In 
 the earlier portion of the play, Louis is not yet 
 ** The Great." He is the Louis of Fontainebleau, — 
 not the Louis of Versailles, — in the flush of a bril- 
 liant youth, in the excitement of a first love. 
 
 It is a task not a little arduous to convey to the 
 spectator or the reader the notion at once of what 
 Louis the Fourteenth appears to posterity, and of 
 w^hat he seemed to his contemporaries. Nor would it 
 perhaps be possible to effect the former object, and 
 yet to give La Valli^re all her real excuses for her 
 weakness, if fortunately in representing Louis as 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 the lover we did not place him in the very position 
 most favourable to his external graces, his felicity 
 of phrase, his magnificence of taste, his softness of 
 feeling disguising his want of heart, and that pecu- 
 liar royalty of thought and sentiment, which had 
 the twofold advantage of rendering homely and 
 plebeian those who rejected, bombastic and ridicu- 
 lous those who adopted, the imitation. 
 
 The Duke de Lauzun,^^ who, in the judgment of 
 La Bruy^re, was to bequeath, in himself, an enigma 
 to posterity, has left to our more distant examina- 
 tion a character sufficiently inteUigible. Remark- 
 able talents enabled him to cheat with grandeur, 
 and to be convicted of fraud in an attitude of 
 grace. He never was more admired than in what 
 were called his ' misfortunes !' In other words, the 
 merited reverses of a strong-minded rogue ap- 
 peared in him but the sufferings of a philosophical 
 hero. His genius was his destruction. Daring, 
 versatile, sarcastic, sceptical, every thing his fate 
 presented to him, whether of obstruction or ad- 
 
 * Lauzun was properly but a Count at the date of the Play. 
 But as he is so well known by his latter and higher title, I have 
 ventured on the slight anachronism. 
 
PREFACE. Xm 
 
 vancement, was a trifle to be toyed with to-day, 
 and thrown away to-morrow. With all his general 
 lack of principle, he betrayed, it is true, occa- 
 sional feehngs of generosity and glimpses of an 
 original nobleness. But I suspect that he himself 
 would have esteemed the best part of his nature to 
 be its weakest and most foolish. In this Play, the 
 Duke de Lauzun is represented in that view -of 
 his multiform character which seemed to me most 
 in keeping with the position he assumed towards 
 both Montespan and La Valli^re, and most in 
 harmony with the grouping of my own composition. 
 But whoever performs the part will forgive me for 
 observing, that whatever it contains of comic must 
 be regarded as a sign of the easy complacency with 
 which a bold and able intriguant moves among 
 things and persons that he deems his puppets, 
 trifling, as it were, with a part beneath his real 
 genius. His gaiety is not animal, but intellectual ; 
 — at least, such is my conception of it. 
 
 In the character of Bragelone is embodied 
 whatever in the Play pretends to the Heroic, — it 
 is an Episode that introduces the Epic into a Court 
 Poem. In this character I have used my licence 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 of idealizing the Realities. The Bragelone of 
 Biography died of a broken heart after Madame 
 de La Valliere became the victim of the King. 
 In reviving, I have dared to re-create him. In his 
 character I seek to portray and individualize the 
 old, chivalric, high-thoughted, and high-spirited 
 race upon whose graves rose the reckless, profligate, 
 and brilliant generation of Louis the Fourteenth. 
 That splendid Sovereign, whose natural talents 
 were perhaps greater than we are now willing to 
 acknowledge, confirmed the form of the Monarchy, 
 but destroyed the soul of the Aristocracy. Chivalry 
 was the Mother of the Court, and died of her 
 accouchement. Bragelone stands alone — the last of 
 his race. His only weakness — the only infirmity 
 which reduces him from our respect to our sym- 
 pathy — is in his misplaced, but gallant and faithful 
 love. Removed from this influence, I have wished 
 him never to appear, but to dwarf the proportions 
 of the Falsely-Great ; thus the sarcastic Lauzun 
 beside him sinks into the slanderous jester ; the 
 haughty Louis himself, into the abashed and 
 superstitious criminal. But, brought under the 
 influence of his passion, the sternness of Bragelone 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 is ever invaded by his softness. He is here again 
 meant to be faithful to the age he represents — 
 to the spirit of its knightly and crusader-like 
 Romance. Even his adoption of the cowl is in 
 harmony with the ancient rehgious character — 
 with the Ideal of the old Franc and Germanic 
 race, in which the warrior was the germ of the 
 monk, and Life laid its trophies on the altar, 
 and sought its resting-place in the cell. Where 
 the character of Bragelone most takes its leaven 
 from the times on which he has fallen, is in his 
 actual experience of mankind. His dim prophecies 
 to the King — his soliloquy on life towards the 
 close of the fifth act — his definition of the true 
 religion of the cloister, partake of the philosophy 
 we form not in the closet, but in the world. Nor 
 would these sentiments, I allow, be appropriate 
 to Bragelone, regarded as the mere soldier ; but 
 they are of the wisdom which sorrow and dis- 
 appointment may be supposed to bring to a 
 powerful and reflective mind, which the rough 
 contact of the world, and the actual interchange of 
 various opinions with various men, have released 
 from the prejudices of class and sect ; and we 
 
XVI PREFACE. 
 
 must remember that the sentiments he utters, as 
 to the effect of the wars of Louis, and the real 
 uses of the monastery, were not heresies un- 
 broached at that day even among loyal subjects 
 and orthodox Catholics. 
 
 I know not how far my feeble execution of this 
 character has fallen short of the conception : I 
 know still less how far it will produce upon the 
 stage the more subtle and the higher effects it is 
 intended to convey ; — Alas ! the Plot of the Drama 
 does not introduce it sufficiently often, to render 
 it worthy the acceptance of that great actor who 
 never mistakes the conception of an Author, and 
 yet who invariably exalts it. 
 
 May I now be permitted to pass from the Person- 
 ages of this Drama to something between an ex- 
 planation and an apology for my general treat- 
 ment of the subject I have selected, and of the 
 times I have portrayed. It seemed to me that 
 subject and time alike furnished materials for 
 the graver Comedy, no less than for the develop- 
 ment of tragic emotions. The intrigues, the pa- 
 geants, the hollo wness and servility of the Court of 
 France, the philosophy embodied by a Rochefou- 
 
PREFACE. XVll 
 
 cault, the manners delineated by a Dangeau, the 
 morahty extolled by a Genlis, are not to be ap- 
 proached by epic declamation ; they are only 
 brought nearer to us by the glass of an easy satire, 
 which defines the object by diminishing, not ex- 
 aggerating, the proportions which our human vision 
 is too apt to enlarge. 
 
 The beings of Versailles were, for the most part, 
 men to whom passions (which are tragedy) were 
 unknown. It was through humours (which are 
 comedy) that they represented the form and the 
 spirit of the society they created, working out, 
 through gaiety, a solemn and a lasting moral. If 
 this, my impression of that scene, and that time, 
 be true, I trust I shall be pardoned, not only for 
 the tone of the lighter portions of the play, but 
 for the use of a diction, in such portions, which 
 will probably sound a little prosaic to ears accus- 
 tomed to the florid prettiness of modern verse, or 
 attuned to the elaborate quaintness of the elder 
 dramatists. To thoughts and to persons that 
 belong to prose, belongs prosaic expression. Where 
 the subject of itself rises into poetry, t have given 
 whatever advantage of poetical language it is in 
 
XVlll PREFACE. 
 
 the power of one whom the Muse has long de- 
 serted, to command. 
 
 I now dismiss this experiment to its fate, pre- 
 faced by these (I fear tedious) observations, which 
 may prove at least that it is not without some- 
 thing of preliminary study that I have ventured 
 to diverge into a new path of that great realm of 
 fiction, which grants indeed to indolence the shade 
 and the fountain, but guards the fruit and the 
 treasure, as the just monopoly of labour.* 
 
 E. L. B. 
 
 Paris f 2\st December, 1835. 
 
 * The necessities of poetical justice have obliged me to an 
 anachronism in the punishment of Madame de Montespan. In 
 reality, if longer deferred, it was yet more strikingly retributive 
 than it appears in the play. Betraying a friend, by a friend 
 she was betrayed : the nun was avenged by the devotee ; and 
 what Montespan was to La Valliere, Maintenon was to Mon- 
 tespan. I should also add that the concentration and climax of 
 interest required on the stage has obliged me to introduce 
 Louis in the last scene. In my first outline of the Plot, and 
 more in accordance with strict historical data, it was in the 
 hotel of Madame de la Valliere (when she announced her in- 
 tention of taking the veil) that the King acted that part, and 
 uttered those sentiments which I have ascribed to him in the 
 convent of the Carmelites. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 This Play (with the above Preface) was written in the autumn 
 and winter of 1835. It was submitted to no other opinion than 
 that of Mr. Macready, with whom the Author had the honour 
 of a personal acquaintance ; and who, on perusal, was obligingly 
 anxious for its performance at Drury Lane. The manager of 
 that theatre wished, naturally perhaps, to see the manuscript 
 before he hazarded the play ; the Author (perhaps no less 
 naturally) declined a condition from a manager, which was 
 precisely of that nature which no author, of moderate repu- 
 tation, concedes to a publisher. A writer can have but little 
 self-respect, who does not imagine, in any new experiment in 
 literature, that no risk can be greater than his own. Subse- 
 quently, Mr. Morris, of the Haymarket Theatre, was desirous 
 of the right of performing the Play, and complied at once 
 with the terms proposed. A difficulty with respect to the 
 requisite actors obliged the Author, however, to break off the 
 negotiation, and to decide upon confining the publication of his 
 Drama to the press. The earnest and generous zeal of Mr. 
 Macready, with the very prompt and liberal accedence, on the 
 part of Mr. Osbaldiston, the present manager of Covent 
 Garden, to the conditions of the Author, have induced him, 
 however, to alter his intention, and to rank himself with the 
 Neophytes of that great class of writers whose rights, some 
 years ago, when he little thought he should ever be a humble 
 member of so illustrious a fraternity, it was his fortune to 
 protect and to extend. 
 
 Albany, October, 1836. 
 
 L 
 
DRAMATIS PERSON/E. 
 
 Louis the Fourteenth. 
 
 The Duke de Lauzun, \ 
 
 Count de Grammont, > (^Courtiers.) 
 
 Marquis de Montespan, 3 
 
 The Marquis de Bragelone (betrothed to Mademoiselle 
 
 de la Valliere.') 
 Bertrand (the Armourer.) 
 
 Courtiers, Gentleman of the Chamber, Priests, <$c. 
 
 Madame de La Valliere. 
 
 Mademoiselle (afterwards Duchess) de La Valliere. 
 
 Madame de Montespan. 
 
 The Queen. 
 
 Abbess. 
 
 Nuns, Ladies, Maids of Honour, ^x. 
 
PROLOGUE. 
 
 To paint the Past, yet in the Past portray 
 
 Such shapes as seem dim prophets of To-Day ; — 
 
 To trace, through all the garish streams of art, 
 
 Nature's deep fountain — woman's silent heart ; — 
 
 On the stirr'd surface of the soften'd mind 
 
 To leave the print of holier truths behind ; — 
 
 And, while through joy or grief — through calm or strife, 
 
 Bound the wild Passions on the course of Life, 
 
 To share the race — yet point the proper goal, 
 
 And make the Affections preachers to the Soul ; — 
 
 Such is the aim with which a gaudier age 
 
 Now woos the brief revival of the stage ; — 
 
 Such is the moral, though unseen it flows. 
 
 In Lauzun's wiles and soft La Valliere's woes ; 
 
 Such the design our Author boldly drew. 
 
 And, losing boldness, now submits to you. 
 
 Not new to climes where dreamy Fable dwells — 
 That magic Prospero of the Isle of Spells — 
 Now first the wanderer treads, with anxious fear, 
 The fairy land whose flowers allured him here. 
 Dread is the court our alien pleads before ; 
 Your verdict makes his exile from the shore. 
 Yet, ev'n if banishM, let him think, in pride. 
 He trod the path with no unhallowed guide ; 
 Chasing the light, whose face, though veil'd and dim. 
 Perchance a meteor, seem'd a star to him, 
 Hoping the ray might rest where Truth appears 
 Beneath her native well — your smiles and tears. 
 
 When a wide waste, to Law itself unknown, 
 Lay that fair world the Drama calls its own ; 
 B 
 
PROLOGUE. 
 
 When all might riot on the mines of Thought, 
 And Genius starv'd amidst the wealth it wrought; 
 He who now ventures on the haunted soil 
 For nobler labourers won the rights of toil, 
 And his the boast — that Fame now rests in ease 
 Beneath the shade of her own laurel trees. 
 Yes — if, with all the critic on their brow. 
 His clients once, have grown his judges now. 
 And watch, like spirits on the Elysian side, 
 Their brother ferried o'er the Stygian tide, 
 To where, on souls untried, austerely sit 
 (The triple Minos) — Gallery — Boxes — Pit — 
 'Twill soothe to think, howe'er the verdict end, 
 In every rival he hath served a friend. 
 
 But well we know, and, knowing, we rejoice, 
 The mightiest Critic is the public voice. 
 Aw'd, yet resigned, our novice trusts in you. 
 Hard to the practised, gentle to the new. 
 Whate'er the anxious strife of hope and fear, 
 He asks no favour — let the stage be clear. 
 If from the life his shapes the Poet draws. 
 In man's deep breast lie all the critic's laws : 
 If not, in vain the nicely-pois'd design. 
 Vain the cold music of the laboured line. 
 Before our eyes behold the living rules ; — 
 The soul has instincts wiser than the schools ! 
 Yours is the Great Tribunal of the Heart, 
 And touch'd Emotion makes the test of Art. 
 Judges august ! — the same in every age. 
 While Passions weave the sorcery of the Stage, — 
 While Nature's sympathies are Art's best laws, — 
 To you a stranger has referred his cause : — 
 If the soft tale he woos the soul to hear 
 Bequeaths the moral, while it claims the tear. 
 Each gentler thought, to faults in others shown. 
 He calls in court — a pleader for his own. 
 
THE 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE, 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 Time — sun-set. On the foreground an old Chateau ; 
 beyond, Vineyards and Woods, which present, 
 through their openings. Views of a River, reflecting 
 the sun-set. At a distance, the turrets of the Con- 
 vent of the Carmelites, 
 
 Madame and Mademoiselle de la Valliere. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 'Tis our last eve, my mother ! 
 
 MADAME DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Thou regrett'st it, 
 My own Louise ! albeit the court invites thee — 
 A court beside whose glories, dull and dim 
 The pomp of eastern kings, by poets told ; 
 A court 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 In which I shall not see my mother ! 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act i. 
 
 Nor these old walls, in which, from every stone, 
 Childhood speaks eloquent of happy years ; 
 Nor vines and woods, which bade me love the earth. 
 Nor yonder spires, which raised that love to God! — 
 
 (The vesper hell tolls.) 
 The vesper bell ! — my mother, when, once more, 
 I hear from those grey towers that holy chime. 
 May thy child's heart be still as full of Heaven, 
 And callous to all thoughts of earth, save those 
 Which mirror Eden in the face of Home ! 
 
 MADAME DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Do I not know thy soul ? — through every snare 
 My gentle dove shall 'scape with spotless plumes. 
 Alone in courts, I have no fear for thee ; — 
 Some natures take from Innocence the lore 
 Experience teaches ; and their delicate leaves. 
 Like the soft plant, shut out all wrong, and shrink 
 From vice by instinct, as the wise by knowledge : 
 And such is thine ! My voice thou wilt not hear, 
 But Thought shall whisper where my voice would 
 
 warn. 
 And Conscience be thy mother and thy guide ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Oh, may I merit all thy care, and most 
 
 Thy present trust! — Thou'lt write to me, my mother, 
 
 And tell me of thyself : amidst the court 
 
SCENE I.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 5 
 
 My childhood's images shall rise. Be kind 
 To the poor cotters in the wood ; — alas, 
 They'll miss me in the winter ! — and my birds ? — 
 Thy hand will feed them ? 
 
 MADAME DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 And that noble heart 
 That loves thee as my daughter should be loved — 
 The gallant Bragelone ?* — should I hear 
 Some tidings Fame forgets — if in the din 
 Of camps I learn thy image makes his solace, 
 Shall I not write of Imn ? — 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE {with indifference.) 
 
 His name will breathe 
 Of home and friendship ; — yes ! — 
 
 MADAME DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Of nought beside ? 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Nay, why so pressing ? — let me change the theme. 
 The King ! — you have seen him -, — is he, as they 
 
 say, 
 So fair — so stately ? 
 
 MADAME DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Ay, in truth, my daughter, 
 
 * The author has, throughout this play, availed himself of 
 the poetical licence to give to the name of Bragelone the 
 Italian pronunciation, and to accent the final e. 
 
6 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act i. 
 
 A king that wins the awe he might command. 
 Splendid in peace, and terrible in war ; 
 Wise in the council — gentle in the bower. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Strange, that so often through mine early dreams 
 A royal vision flitted ; — a proud form, 
 Upon whose brow nature had written ' empire ;' 
 While, on the lip, — love, smihng, wrapt in sunshine 
 The charmed world that was its worshipper — 
 A form like that which clothed the gods of old. 
 Lured from Olympus by some mortal maid, — 
 Youthful it seemed — ^but with ambrosial youth ; 
 And beautiful — but half as beauty were 
 A garb too earthly for a thing divine : — 
 Was it not strange, my mother ? 
 
 MADAME DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 A child's fancy, 
 Breathed into life by thy brave father's soul. 
 He taught thee, in thy cradle yet, to lisp 
 Thy sovereign's name in prayer — and still together, 
 In thy first infant creed^ were linked the lessons 
 * To HONOUR God, and love the king ;' it was 
 A part of that old knightly faith of France 
 Which made it half religion to be loyal. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 It might be SO. I have preserved the lesson, 
 
SCENE I.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 7 
 
 Ev'n with too weak a reverence. — Yet, 'tis strange ! 
 A dream so oft renewed ! — 
 
 MADAME DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Here comes thy lover ! 
 Thou wilt not blame him if his lips repeat 
 The question mine have asked? Alphonso, wel- 
 come ! 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 Bragelone, Madame and Mademoiselle de la Valliere, 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 My own Louise ! — ah ! dare I call thee so ? 
 War never seemed so welcome ! since we part, 
 Since the soft sunshine of thy smiles must fade 
 From these dear scenes, it soothes, at least, to 
 
 think 
 I shall not linger on the haunted spot, 
 And feel, forlorn amidst the gloom of absence, 
 How dark is all once hghted by thine eyes. 
 
 [Madame de la Valliere retires into the chateau. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Can friendship flatter thus ?— or wouldst thou train 
 My ear betimes to learn the courtier's speech ? 
 
8 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act i. 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Louise ! Louise ! this is our parting hour : 
 
 Me war demands — and thee the court allures. 
 
 In such an hour, the old romance allowed 
 
 The maid to soften from her coy reserve^ 
 
 And her true knight, from some kind words, to take 
 
 Hope's talisman to battle ! — Dear Louise ! 
 
 Say, canst thou love me ? — 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Sir ! — I ! — love ! — methinks 
 It is a word that 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Sounds upon thy lips 
 Like ' land' upon the mariner's, and speaks 
 Of home and rest after a stormy sea. 
 Sweet girl, my youth has passed in camps ; 
 
 and war 
 Hath somewhat scathed my manhood ere my time. 
 Our years are scarce well-mated : the soft spring 
 Is thine, and o'er my summer's waning noon 
 Grave autumn creeps. Thou say'st ' I flatter ! ' — 
 
 well, 
 Love taught me first the golden words in which 
 The honest heart still coins its massive ore. 
 But fairer words, from falser lips, will soon 
 Make my plain courtship rude. — Louise ! thy sire 
 
SCENE II.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 9 
 
 Betrothed us in thy childhood : I have watched thee 
 Bud into virgin May, and in thy youth 
 Have seemed to hoard my own ! — I think of thee. 
 And I am youthful still ! The passionate prayer — 
 The wild idolatry — the purple light 
 Bathing the cold earth from a Hebe's urn ; — 
 Yea, all the soul's divine excess which youth 
 Claims as its own, came back when first I loved thee ! 
 And yet so well I love, that if thy heart 
 Recoil from mine, — if but one single wish, 
 A shade more timid than the fear which ever 
 Blends trembling twilight with the starry hope 
 Of maiden dreams — would start thee from our union. 
 Speak, and my suit is tongueless ! — 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 O, my lord ! 
 If to believe all France's chivalry 
 Boasts not a nobler champion, — if to feel 
 Proud in your friendship, honoured in your trust, — 
 If this be love, and I have known no other, 
 Why then — 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Why then, thou lov'st me ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE {aside,) 
 
 Shall I say it ? 
 I feel 'twere to deceive him ! Is it love ? 
 
10 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act i. 
 
 Love ! — no, it is not love ! — (Aloud,) My noble lord, 
 As yet I know not all mine own weak heart ; 
 I would not pain thee, yet would not betray. 
 Legend and song have often painted love, 
 And my heart whispers not the love which should be 
 The answer to thine own : — thou hadst best forget 
 me ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Forget ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 I am not worthy of thee ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Hold!— 
 My soul is less heroic than I deemed it. 
 Perchance my passion asks too much from thine, 
 And would forestal the fruit ere yet the blossom 
 Blushes from out the coy and maiden leaves. 
 No ! let me love ; and say, perchance the time 
 May come when thou wilt bid me not forget thee. 
 Absence may plead my cause ; it hath some magic ; 
 I fear not contrast with the courtier-herd ; 
 And thou art not Louise if thou art won 
 By a smooth outside and a honeyed tongue. 
 No ! when thou seest these hunters after power, 
 These shadows, minioned to the royal sun, — 
 Proud to the humble, servile to the great, — 
 Perchance thou'lt learn how much one honest heart, 
 
SCENE II.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 1 1 
 
 That never wronged a friend or shunn'd a foe, — 
 How much the old hereditary knighthood, 
 Faithful to God, to glory, and to love, 
 Outweighs an universe of cringing courtiers ! 
 Louise, I ask no more ! — I bide my time ! 
 
 Re-enter Madame de la Valliere from the chateau. 
 
 MADAME DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 The twilight darkens. Art thou now, Alphonso, 
 Convinced her heart is such as thou wouldst have it? 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 It is a heavenly tablet — but my name 
 Good angels have not writ there ! 
 
 MADAME DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Nay, as yet. 
 Love wears the mask of friendship : she must love 
 thee. 
 
 BRAGELONE {half iucredulously .) 
 Think'st thou so ? 
 
 MADAME DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Ay, be sure ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 I'll think so too. 
 (Turns to Mademoiselle de la Valliere.) 
 
12 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act i. 
 
 Bright lady of my heart ! — (Aside.) By Heaven ! 'tis 
 
 true ! 
 The rose grows richer on her cheek, like hues 
 That, in the silence of the virgin dawn, 
 Predict, in blushes, light that glads the earth. 
 Her mother spoke aright ; — ah, yes, she loves me ! 
 Bright lady of my heart, farewell ! and yet 
 Again — farewell ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Honour and health be with you ! 
 
 MADAME DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Nay, my Louise, when warriors wend to battle, 
 The maid they serve grows half a warrior too ; 
 And does not blush to bind on mailed bosoms 
 The banner of her colours. 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Dare I ask it ? 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 A soldier's child could never blush, my Lord, 
 To belt so brave abreast ; — and yet, — well, wear it. 
 {Placing her scarf round Bragelone's hauberk.) 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Ah ! add for thy sake. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 For the sake of one 
 
SCENE II.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 13 
 
 Who honours worth, and ne'er since Bayard fell. 
 Have banners flaunted o'er a knight more true 
 To France and Fame ; — 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 And love ? 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Nay, hush, my Lord ; 
 I said not that. 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 But France and Fame shall say it 1 
 Yes, if thou hear'st men speak of Bragelone, 
 If proudest chiefs confess he bore him bravely. 
 Come life, come death, his glory shall be thine. 
 And all the light it borrowed from thine eyes. 
 Shall gild thy name. Ah ! scorn not then to say, 
 ' He loved me well !' How well ! God shield 
 and bless thee ? [Exit Bragelone. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE {ttside.) 
 
 Most worthy love ! why can I love him not ? 
 
 MADAME DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Peace to his gallant heart ! when next we meet, 
 May I have gained a son — and thou 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE (quicMy.) 
 
 My mother, 
 This night let every thought be given to thee ! 
 
14 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act i. 
 
 Beautiful scene, farewell ! — farewell, my home ! 
 And thou, grey convent, whose inspiring chime 
 Measures the hours with prayer, that morn and eve 
 Life may ascend the ladder of the angels. 
 And climb to heaven ! serene retreats, farewell ! 
 And now, my mother ! — no ! some hours must yet 
 Pass ere our parting. 
 
 MADAME DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Cheer thee, my Louise ! 
 And let us now within ; the dews are falling — 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 And I forgot how ill thy frame may bear them. 
 Pardon ! — within, within ! — 
 
 {Stopping short, and gazing fondly on Madame de 
 la Valliere) 
 
 Your hand, dear mother ! 
 [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE in. 
 
 An old Armoury, of the heavy French Architecture pre- 
 ceding the time of Francis the First, in the Castle of 
 Bragelone. 
 
 Bertrand, the armourer, employed in polishing a sword. 
 
 BERTRAND. 
 
 There now ! I think this blade will scarcely shame 
 
SCENE III.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIEUE. 15 
 
 My gallant master's hand ; it was the weapon, 
 So legends say, with which the old Lord Rodolph 
 Slew, by the postern gate, his lady's leman ! 
 Oh, we're a haughty race — we old French lords ; 
 Our honour is unrusted as our steel, 
 And, when provoked, as ruthless ! 
 
 Enter Bragelone. 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Ah, old Bertrand ! 
 Why, your brave spirit, 'mid these coats of mail, 
 Grows young again. So ! this, then, is the sword 
 You'd have me wear. God wot ! a tranchant blade, 
 Not of the modern fashion. 
 
 BERTRAND. 
 
 My good lord. 
 Yourself are scarcely of the modern fashion. 
 They tell me, that to serve one's king for nothing, 
 To deem one's country worthier than one's self. 
 To hold one's honour not a phrase to swear by, — 
 They tell me, now, all this is out of fashion. 
 Come, take the sword, my lord 1 — you have your 
 
 father's 
 Stout arm and lordly heart : they're out of fashion, 
 And yet you keep the one — come, take the other. 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Why you turn satirist ! 
 
16 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act i. 
 BERTRAND. 
 
 Satirist ! what is that ? 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Satirists, my friend, are men who speak the truth 
 That courts may say — they do not know the fashion ! 
 Satire on Vice is Wit's revenge on fools 
 That slander Virtue ! — How now! look ye, Bertrand! 
 Methinks there is a notch here. 
 
 BERTRAND. 
 
 Ay, my lord ; 
 I would not grind it out ; — 'twas here the blade 
 Clove through the helmet, ev'n unto the chin. 
 Of that irreverent and most scoundrel Dutchman 
 "Who stabbed you, through your hauberk -joints — 
 
 what time 
 You placed your breast before the king. 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Hence, ever 
 Be it believed, that, in his hour of need, 
 A king's sole safeguard are his subject's hearts ! 
 Ha, ha ! good sword ! that was a famous stroke ! 
 Thou didst brave deeds that day, thou quaint old 
 
 servant. 
 Though now — thou'rt not the fashion ! 
 
 BERTRAND. 
 
 Bless that look. 
 
SCENE III] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 17 
 
 And that glad laugh ! they bring me back the day 
 When first old Bertrand armed you for the wars, — 
 A fair-faced stripling ; yet, beshrew my heart, 
 You spurred that field before the bearded chins. 
 And saved the gallant Lord La Valli^re's standard;, 
 And yet you were a stripling then. 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 La Valli^re ! 
 The very name goes dancing through my veins. 
 Bertrand, look round the armoury ! Is there nought 
 I wore that first campaign ? Nay, nay ! no matter ! 
 I wear the name within me. Harkye, Bertrand ! 
 We're not so young as then we were : when next 
 We meet, old friend, we both will end our labours. 
 And find some nook, amidst yon antique trophies. 
 Wherein to hang this idle mail. 
 
 BERTRAND. 
 
 Huzza ! 
 
 The village dames speak truth — my Lord will marry ! 
 And I shall nurse, in these old withered arms. 
 Another boy — for France another hero. 
 Ha, ha 1 I am so happy. 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Good old man ! 
 Why this is like my father's hall — since thus 
 My father's servants love me ! 
 
 c 
 
18 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act i. 
 
 BERTRAND. 
 
 All must love you ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 All ! — let me think so ! 
 
 (Bugle sounds.) 
 
 Hark, the impatient bugle ! 
 I hear the neigh of my exultant charger, 
 Breathing from far the glorious air of war. 
 Give me the sword ! 
 
 (Enter Servant, with a letter.) 
 
 Her mother's hand ! — ' Louise, 
 Arrived at court, writes sadly, and amidst 
 The splendour pines for home,' — I knew she would ! 
 My own Louise ! — ' Speaks much of the King's 
 
 goodness ;' — 
 Goodness to her ! — that thought shall give the King 
 A tenfold better soldier ! — ' From thy friend, 
 "Who trusts ere long to hail thee as her son.' 
 Her son ! — a blessed name ! These lines shall be 
 My heart's true shield, and ward away each weapon. 
 He who shall wed Louise has conquered Fate, 
 And smiles at earthly foes ! — Again the bugle ! 
 Give me your fiand, old man ! My fiery youth 
 Went not to battle with so blithe a soul 
 As now burns in me. — So ! she pines for home — 
 I knew she would — I knew it ! Farewell, Bertrand ! 
 
 [Exit Bragelone. 
 
SCENE III.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 19 
 ^ERTRAND. 
 
 Oh ! there'll be merry doings in the hall 
 When my dear lord returns ! A merry wedding, 
 And then — and then — oh, such a merry christening ! 
 How well I fancy his grave manly face 
 Brightening upon his first-born. (As he is going) 
 
 Re-enter Bragelone. 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Ho, there ! Bertrand ! 
 One charge I had forgot : — Be sure they train 
 The woodbine richly round the western wing — 
 My mother's old apartment. Well, man ! well ! 
 Do you not hear me ? 
 
 BERTRAND. 
 
 You, my lord ! the woodbine ? 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Yes ; see it duly done. I know she loves it ; 
 It clambers round her lattice. I would not 
 Have one thing absent she could miss. 
 
 Remember ! 
 
 [Exit Bragelone. 
 
 BERTRAND. 
 
 And this is he whom Warriors call ' the Stern !' 
 The dove's heart beats beneath that lion breast. 
 Pray Heaven his lady may deserve him ! Oh, 
 
 c 2 
 
20 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act i. 
 
 What news for my good dame ! — i'faith, I'm glad 
 I was the first to learn the secret. So ! 
 This year a wife — next year a boy ! 1*11 teach 
 The young rogue how his father clove the Dutch- 
 man 
 Down to the chin ! Ha, ha! old Bertrand now 
 Will be of use again on winter nights, — 
 I know he'll be the picture of his father ! 
 
 [Exit Bertrand. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 An Ante-chamber in the Palace of Fontainehleau. 
 Enter Lauzun and Grammont, at opposite doors. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Ah, Count, good day ! — Were you at court last 
 
 night ? 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 Yes ; and the court is grown the richer by 
 A young new beauty. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 So ! — her name ? 
 
SCENE IV.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 21 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 La Valli^re 1 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Ay, I have heard ; — a maid of honour ? 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 The women say she's plain. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 The women ! oh, 
 The case it is that's plain — she must be lovely ! 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 The dear^ kind, gossips of the court, declare 
 The pretty novice hath conceived a fancy — 
 A wild, romantic, innocent, strange fancy — 
 For our young King ; a girlish love, like that 
 Told of in fairy tales : she saw his picture. 
 Sighed to the canvas, murmured to the colours. 
 And — fell in love with carmine and gambouge. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 The simple dreamer ! Well, she saw the king ? 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 And while she saw him, hke a rose, when May 
 
22 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act i. 
 
 Breathes o'er its bending bloom, she seemed to 
 
 shrink 
 Into her modest self, and a low sigh 
 Shook blushes (sweetest rose-leaves !) from her 
 
 beauty. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 You paint it well. 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 And ever since that hour 
 She bears the smiling malice of her comrades 
 With an unconscious and an easy sweetness ; 
 As if alike her virtue and his greatness 
 Made love impossible: — so, down the stream 
 Of purest thought, her heart glides on to danger. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Did Louis note her ? — Has he heard the gossip ? 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 Neither, methinks : his Majesty is cold. 
 The art of pomp, and not the art of love. 
 Tutors his skill — Augustus more than Ovid. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 The time will come I The King as yet is young, 
 Flush'd with the novelty of sway, and fired 
 With the great dream of cutting Dutchmen's throats: 
 A tiresome dream — the poets call it ' Glory.' 
 
SCENE IV.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 23 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 So much the better, — 'tis one rival less ; 
 The handsome King would prove a dangerous 
 suitor. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Oh, hang the danger ! — He must have a mistress ; 
 
 'Tis an essential to a court : how many 
 
 Favours, one scarcely likes to ask a King, 
 
 One flatters from a King's inamorata ! 
 
 We courtiers fatten on the royal vices ; 
 
 And, while the King lives chaste, he cheats, he 
 
 robs me 
 Of ninety-nine per cent ! 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 Ha, ha !— Well, Duke, 
 We meet again to-night. You join the revels ? 
 Till then, adieu ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Adieu, dear Count I 
 
 [Exit Grammont. 
 
 The King 
 Must have a mistress : I must lead that mistress. 
 The times are changed ! — 'twas by the sword and 
 spear 
 
24 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act i. 
 
 Our fathers bought ambition — vulgar butchers ! 
 But now our wit's our spear — intrigue our armour ; 
 The ante-chamber is our field of battle ; 
 And the best hero is — the cleverest rogue ! 
 
 [Eocit Lauzun* 
 
 SCENE V. 
 
 Night — the Gardens of the Fontainehleau, brilliantly 
 illuminated with coloured lamps — Fountains, vases^ 
 and statues in perspective^ — A pavilion in the back- 
 ground — to the right, the Palace of the Fontaine- 
 bleau, illuminated. 
 
 Enter Courtiers, Ladies, Sfc. 
 
 A Dance. 
 
 Then enter Grammont and Lauzun. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 A brilliant scene ! 
 
 * The effect of the scene should be principally made by 
 jets-d'eau, waterfalls, &c. 
 
SCENE v.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 25 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 And see ! to make it brighter, 
 That most divine, diverting, pompous Marquis — 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Who has but one idea, and two phrases ! 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 The one idea — that he is a marquis ! 
 And the two phrases ? 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Let himself inform you. 
 
 Enter the Marquis de Montespan, ridiculously over- 
 dressed, 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 My Lords, I'm charmed to see you ! — How's your 
 
 health, 
 Dear Count ? 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 But poorly, Sir. 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 I'm in despair ! 
 
 And yours 
 
26 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act i. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Most flourishing 1 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 Fm charmed — enraptured ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Why don't you bring your wife to court, dear 
 Marquis ? 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 My wife ! — (what's that to him ?) — she hates the 
 
 pomp, 
 And stays at home to think of me — and bless 
 The fate that made her — 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Married to a Marquis ! 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 Precisely so ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 And such a Marquis ! 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 Oh! 
 
 You are too bad ! — ^liave done ! 
 
SCENE v.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 27 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 The very words 
 Your lovely lady said when last I saw her ! % 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 She copies me — 'tis natural ! — 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 Hist !— the King ! 
 Enter Louis, followed by Courtiers, <^c, 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Fair eve and pleasant revels to you all ! 
 Ah, Duke ! — a word with you ! 
 
 {Courtiers give way.) 
 
 Thou hast seen, my Lauzun, 
 The new and fairest floweret of our court, 
 This youngest of the graces — sweet La Valliere, 
 Blushing beneath the world's admiring eyes ? 
 
 LAUZUN (aside.) 
 
 (So, so! — he's caught !)YourMajesty speaks warmly; 
 Your praise is just — and grateful — 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Grateful ? 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Ay. 
 
 Know you not, Sire, it is the jest, among 
 
28 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act i. 
 
 The pretty prattlers of the royal chamber, 
 That this young Dian of the woods has found 
 Endymion in a king, — a summer dream. 
 Bright, but with vestal fancies ! — scarcely love, 
 But that wild interval of hopes and fears 
 Through which the child glides, trembling, to the 
 woman ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Blest thought ! Oh what a picture of delight 
 Your words have painted ! — 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 While we speak, behold. 
 Through yonder alleys, with her sister planets, 
 Your moonlight beauty gleams. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Tis she ! — this shade 
 Shall hide us ! — quick — 
 
 [Enters one of the bosquets, 
 
 LAUZUN {following him.) 
 
 I trust my creditors 
 Will grow the merrier from this night's adventure ! 
 
 Enter Mademoiselle de la Valliere, and Maids of Honour. 
 
 FIRST MAID. 
 
 How handsome looks the Duke de Guiche to- 
 night ! 
 
SCENE v.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 29 
 
 SECOND MAID. 
 
 Well ! to my taste, the graceful Grammont bears 
 The bell from all !— 
 
 THIRD MAID. 
 
 But, then, that charming Lauzun 
 Has so much wit ! 
 
 FIRST MAID. 
 
 And which, of all these gallants, 
 May please the fair La Valli^re most ? 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 In truth 
 I scarcely marked them ; when the King is by, 
 Who can have eye, or ear, or thought for others ? 
 
 FIRST MAID. 
 
 You raise your fancies high ! 
 
 SECOND MAID. 
 
 And raise them vainly ! 
 The King disdains all love ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Who spoke of love ? 
 The sunflower, gazing on the Lord of heaven, 
 
30 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act i. 
 
 Asks but its sun to shine ! — Who spoke of love ? 
 And who would wish the bright and lofty Louis 
 To stoop from glory ? Love should not confound 
 So great a spirit with the herd of men. 
 Who spoke of love ? 
 
 FIRST MAID. 
 
 My country friend, you talk 
 Extremely well ; but some young lord will teach you 
 To think of Louis less, and more of love. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Nay, ev'n the very presence of his greatness 
 Exalts the heart from each more low temptation. 
 He seems to walk the earth as if to raise 
 And purify our wandering thoughts, by fixing 
 Thought on himself; — and she who thinks on Louis 
 Shuts out the world, and scorns the name of love ! 
 
 FIRST MAID. 
 
 Wait till you're tried — (Music.) 
 
 But, hark ! the music chides us 
 
 For wasting this most heavenly night so idly. 
 
 Come ! let us join the dancers. 
 
 [Exeunt Maids. 
 
 (As La Valliere follows, the King steals from the 
 bosquet, and takes her hand, while Lauzun re- 
 tires in the opposite direction.) 
 
SCENE v.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIl^RE. 31 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Sweet La Valli^re ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Ah!— 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Nay, fair lady, fly not, ere we welcome 
 Her who gives night its beauty ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Sire, permit me ! 
 My comrades wait me. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 What ! my loveliest subject 
 So soon a rebel ? Silent ! — Well, be mute, 
 And teach the world the eloquence of blushes. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 I may not listen — 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 What if / had set 
 Thyself the example ? What if I had hstened, 
 Veiled by yon friendly boughs, and dared to 
 
 dream 
 That one blest word which spoke of Louis absent 
 Might charm his presence, and make Nature 
 
 music ? 
 
32 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act i. 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 You did not, Sire ! you could not ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Could not hear thee, 
 Nor pine for these divine, unwitnessed moments, 
 To pray thee, dearest lady, to divorce 
 No more the thought of love from him who loves 
 
 thee, 
 And — faithful still to glory — swears thy heart 
 Unfolds the fairest world a king can conquer ! 
 Hear me, Louise ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 No, Sire ; forget those words ! 
 I am not what their foolish meaning spoke me, 
 But a poor simple girl, who loves her King, 
 And honour more ! Forget, and do not scorn me ! 
 
 [Eocit Mademoiselle de la Valliere. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Her modest coyness fires me more than all 
 Her half-unconscious and most virgin love. 
 
 {Enter Queen^ Churtiers, Ladies, Guests, ^c; Lauzun, 
 Grammont, and Montespan.) 
 
 Well, would the dancers pause awhile ? 
 
SCENE v.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 33 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 Ev'n pleasure 
 Wearies.at last. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 We've but to change its aspect, 
 And it resumes its freshness. — Ere the banquet 
 Calls us, my friends, we have prepared a game 
 To shame the lottery of this life, wherein 
 Each prize is neighboured by a thousand blanks. 
 Methinks it is the duty of a monarch 
 To set the balance right, and bid the wheel 
 Shower nought but prizes on the hearts he loves. 
 What ho, there ! with a merry music, raise 
 Fortune, to shew how Merit conquers Honours ! 
 
 Music, 
 {The pavilion at the back of the stage opens, and dis- 
 cover's the Temple of Fortune, superbly illuminated. 
 Fortune ; at her feet, a wheel of light ; at either 
 hand, a golden vase, over each of ivhich presides a 
 figure — the one representing Merit, the other 
 Honour.) 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Approach, fair dames and gallants ! Aye, as now, 
 
 May Fortune smile upon the friends of Louis. 
 
 {The Courtiers and ladies groupe around the vases. 
 
 From the one over which Merit presides they draw 
 
 lots, and receive in return from Honour various 
 
 gifts of jewels, ^c.) 
 
34 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act i. 
 
 {Enter Mademoiselle de la Valliere at the back of 
 the stage. The King joins and converses with her 
 in dumb show.) * 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 Now then for me I — 
 
 {Draws and receives a necklace.) 
 
 A very lovely trinket ! 
 
 LAUZUN {followed by an old Lady of the Court.) 
 
 Out on my stars ! — there is a dear old woman 
 Who takes my notes to Montespan's fair wife, 
 And wants a present ; if I give the ring 
 I drew, the haridan will play town-crier, 
 And all the Court will laugh at Lauzun's taste. 
 And take the wrinkled Mercury for my Venus. 
 Oho ! the Marquis ! 'faith I'll make him pay 
 My messenger to Madame. 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 How it glitters ! 
 Ten thousand crowns at least ! it sha'n't go under ! 
 
 LAUZUN {taking the necklace.) 
 
 Prithee, indulge me, Marquis ; tell me, now, 
 What would you do with this poor bauble ? 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 What? 
 Why, (let it be between us ! — not a word 
 To my dear wife !) I'll turn it into monies. 
 
\ 
 
 SCENE v.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 35 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Fie on you, Marquis, you disgrace our order ; 
 It ought to make your fortune as a man 
 Of taste and gallantry. 
 
 (Turns to Old Lady.) 
 
 Ah, Madame, see 
 What luck our Marquis has ! 
 
 OLD LADY. 
 
 Superb ! the first 
 Water ! 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 She has the water in her mouth ; 
 Liquorish old jade ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 What, you admire the toy ? 
 
 OLD LADY. 
 
 Nay, who would not ? 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 The Marquis begs you'll give it 
 The worth such trifles take when worn by beauty ! 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 I — I — I'm in despair ! Don't be so silly. 
 
 OLD LADY. 
 
 Sweet Marquis, you're too gallant. 
 
36 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act i. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Yes, he says, 
 He shall be in despair if you disdain it. 
 
 {Old Lady puts on the necklace , curtsies prof oundly to 
 Montespan, and retires.) 
 
 There, Marquis ; there, I've done it. 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 Done it ! ' yes ! 
 Nice doings ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Hush ! her great grand niece's cousin 
 Is aunt to the third cousin of a maid 
 Of honour to the Queen — you understand me ? 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 And what of that ? I drew a necklace, Sir, 
 Not that old woman's pedigree from Adam. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Your wit is dense to-night, my dearest Marquis ; 
 If you reflect, you'll see the Queen must hear of it. 
 
 MONTESPAN (softened.) 
 Aha ! I see, — the Queen will hear of it ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 And cry to Louis, ' What a generous man 
 Is that sweet Marquis !' 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 Well now, I'm enraptured! 
 
1^ SCENE v.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 37 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 {To Mademoiselle de la Valliere.) 
 
 Nay, if you smile not on me, then the scene 
 Hath lost its charm. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 O Sire, all eyes are on us ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 All eyes should learn where homage should be 
 rendered. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 I pray you. Sire — 
 
 THE QUEEN. 
 
 Will't please your Majesty 
 To try your fortune ? 
 
 (Looks scornfully at Mademoiselle de la Valliere.) 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Fortune ! Sweet La Valliere, 
 I only seek my fortune in thine eyes. 
 
 {Music, Louis draws, and receives a diamond bracelet. 
 Ladies crowd round.) 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 How beautiful ! 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 Each gem were worth a duchy ! 
 
38 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act i. 
 THIRD LADY. 
 
 Oh, happy she upon whose arm the King 
 Will bind the priceless band ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 {Approaching Mademoiselle de la Valliere,) 
 
 Permit me. Lady. 
 {Clasps the bracelet,) 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Well done — well play'd ! In that droll game call'd 
 
 Woman, 
 Diamonds are always trumps for hearts. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 Her hair's 
 Too light ! 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 Her walk is so provincial ! 
 
 THIRD LADY. 
 
 D'ye think she paints ? 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Ha ! ha ! What envious eyes, 
 What fawning smiles, await the King's new 
 Mistress ! 
 
 END OF THE FIRST ACT. ^ 
 
SCENE I.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 39 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 The Gardens of the Fontainehleau. 
 Enter Bragelone. 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Why did we suffer her to seek the court ? 
 
 It is a soil in which the reptile Slander 
 
 Still coils in slime around the fairest flower. 
 
 Can it be true ? — Strange rumours pierced my tent 
 
 Coupling her name with — pah ! — how foul the 
 
 thought is ! — 
 The maid the King loves ! — Fie ! I'll not believe it ! 
 I left the camp — sped hither : if she's lost, 
 Why then ! — down — down, base heart ! wouldst 
 
 thou suspect her ? 
 Thou — ^who shouldst be her shelter from suspicion ? 
 But I may warn, advise, protect, and save her — 
 Save — 'tis a fearful word ! 
 
40 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLI^RE. [act ii. 
 
 Enter Lauzun. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Lord Bragelone ! 
 Methought your warrior spirit never breathed 
 The air of palaces ! No evil tidings, 
 I trust, from Dunkirk ? 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 No . The Jleur- de- lis 
 Rears her white crest unstained. Mine own affairs 
 Call me to court. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Affairs ! I hate the word ; 
 It sounds like debts. 
 
 BRAGELONE {aside.) 
 
 This courtier may instruct me. 
 (Aloud.) Our King — he bears him well ? 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Oh, bravely, Marquis ; 
 -Engaged with this new palace of Versailles. 
 It costs some forty miUions ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Ay, the People 
 Groan at the burthen ! 
 
I 
 
 SCENE I.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 41 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 People ! — what's the People ? 
 I never heard that word at court ! — The People ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 I doubt not, Duke. The People, like the Air, 
 Is rarely heard, save when it speaks in thunder. 
 I pray you grace for that old-fashioned phrase. 
 What is the latest news ? 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 His majesty 
 Dines half an hour before his usual time. 
 That's the last news at court ! — it makes sensation ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Is there no weightier news ? I heard at Dunkirk 
 
 How the King loved a loved a certain maiden — 
 
 The brave La Valli^re's daughter! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 How, my Lord, 
 How can you vegetate in such a place ? 
 I fancy the next tidings heard at Dunkirk 
 Will be that— Adam's dead ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 The news is old, then? 
 
42 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act ii. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 News ! news, indeed ! Why, by this time, our 
 
 lackeys 
 Have worn the gossip threadbare ! News ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 The lady 
 (She is a soldier's child) hath not yet bartered 
 Her birthright for ambition ? She rejects him ? 
 Speak ! — She rejects him ? 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Humph ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Oh, Duke, I know 
 This courtier air — this most significant silence — 
 With which your delicate race are wont to lie 
 Away all virtue I Shame upon your manhood ! 
 Speak out, and say Louise la Valliere lives 
 To prove to courts — that woman can be honest ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Marquis, you're warm. 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 You dare not speak ! — I knew it ! 
 
 LAUZUN. ■ 
 
 Dare not ? 
 
SCENE I.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 43 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Oh, yes, you dare, with hints and smiles, 
 To darken fame — to ruin the defenceless — 
 Blight with a gesture — wither with a sneer ! 
 Did I say ' dare not ? ' — No man dares it better ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 My Lord, these words must pass not ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Duke, forgive me ! 
 I am a rough, stern soldier — taught from youth 
 To brave offence, and by the sword alone 
 Maintain the licence of my speech. Oh, say — 
 Say, but one word ! — say this poor maid is sinless. 
 And, for her father's sake — {her father loved me !) 
 I'll kneel to thee for pardon ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Good, my Lord, 
 I know not what your interest in this matter : 
 'Tis said that Louis loves the fair La Valli^re ; 
 But what of that ? — good taste is not a crime ! 
 'Tis said La Valli^re does not hate the King ; 
 But what of that ? — it does but prove her — loyal ! 
 I know no more. I trust you're satisfied ; 
 If not 
 
44 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act ii. 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Thou liest ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Nay, then, draw ! 
 {They fight — after a few passes, Lauzun is disarmed,) 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 There, take 
 Thy sword ! Alas ! each slanderer wears a weapon 
 No honest arm can baffle — this is edgeless. 
 
 [Eodt Bragelone. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Pleasant ! This comes, now, of one's condescending 
 To talk with men who cannot understand 
 The tone of good society. — Poor fellow ! 
 
 [Eodt Lauzun. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 Enter Mademoiselle de la Valliere. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 He loves me, then ! He loves me ! Love ! wild 
 
 word ! 
 Did I say love ? Dishonour, shame, and crime 
 Dwell on the thought ! And yet — and yet — he 
 
 loves me ! 
 
SCENE II.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 45 
 
 {Re-enter Bragelone, at the back of the stage. — She 
 takes out the King^s picture.) 
 
 Mine early dreams were prophets ! — Steps ! The 
 King? 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 No, lady ; pardon me ! — a joint mistake ; 
 
 You sought the King — and / Louise la Valli^re ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA* VALLIERE. 
 
 You here, my Lord ! — you here ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 There was a maiden 
 Fairer than many fair ; but sweet and humble, 
 And good and spotless, through the vale of life 
 She walked, her modest path with blessings strewed ; 
 (For all men bless'd her ;) from her crystal name, 
 Like the breath i' the mirror, even envy passed : 
 I sought that maiden at the court ; none knew her. 
 May I ask you — where now Louise la Valli^re ? 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Cruel ! — unjust ! — You were my father's friend, 
 Dare you speak thus to me ? 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Dare ! dare ! — 'Tis well ! 
 You have learnt your state betimes ! 
 
46 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act ii. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 My state, my Lord ! 
 I know not by what right you thus assume 
 The privilege of insult ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Ay, reproach ! 
 The harlot's trick — for shame ! Oh, no, your 
 
 pardon ! 
 You are too high for shame : and so — farewell ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 My Lord ! — my Lord, in pity — No ! — in justice. 
 Leave me not thus ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Louise ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLliilRE. 
 
 Have they belied me ? 
 Speak, my good Lord ! — What crime have I com- 
 mitted ? 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 No crime — at courts ! Tis only Heaven and 
 
 Honour 
 That deem it aught but — most admired good 
 
 fortune ! 
 Many, who swept in careless pride before 
 
SCENE II.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 47 
 
 The shrinking, spotless, timorous La ValH^re, 
 Will now fawn round thee, and with bended knees 
 Implore sweet favour of the King's kind mistress. 
 Ha ! ha ! — this is not crime ! Who calls it crime ? 
 Do prudes say * Crime ? ' Go, bribe them, and 
 
 they'll swear 
 Its name is greatness. Crime, indeed ! — ha ! ha ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 My heart finds words at length ! — 'Tis false ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Tis false ! 
 Why, speak again ! Say once more it is false — 
 ^Tis false ! — again, ^ tis false ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 O God, I'm wretched ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 No, lady, no ! not wretched, if not guilty ! 
 
 {Mademoiselle de la Valliere, after walking to and 
 fro in great agitation, seats herself on one of the 
 benches of the garden j and covers her face with 
 her hands.) 
 
 BRAGELONE (aside,) 
 
 Are these the tokens of remorse ? No matter 1 
 I loved her well ! — And love is pride, not love, 
 If it forsake ev'n guilt amidst its sorrows ! 
 
48 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act ii. 
 
 {Aloud.) 
 
 Louise ! Louise ! — Speak to thy friend, Louise ! 
 Thy father's friend ! — thine own ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 This hated court ! 
 Why came I hither ? — Wherefore have I closed 
 My heart against its own most pleading dictates ? 
 Why clung to virtue, if the brand of vice 
 Sear my good name ? — 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 That, when thou pray'st to God, 
 Thy soul may ask for comfort — not forgiveness •' 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLitiRE {rising eagerly.) 
 A blessed thought ! — I thank thee ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Thou art innocent ! 
 Thou hast denied the King ? 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIIIRE. 
 
 I have denied him ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Curs'd be the lies that wrong'd thee ! — doubly curst 
 The hard, the icy selfishness of soul, 
 That, but to pander to an hour's caprice. 
 Blasted that flower of life — fair fame ! Accurst 
 The King who casts his purple o'er his vices ! 
 
SCENE II.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 49 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Hold ! — thou malign'st thy king ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 He spared not thee ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 The king — God bless him ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Woiildst thou madden me ? 
 Thou! — No — thou lov'st him not? — thou hid'st 
 
 thy face ! 
 Woman, thou tremblest ! Lord of Hosts, for this 
 Hast thou preserved me from the foeman's sword, 
 And through the incarnadined and raging seas 
 Of war upheld my steps ? — made hfe and soul 
 The sleepless priests to that fair idol — Honour ? 
 Was it for this ? — I loved thee not, Louise, 
 As gallants love ! Thou wert this life's ideal, 
 Breathing through earth the Lovely and the Holy, 
 And clothing Poetry in human beauty ! 
 When in this gloomy world they spoke of sin, 
 I thought of thee, and smiled — for thou wert sinless ! 
 And when they told of some diviner act 
 That made our nature noble, my heart whispered — 
 * So would have done Louise ! * — 'Twas thus I loved 
 
 thee ! 
 
50 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act ii. 
 
 To lose thee, I can bear it ; but to lose, 
 With thee, all hope, all confidence, of virtue — 
 This — this is hard ! — Oh ! I am sick of earth ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Nay, speak not thus ! — be gentle with me. Come, 
 I am not what thou deem'st me, Bragelone ; 
 Woman I am, and weak. Support, advise me I 
 Forget the lover, but be still the friend. 
 Do not desert me — thou ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Thou lov'st the King ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 But T can fly from love ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Poor child ! And whither ? 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Take me to the old castle, to my mother ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 The king can reach thee there ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 He'll not attempt it. 
 Alas ! in courts, how quickly men forget ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Not till their victim hath surrendered all ! 
 Hadst thou but yielded, why thou mightst have 
 lived 
 
SCENE II.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 51 
 
 Beside his very threshold, safe, unheeded ; 
 
 But thus, with all thy bloom of heart unrifled, — 
 
 The fortress stormed, not conquered, — why man's 
 
 pride, 
 If not man's lust, would shut thee from escape ! 
 Art thou in earnest, — wouldst thou truly fly 
 From gorgeous infamy to tranquil honour, 
 God's house alone may shelter thee ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 The convent ! 
 Alas ! alas ! to meet those eyes no more ! 
 Never to hear that voice ! 
 
 BRAGELONE {departing,) 
 Enough. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Yet, stay 1 
 I'll see him once ! one last farewell — and then — 
 Yes, to the convent ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 I have done ! — and yet, 
 Ere I depart, take back the scarf thou gav'st me. 
 Then didst * thou honour worth ! ' now, gift and 
 
 giver 
 Alike are worthless ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Worthless ! Didst thou hear me ? 
 Have I not said that 
 
 E 2 
 
52 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act ii. 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Thou wouldst see the King ! 
 Vice first, and virtue after ! O'er the marge 
 Of the abyss thou tremblest ! One step more, 
 And from all heaven the Angels shall cry ' Lost ." 
 Thou ask'st that single step ! Wouldst thou be 
 
 saved. 
 Lose not a moment ! — Come ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE {in great agouy.) 
 
 Beside that tree. 
 When stars shone soft, he vowed for aye to love 
 me ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Think of thy mother ! At this very hour 
 She blesses God that thou wert born — the last 
 Fair scion of a proud and stainless race ! 
 To-morrow, and thy shame may cast a shade 
 Over a hundred 'scutcheons, and thy mother 
 Feel thou wert born that she might long to die ! 
 Come ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 I am ready — take my hand ! 
 (Her eye falls on the bracelet.) 
 
 Away ! 
 This is his gift ! And shall I leave him thus ? 
 Not one kind word to break the shock of parting — 
 
SCENE II.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIEUE. 53 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 And break a mother's heart ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Be still ! Thou'rt man ! 
 Thou canst not feel as woman feels ! — her weakness 
 Thou canst not sound ! O Louis, Heaven protect 
 
 thee! 
 May Fate look on thee with La Valliere's eyes ! 
 Now I am ready, sir ! Thou'st seen how weak 
 Woman is ever where she loves. Now, learn, 
 Proportioned to that weakness is the strength 
 With which she conquers love ! — O Louis ! Louis ! 
 Quick ! take me hence ! — 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 The heart she wrongs hath saved her ! 
 And is that all ! — The shelter for mine age — 
 The Hope that was the garner for Affection — 
 The fair and lovely tree, beneath whose shade 
 The wearied soldier thought to rest at last, 
 And watch life's sun go calm and cloudless down, 
 Smiling the day to sleep — all, all lie shattered ! 
 No matter ! I have saved thy soul from sorrow, 
 Whose hideous depth thy vision cannot fathom. 
 Joy ! — I have saved thee ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Ah ! when last we parted, 
 I told thee, of thy love I was not worthy. 
 Another shall replace me ! 
 
54 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act ii. 
 
 BR AGE LONE (smiUng sadly.) 
 
 Hush ! Another ! 
 No ! — See, I wear thy colours still ! — ^Though Hope 
 Wanes from the plate, the dial still remains, 
 And takes no light from stars ! I — I am nothing ! 
 But thou — Nay, weep not ! Yet these tears are 
 
 honest : 
 Thou hast not lived to make the Past one blot, 
 Which life in vain would weep away ! Poor maiden ! 
 I could not cheer thee then. Now, joy ! — I've 
 saved thee ! 
 [Exeunt Mademoiselle de la Valliere and Bragelone. 
 
 SCENE m. 
 
 The King's Cabinet at Fontainebleau ;* the King 
 seated at a table, covered with papers, Sfc, writing. 
 
 Enter Lauzun. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Lauzun, I sent for you. Your zeal has served me, 
 
 * To some it may be interesting to remember that this 
 cabinet, in which the most powerful of the Bourbon kings 
 is represented as rewarding the minister of his pleasures, is the 
 same as that in which is yet shewn the table upon which 
 Napoleon Bonaparte (son of a gentleman of Corsica) signed 
 he abdication of the titles and the dominions of Charlemagne ! 
 
SCENE III.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 55 
 
 And I am grateful. There, this order gives you 
 The lands and lordship of De Vesci. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Sire, 
 How shall I thank your goodness ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Hush ! — by silence ! 
 LAUZUN (aside,) 
 A king's forbidden fruit has pretty windfalls ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 This beautiful Louise ! I never loved 
 Till now. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 She yields not yet ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 But gives refusal 
 A voice that puts ev'n passion to the blush 
 To own one wish so soft a heart denies it ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 A woman's No ! is but a crooked path 
 Unto a woman's Yes ! Your Majesty 
 Saw her to-day ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 No ! — Grammont undertakes 
 
56 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act ii. 
 
 To bear, in secret, to her hand, some hnes 
 That pray a meeting. — I await his news. 
 
 {Continues writing.) 
 
 LAuzuN {aside.) 
 
 ril not relate my tilt with Bragelone. 
 
 First, I came off the worst. — No man of sense 
 
 Ever confesses that ! And, secondly. 
 
 This most officious, curious, hot-brained Quixote 
 
 Might make him jealous; jealous kings are peevish ; 
 
 And, if he fall to questioning the lady, 
 
 She'll learn who told the tale, and spite the teller. 
 
 Oh ! the great use of logic ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 'Tis in vain 
 
 I strive by business to beguile impatience ! 
 How my heart beats ! — Well, Count ! 
 
 Ente?' Grammont. 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 Alas ! my Liege ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Alas !— Speak out ! 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 The court has lost La Valliere ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Ha !— lost ! 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 She has fled, and none guess whither. 
 
SCENE iiL] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 57 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Fled! 
 
 ril not believe it !— Fled ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 What matters, Sire ? 
 No spot is sacred from the king ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 By Heaven 
 I am a king 1 — Not all the arms of Europe 
 Could wrest one jewel from my crown. And she — 
 What is my crow^n to her ? I am a king ! 
 Who stands between the king and her he loves 
 Becomes a traitor — and may find a tyrant ! 
 Follow me ! [Eodt Louis, 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 Who e'er heard of maids of honour 
 Flying from kings ? 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Ah, had you been a maid, 
 How kind you would have been, you rogue ! — 
 Come on ! 
 
 [Exeunt Lauzun and Grammont. 
 
58 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act ii. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 Interior of a Convent Chapel ; a lofty Crucifix in the 
 centre of the aisle, before ivhich kneels Mademoiselle 
 de la Valliere ; Night — Thunder and Lightning, the 
 latter made visible through the long oriel windows. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE {rising.) 
 
 Darkly the night sweeps on. No thought of sleep 
 Steals to my heart. What sleep is to the world 
 Prayer is to me — life's balm, and griefs oblivion ! 
 Yet, ev'n before the altar of my God, 
 Unhallowed lire is raging through my veins — 
 Heav'n on my lips, but earth within my heart — 
 And while I pray his memory prompts the prayer, 
 And all I ask of Heaven is — ' Guard my Louis !' 
 Forget him — that I dare not pray 1 I would not 
 Ev'n if I could, be happy, and forget him ! 
 
 [Thunder, 
 Roll on, roll on, dark chariot of the storm. 
 Whose wheels are thunder ! — the rack'd elements 
 Can furnish forth no tempest like the war 
 Of passions in one weak and erring heart ! 
 
 [The bell tolls one. 
 
SCENE IV.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 59 
 
 Hark to night's funeral knell ! How through the 
 
 roar 
 Of winds and thunder thrills that single sound, 
 Solemnly audible ! — the tongue of time, 
 In time's most desolate hour ! — it bids us muse 
 On worlds which love can reach not ! Life runs fast 
 To its last sands ! To bed, to bed ! — to tears 
 And Avishes for the grave ! — to bed, to bed ! 
 
 [A trumpet is heard without. 
 Two or three Nuns hurry across the stage, 
 
 FIRST NUN. 
 
 Most strange ! 
 
 SECOND NUN. 
 
 In such a night, too ! The great gates, 
 That ne'er unclose save to a royal guest, 
 Unbarred ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 What fear, what hope, by turns distracts me ! 
 [The trumpet sounds again. 
 
 FIRST NUN. 
 
 Hark ! in the court, the ring of hoofs ! — the door 
 Creaks on the sullen hinge ! 
 
 LAuzuN (ivithout.) 
 
 Make way ! — the King ! 
 
60 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act ii. 
 
 Enter Louis and Lauzun. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE {ruslimg foTWard.) 
 
 Oh, Louis ! — oh, belov'd ! {Then pausing abruptly.) 
 
 No, touch me not ! 
 Leave me ! in pity leave me ! Heavenly Father, 
 I fly to thee ! Protect me from his arms — 
 Protect me from myself ! 
 
 [Sinks at the foot of the crucifix. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Oh bliss ! — Louise 1 
 Enter Abbess and other Nuns. 
 
 ABBESS. 
 
 Peace, peace ! What clamour desecrates the shrine 
 And solitudes of God ? 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Madam, your knee — 
 The King ! 
 
 ABBESS. 
 
 The King ! — you mock me, sir ! 
 
 LOUIS {quitting Mademoiselle de la Valliere.) 
 
 Behold 
 Your Sovereign, reverend Mother ! We have come 
 To thank you for your shelter of this lady, 
 And to reclaim our charge. 
 
SCENE iv.l THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. Gl 
 
 ABBESS. 
 
 My Liege, these walls 
 Are sacred even from the purple robe 
 And sceptred hand. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 She hath not ta*en the vow ! 
 She's free ! — we claim her ! — she is of our court ! 
 Woman, — go to ! 
 
 ABBESS. 
 
 The maiden, Sire, is free ! 
 Your royal lips have said it ! — She is free ! 
 And if this shrine her choice, whoe'er compels her 
 Forth from the refuge, doth incur the curse 
 The Roman Church awards to even Kings ! 
 Speak, lady ! — dost thou claim against the court 
 The asylum of the cloister ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Darest thou brave us ? 
 
 LAUzuN {aside to Louis.) 
 Pardon, my Liege ! — reflect 1 Let not the world 
 Say that the king — 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 . Can break his bonds ! — Away ! 
 I was a man before I was a king ! 
 
 (Approaching Mademoiselle de la Vallih^e.) 
 
62 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act ii. 
 
 Lady, we do command your presence ! (Lowering 
 
 his voice.) Sweet ! 
 Adored Louise ! — if ever to your ear 
 My whispers spoke in music — if my life 
 Be worth the saving, do not now desert me ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE {dinging to the 
 crucifix,) 
 
 Let me not hear him, Heaven ! — Strike all my 
 
 senses ! 
 Make — make me dumb, deaf, blind, — but keep me 
 
 honest ! 
 
 ABBESS. 
 
 Sire, you have heard her answer ! 
 
 LOUIS {advancing passionately, pauses^ and then with 
 great dignity,) 
 
 Abbess, no ! 
 This lady was entrusted to our charge — 
 A fatherless child ! — The King is now her father ! 
 Madam, we would not wrong you ; but we know 
 That sometimes most unhallowed motives wake 
 Your zeal for converts ! — This young maid is 
 
 wealthy, 
 And nobly born ! — Such proselytes may make 
 A convent's pride, but oft a convent's victims ! 
 No more ! — we claim the right the law awards us, 
 Free and alone to commune with this maiden. 
 
SCENE IV.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLlfeRE. 63 
 
 If then her choice go with you — be it so ; 
 We are no tyrant ! Peace ! — retire ! 
 
 Forgive- 
 
 ABBESS. 
 
 My Liege ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 We do '.—Retire ! 
 {Lauzun, the Abbess, iSfc, withdraw,) 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 We are alone ! 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Alone ! — No ! God is present, and the conscience ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Ah ! fear'st thou, then, that heart that would resign 
 Ev'n love itself to guard one pang from thee ? 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE (rising, but StUl 
 
 with one arm clinging to the crucifix.) 
 I must speak ! — Sire, if every drop of blood 
 Were in itself a hfe, I'd shed them all 
 For one hour's joy to thee! — But fame and virtue — 
 My father's grave — my mother's lonely age — 
 These, these — 
 
 {Thunder.) 
 I hear their voice ■ — the fires of Heaven 
 Seem to me like the eyes of angels, and 
 Warn me against myself! — Farewell ! 
 
64 THE DUCHESS DE LA V ALLIERE. [act ii. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Louise, 
 I will not hear thee ! What ! farewell ? that word 
 Sounds like a knell to all that's worth the living ! 
 Farewell ! why, then, farewell all peace to Louis 
 And the poor King is once more but a thing 
 Of state and forms. The impulse and the passion — 
 The blessed air of happy human life — 
 The all that made him envy not his subjects 
 Dies in that word ! Ah, canst thou — dar'st thou 
 say it ? 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIEiRF. 
 
 Oh, speak not thus! — Speak harshly! — threat: 
 
 command ! — 
 Be all the King 1 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 The King 1 he kneels to thee ! 
 [Lightning. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Not there ! — not at the cross ! — the angry lightning, 
 See how it darts around ! — not there ! 
 
 LOUIS (passing his arm round her.) 
 
 So ever 
 Would this heart guard thine own ! 
 
SCENE IV.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 65 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 In mercy leave me ! 
 I'm weak — be generous ! My own soul betrays me ; 
 But thou betray me not ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Nay, hear me, sweet one ! — 
 Desert me not this once, and I will swear 
 To know no guiltier wish — to curb my heart — 
 To banish hope from love — and nurse no dream 
 Thy spotless soul itself shall blush to cherish ? 
 Hear me, Louise — thou lov'st me ? 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Love thee, Louis ! 
 
 LOUIS, 
 
 Thou lov'st me, — then confide ! Who loves, trusts 
 ever ! 
 {Mademoiselle de la Valliere has insensibly let go her 
 hold of the cross, and now placing her hand on his 
 arm J looks him in the face.) 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIIiRE. 
 
 Trust thee !— ah ! dare I ? 
 
 LOUIS {clasping her in his arms.) 
 
 Ay, till death ! What ho ! 
 Lauzun ! I say ! 
 
66 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act ii. 
 
 Enter Lauzun. 
 
 MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 {Endeavouring again to cling to the cross.) 
 No, no ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Not trust me, dearest ? 
 {She falls on his shoulder — the Abbess andNuns advance.) 
 
 ABBESS. 
 
 Still firm ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 No, Madam ! — Way, there, for the King ! 
 
 END OF ACT II, 
 
scENK I,] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 67 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 An Ante- Chamber in the Palace of Madame la Duchesse 
 de la Valliere at Versailles, 
 
 Enter Lauzun and Madame de Montespan, at opposite 
 
 doors. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Ha ! my fair friend, well met ! — how fares Athen^ ? 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Weary with too much gaiety ! Now, tell me. 
 Do you ne'er tire of splendor ? Does this round 
 Of gaudy pomps — this glare of ghtt 'ring no things — 
 Does it ne'er pall upon you ? To my eyes 
 'Tis as the earth would be if turfed with scarlet, 
 Without one spot of green. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 We all feel thus 
 Until we are used to it. Art has grown my nature, 
 
 F 2 
 
68 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act tit. 
 
 And if I see green fields, or ill-dressed people, 
 I cry ' how artificial !' With me, * Nature' 
 Is ' Paris and Versailles.' The word, ' a man,' 
 Means something noble, that one sees at court. 
 Woman's the thing Heaven made for wearing 
 
 trinkets 
 And talking scandal. That's my state of nature ! 
 You'll like it soon ; you have that temper which 
 Makes courts its element. 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 And how ? — define, Sir. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 First, then — but shall I not offend ? 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Be candid. 
 I'd know my faults, to make them look like virtues. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 First, then, Athene, you've an outward frankness. 
 Deceit in you looks honester than truth. 
 Thoughts, at a court, like faces on the stage. 
 Require some rouge. You rouge your thoughts 
 
 so well 
 That one would deem their only fault, that nature 
 Gave them too bright a bloom ! 
 
I 
 
 SCENE I.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 69 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Proceed ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Your wit, 
 Is of the true court breed — it plays with nothings ; 
 Just bright enough to warm, but never bum — 
 Excites the dull, but ne'er offends the vain. 
 You have much energy ; it looks like feeling 1 
 Your cold ambition seems an easy impulse ; 
 Your head most ably counterfeits the heart. 
 But never, like the heart, betrays itself ! 
 Oh ! you'll succeed at court ! — you see I know 
 
 you! 
 Not so this new-made Duchess — young La Valli^re. 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 The weak, fond, fool ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Yes, weak — she has a heart ; 
 Yet you, too, love the King ! 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 And she does not ! 
 She loves but Louis — I but love the King : 
 Pomp, riches, state, and power — these who would 
 love not ? 
 
70 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act uu 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Bravo ! well said ! — Oh, you'll succeed at court ! 
 
 I knew it well ! it was for this I chose you — 
 
 Induced your sapient lord to waste no more 
 
 Your beauty in the shade — for this prepared 
 
 The Duchess to receive you to her bosom, 
 
 Her dearest friend ; for this have duly fed 
 
 The King's ear with your praise, and cleared your 
 
 way 
 To rule a sovereign and to share a throne. 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 I know thou hast been my architect of power ; 
 And, when the pile is built — 
 
 LAUZUN (with a smile.) 
 
 Could still o'erthrow it, 
 If thou couldst play the ingrate ! 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 I ! — nay ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Hear me! 
 Each must have need of each. Long live the King ! 
 Still let his temples ache beneath the crown. 
 But all that kings can give — wealth, rank, and 
 
 power — 
 Must be for us — the King's friend and his favourite. 
 
SCENE I.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLlfiRE. 71 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 But is it easy to supplant the Duchess ? 
 All love La Valliere ! Her meek nature shrinks 
 Ev'n from our homage ; and she wears her state 
 As if she pray'd the world to pardon greatness. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 And thus destroys herself ! At court, Athen^, 
 Vice, to win followers, takes the front of virtue, 
 And looks the dull plebeian things called moral 
 To scorn, until they blush to be unlike her. 
 Why is De Lauzun not her friend ? Why plotting 
 For a new rival ? Why ? — Because De Lauzun . 
 Wins not the power he looked for from her friend- 
 ship ! 
 She keeps not old friends ! — and she makes no new 
 
 ones ! 
 For who would be a friend to one who deems it 
 A crime to ask his Majesty a favour ? 
 * Friends' is a phrase at Court that means Pro- 
 motion f 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Her folly, I confess, would not be mine. 
 But, grant her faults — the King still loves the 
 Duchess ! 
 
72 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act hi. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Since none are by, I'll venture on a treason, 
 
 And say, the King's a man ! — and men will 
 
 change ! 
 I have his ear, and you shall win his eye. 
 'Gainst a new face, and an experienced courtier. 
 What chance hath this poor, loving, simple woman ? 
 Besides, she has too much conscience for a king ! 
 He likes not to look up> and feel how low, 
 Ev'n on the throne that overlooks the world, 
 His royal greatness dwarfs beside that heart 
 That never stooped to sin, save when it loved him ! 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 You're eloquent, my Lord ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Ah ! of such natures 
 You and I know but little ! — {Aside.) This must 
 
 cease. 
 Or I shall all disclose my real aims ! 
 (Aloud,) The King is with the Duchess ? 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Yes ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 As yet 
 She doth suspect you not? 
 
SCENE I.J THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 73 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Suspect ! — the puppet ! 
 No ; but full oft, her head upon my bosom, 
 Calls me her truest friend ! — invites me ever 
 To amuse the King with my enhvening sallies, — 
 And still breaks off, in sighing o'er the past, 
 To wish her spirit were as blithe as mine^ 
 And fears her Louis wearies of her sadness ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 So, the plot ripens ! — ere the King came hither, 
 I had prepared his royal pride to chafe 
 At that sad face, whose honest sorrow wears 
 Reproach unconsciously ! You'll learn the issue ! 
 Now, then, farewell ! — we understand each other ! 
 
 [Exit Lauzun. 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 And once I loved this man ! — and still might love 
 
 him, 
 But that I love ambition 1 Yes, my steps 
 Now need a guide ; but once upon the height. 
 And I will have no partner ! Thou, lord Duke, 
 With all thine insolent air of proud protection. 
 Thou shalt wait trembling on my nod, and bind 
 Thy fortune to my wheels ! O man ! — vain man ! 
 Well sung the poet, — when this power of beauty 
 
74 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act hi. 
 
 Heaven gave our sex, it gave the only sceptre 
 Which makes the world a slave ! And I will 
 wield it I 
 
 [Exit Madame de Montespan. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 The Scene opens and discovers the King and the Duchess 
 de la Valliere at chess, 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 But one move more ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Not SO ! I check the king ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 A vain attempt ! — the king is too well guarded I 
 There, — check again ! Your game is lost 1 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 As usual, 
 Ev'n from this mimic stage of war you rise 
 Ever the victor. 
 
 {They leave the table and advance,) 
 
SCENE II.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 75 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 'Twere a fairer fortune, 
 My own Louise, to reconcile the vanquished ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE (sadly.) 
 
 My best-loved Louis ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Why SO sad a tone ? 
 Nay, smile, Louise ! — love thinks himself aggrieved 
 If care cast shadows o'er the heart it seeks 
 To fill with cloudless sunshine ! Smile, Louise ! 
 Ev'n unkind words were kinder than sad looks. 
 There — now thou glad'st me ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Yet ev'n thou, methought, 
 Did'st wear, this morn, a brow on which the light 
 Shone less serenely than its wont ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 This morn ! 
 Ay, it is true ! — this morn I heard that France 
 Hath lost a subject monarchs well might mourn ! 
 Oh ! little know the world how much a king. 
 Whose life is past in purchasing devotion. 
 Loses in one who merited all favour 
 And scorned to ask the least ! A king, Louise, 
 Sees but the lackeys of mankind. The true 
 Lords of our race — the high chivalric hearts — 
 
76 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act hi. 
 
 Nature's nobility — alas ! are proud, 
 
 And stand aloof, lest slaves should say they flatter ! 
 
 Of such a mould was he whom France deplores. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Tell me his name^ that I, with thee, may mourn 
 him. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 A noble name, but a more noble bearer ; 
 Not to be made by, but to make, a lineage. 
 Once, too, at Dunkirk, 'twixt me and the foe, 
 He thrust his gallant breast, already seared 
 With warrior- wounds, and his blood flowed for 
 
 mine. 
 Dead ! — his just merits all unrecompensed ! — 
 Obscured, like sun-light, by the suppliant clouds ! 
 He should have died a marshal ! Death did wrong 
 To strike so soon ! Alas, brave Bragelone ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Ha ! — did I hear aright, my Liege — my Louis ? 
 That name — that name ! — thou saidst not ' Brage- 
 lone r 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Such was his name, not often heard at court. 
 Thou didst not know him ? What ! thou art pale ! 
 
 thou weepest ! — 
 Thou art ill ! Louise, look up ! 
 
 [He leads her to a seat. 
 
SCENE II.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLI£RE. 77 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Be Still, O Conscience ! 
 I did not slay him ! — Died too soon I Alas ! 
 He should have died with all his hopes unblighted, 
 Ere I was — what I am ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 What mean these words ? 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 How did death strike him ? — what disease ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 I know not. 
 He had retired from service ; and in peace 
 Breathed out his soul to some remoter sky ! 
 France only guards his fame ! What was he to 
 
 thee 
 That thou shouldst weep for him ? 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Hast thou ne'er heard 
 We were betrothed in youth ? 
 
 LOUIS {agitated and aside.) 
 
 Lauzun speaks truth ! 
 I'd not her virgin heart — she lov'd another ! 
 {Aloud.) Betrothed ! You mourn him deeply ! 
 
78 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act hi. 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Sire, I do ! 
 That broken heart ! — I was its dream — its idol 1 
 And with regret is mingled — what repentance ! 
 
 LOUIS {coldly.) 
 Repentance, Madam ! Well, the word is gracious ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Pardon ! oh, pardon ! But the blow was sudden ; 
 How can the heart play courtier with remorse ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Remorse ! — again. Why be at once all honest, 
 And say you love me not ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Not love you, Louis ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Not if you feel repentance to have loved ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 What ! think'st thou, Louis, I should love thee more 
 Did I love virtue less, or less regret it ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 I pray you truce with these heroic speeches ; 
 They please us in romance — in life they weary. 
 
SCENE II.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 79 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Louis, do I deserve this ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Rather, Lady, 
 Do I deserve the mute reproach of sorrow ? 
 Still less these constant, never-soothed complaints — 
 This waiting- woman jargon of ' lost virtue.' 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Sire, this from you ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Why, oft — could others hear thee — 
 Well might they deem thee some poor village 
 
 Phoebe, 
 Whom her false Lubin had deceived, and left, 
 Robb'd of her only dower ! and not the great 
 Duchess la Valli^re, in our realm of France 
 Second to none but our anointed race ; 
 The. envy of the beauty and the birth 
 Of Europe's court — our city of the world ! 
 Is it so great disgrace, Louise la Valhere, 
 To wear, unrivalled, in thy breast, the heart 
 Of Bourbon's latest, nor her least, of Kings. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Sire, when you deigned to love me, I had hoped 
 You knew the sunshine of your royal favour 
 
80 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act hi. 
 
 Had fallen on a lowly flower. Let others 
 Deem that the splendor consecrates the sin ! 
 I'd loved thee with as pure and proud a love, 
 If thou hadst been the poorest cavalier 
 That ever served a King — thou know'st it, Louis ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 I would not have it so ! my fame, my glory, 
 
 The purple and the orb, are part of me ; 
 
 And thou shouldst love them for my sake, and feel 
 
 I were not Louis were I less the King. 
 
 Still weeping ! Fie ! I tell thee tears freeze back 
 
 The very love I still would bear to thee ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Would * still .''-—didst thou say ' still r 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Come, lady ! 
 Woman, to keep her empire o'er the heart. 
 Must learn its nature — mould unto its bias — 
 And rule, by never differing from our humours. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 I'll school my features, teach my lips to smile, 
 Be all thou wilt ; but say not ' ^^i//,' dear Louis ! 
 
SCENE II.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 81 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Well, well ! no further words ; let peace be with us. 
 
 (Aside.) 
 By Heaven, she weeps with yet intenser passion ! 
 It must be that she loved this Bragelone, 
 And mourns the loftier fate that made, her mine ! 
 
 (Aloud.) 
 This gallant soldier, Madam, your betrothed, 
 Hath some share in your tears ? 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Oh, name him not ; 
 My tears are all unworthy dews to fall 
 Upon a tomb so honoured ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Grant me patience ! 
 These scenes are very tedious, fair La ValHere. 
 In truth, we kings have, in the council chamber, 
 Enough to make us tearful ; — in the bower 
 We would have livelier subjects to divert us. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Again forgive me ! I am sick at heart ; 
 
 I pray you pardon ; — these sad news have marred 
 
 The music of your presence, and have made me 
 
 Fit but for solitude. I pray you, Sire, 
 
 Let me retire ; and when again I greet you, 
 
 ril wear the mien you'd have me 1 
 
 G 
 
82 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act iii. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Be it so ! 
 Let me no more disturb you from your thoughts ; 
 They must be sad. So brave — and your betrothed ! 
 Your grief becomes you. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 You forgive me, Louis ? 
 We do not part unkindly ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Fair one, no ! 
 
 [Exit La VaUiere. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 She was my first love, and my fondest. — Was ! 
 Alas, the word must come ! — I love her yet, 
 But love wanes glimmering to that twilight — friend- 
 ship ! 
 Grant that she never loved this Bragelone ; 
 Still, tears and sighs make up dull interludes 
 In passion's short-lived drama ! She is good, 
 Gentle, and meek, — and I do think she loves me, 
 (A truth no King is sure of!) — But, in fine, 
 I have begun to feel the hours are long 
 Pass'd in her presence ; what I hotly sought 
 Coldly I weary of. I'll seek De Lauzun : 
 I like his wit — I almost like his knavery ; 
 
SCENE III.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 83 
 
 It never makes us yawn, like high-flown virtues. 
 Thirst, hunger, rest — these are the wants of pea- 
 sants : 
 A courtier's wants are titles, place, and gold ; 
 But a poor king, who has these wants so sated, 
 Has only one want left — to be amused ! 
 
 [Exit Louis. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 Re-enter the Duchess de la Valliere. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Louis ! dear Louis 1 — Gone ! alas ! — and left me 
 Half in displeasure ! — I was wrong, methinks. 
 To — no ! — I was not wrong io feel remorse. 
 But wrong to give it utterance ! 
 
 Enter Madame de Montespan. 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 What ! alone, 
 Fair friend ? I thought the King 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Has gone, in anger ; 
 
 Cold, and in anger. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act hi. 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 What, with thee, dear Lady ? 
 On the smooth surface of that angel meekness 
 I should have thought no angry breath could linger. 
 But men and kings are 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Hush ! I was to blame. 
 The King's all goodness. Shall I write to him ? 
 Letters have not our looks — and, oh, one look ! 
 How many hardest hearts one look hath won 
 A life consumed in words had wooed in vain ! 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 To-night there is high revel at the court ; 
 There you may meet your truant King. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 To-night ! 
 An age ! — How many hours to night ? 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 You know 
 My office makes my home the royal palace ; 
 I serve the Queen, and thus shall see your Louis 
 Ere the sun set. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 You ! — happy you ! 
 
SCENE III.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 85 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Perchance, 
 (The King is ever gracious to your friends, 
 And knows me of the nearest,) I might whisper, 
 Though with less sweet a tone, your message to 
 
 him, 
 And be your dove, and bear you back the oUve ? 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 My kind Athen^ ! 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Nay, 'tis yours the kindness. 
 To wear my love so near your heart. But, tell me. 
 Since you accept my heraldry, the cause 
 Of strife between you in this court of Love. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Alas ! I know not — save that I offended ! 
 
 The wherefore boots the heart that loves to know ? 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Not much, I own, the poor defendant — woman. 
 But much the advocate ; I need the brief. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Methinks his kingly nature chafes to see 
 It cannot rule the conscience as the heart ; 
 
86 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act hi. 
 
 But, tell him, ever henceforth I will keep 
 
 Sad thoughts for lonely hours. — Athene, tell him, 
 
 That if he smile once more upon Louise, 
 
 The smile shall never pass from that it shines on ; 
 
 Say — but I'll write myself. 
 
 (^Sits down to the table and writes J 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN (aside.) 
 
 What need of schemes — 
 Lauzun's keen wit — Athene's plotting spirit ? 
 She weaves herself the web that shall ensnare her ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 There ; back these feeble words with all thy beauty. 
 Thy conquering eyes, and thy bewitching smile. 
 Sure never suit can fail with such a pleader ! 
 And now a little while to holier sadness, 
 And thine accusing memory, Bragelone ! 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Whom speak you of ? — the hero of the Fronde ? 
 Who seemed the last of the old Norman race. 
 And half preserved to this degenerate age 
 The lordly shape the ancient Bayards wore ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 You praise him well ! He was my father's friend, 
 And should have been his son. We were affianced, 
 
SCENE III.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 87 
 
 And — but no more ! Ah ! cruel, cruel Louis ! 
 You mourned for him — how much more cause 
 have I ! 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN (quicMy.) 
 
 What ! he is dead ? your grief the king resented ? 
 Knew he your troth had thus been plighted ? 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Yes; 
 And still he seemed to deem it sin to mourn him ! 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN {CLSlde.) 
 
 A clue — another clue — that I will follow, 
 
 Until it lead me to the throne ! — {Aloud.) Well, 
 
 cheer thee; 
 Trust your true friend ; rely on my persuasion. 
 Me thinks I never tasked its powers till now. 
 Farewell, and fear not ! Oh ! I'll plead your cause, 
 As if myself the client! — {Aside.) Thou art sentenced! 
 
 [Exit Madame de Montespan. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 'Tis a sweet solace still to have a friend — 
 A friend in woman ! Oh, to what a reed 
 We bind our destinies, when man we love ! 
 Peace, honour, conscience lost — if I lose him. 
 What have I left ? How sinks my heart within me ! 
 
88 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act hi. 
 
 I'll to my chamber ; there the day of tears 
 Learns night to smile ! — And Fm the thing they 
 
 envy l^ 
 
 [JEixit Duchess de la Valliere. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 The Gardens of Versailles — Lauzun, Grammont^ 
 and Courtiers. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 'Tis now the hour in which our royal master 
 Honours the ground of his rejoicing gardens 
 By his illustrious footsteps ! — there, my lords, 
 That is the true style-courtier ! 
 
 * In representation, the actress who may perform the 
 Duchess de la Valliere will pardon me for observing, that 
 the words in italics should be said, not ironically, but with 
 a kind of sad and patient wonder. She should appear lost in 
 amazed abstraction at the contrast between her real feelings 
 and the envy she excites, and wake from it with a slight start 
 and smile. And, in one word, now that I am on that subject, 
 the actress should remember that the very soul of La Valliere's 
 character is simplicity ; and that there are few passages in 
 which the natural tone of voice will not be more suitable and 
 more effective than the declamatory. 
 
SCENE IV.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 89 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 Out upon you ! 
 Your phrase would suit some little German prince, 
 Of fifteen hundred quarterings and five acres, 
 And not the world's great Louis ! 'Tis the hour 
 When Phoebus shrinks abashed, and all the stars 
 Envy the day that it beholds the King ! 
 
 (To them, Marquis de Montespan, in bright scarlet 
 hose.) 
 
 MARQUIS DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Most beautiful ! You have a turn of thought, 
 A taste, a sentiment, so chaste and noble ! 
 Oh, I am charmed — enraptured ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 You here. Marquis ! 
 Why, you make Grammont blush. Such praise 
 
 from you 
 Will turn his bashful brain ! Dear Montespan, 
 You are the glass of fashion ! Heavens, what 
 
 stockings ! 
 The exquisite man ! 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 Ffaith, methinks they're pretty. 
 
90 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act hi 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Pretty ! — if I were married, 'troth, my Duchess 
 Should keep her train at a respectful distance ; 
 You'd set it on a blaze ! You walk the earth 
 Like Cupid mounted on a pair of flambeaux ! 
 Oh, you're a dangerous man \ 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 So says my wife, 
 And begs me not to come too near her — ^lest 
 She love me too outrageously 1 At courts, 
 People of quality must be decorous ; 
 'Tis not the mode to seem adored too much. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Your wife's an angel ! Apropos, dear Marquis ; 
 You see a friend's advice was worth the taking ; 
 Your lady's all the rage ; — the King admires her. 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 The King ! — I'm in despair — I mean, dear Duke, 
 I am enraptured ! — hum ! — 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 You are not jealous ? 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 Zounds ! — jealous ! — no ! 
 
SCENE IV.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 91 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 No Marquis can be jealous ! 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 Not of a count or baron ; but a king ! 
 
 S 'death, if I thought it — were my honour touched, 
 
 An' it were fifty kings — 
 
 Enter Louis. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Good day, my Lords ! 
 Pray you be covered. Well ! — what says the 
 
 Marquis 
 Of fifty kings ? 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 I — / — I'm in despair ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 That fifty kings would never make one Louis ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Go to, thou flatterer ! Harkye, dear De Lauzun. 
 
 [Exeunt the Courtiers^ as the King takes Lauzun 
 aside. 
 
92 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act hi. 
 
 MONTESPAN (aside.) 
 
 My wife said right ; this worthy duke has got 
 The true court poUtesse ! — He Ues divinely ! 
 
 [Exit Montespan. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 This Montespan I own is wondrous silly ; 
 But he has one good quality — his wife ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 That's true ! — a charming face ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Ah ! had she heard you, 
 Your Majesty had made one blissful subject. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Nay, Lauzun, nay ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Her soul is like the Persian, 
 And on the loftiest eminence hath built 
 A shrine of fire. But, pardon me, my Liege ; 
 I had forgot, your royal taste prefers 
 Natures that love less warmly — though as well. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Hem ! — But, in truth, this lady's worth the loving ; 
 And, by mine honour, while we speak, she comes ! 
 A happy fortune. 
 
SCENE IV.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 93 
 
 Enter Madame de Montespan. 
 LAUZUN (archly.) 
 
 Sire, may I withdraw ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Some message from the Queen ; why — as thou wilt. 
 
 LAUZUN (aside.) 
 
 Methinks it may be as I will ! 
 
 [Exit Lauzun. 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 {Appearing for the first time to perceive Louis.) 
 
 The King ! 
 (Salutes him, and passes on.) 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Fair Madam, we had hoped you with you brought 
 Some bright excuse to grace our cheerless presence 
 With a less short-lived light ! You dawn upon us 
 Only to make us more regret your setting. 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Sire, if I dared, I would most gladly hail 
 
 A few short moments to arrest your presence, 
 
 And rid me of a soft, yet painful duty. 
 
94 THE DUtHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act hi. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 'Tis the first time, be sure, so sweet a voice 
 E'er crav'd a sanction for delighting silence. 
 Speak on, we pray thee ! 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Gracious Sire, the Duchess, 
 Whom you have lately left, she fears, in anger. 
 Besought me to present this letter to you. 
 
 LOUIS (takes the letter, and aside.) 
 
 She blushes while she speaks ! — 'Tis passing strange, 
 I ne'er remarked those darkly-dreaming eyes. 
 That melt in their own light ! 
 
 (Reads, and carelessly puts up the letter.) 
 
 It scarcely suits 
 Her dignity, and ours, to choose a witness 
 To what hath chanced between us. She is good ; 
 But her youth, spent in some old country castle, 
 Knows not the delicate spirit of a court. 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 She bade me back her suit. Alas ! my Liege, 
 Who can succeed, if fair La Valli^re fail ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 She bade thee ? — she was prudent ! Were / woman. 
 And loved, I'd not have chosen such a herald. 
 
SCENE IV.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 95 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Love varies in its colours with all tempers ; 
 
 The Duchess is too proud to fear a rival, 
 
 Too beautiful to find one. May I take 
 
 Some word of comfort back to cheer her sadness ? 
 
 Made doubly deep by thoughts of your displeasure, 
 
 And grief for a dear friend. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Aye, that's the sadness ! 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 He was a gallant lord, this Bragelone, 
 
 And her betrothed. Perchance in youth she loved 
 
 him, 
 Ere the great sun had quenched the morning star ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 She loved him ! — think'st thou so ? 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Indeed I know not ; 
 But I have heard her eloquent in praise. 
 And seen her lost in woe. You will forgive her ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Forgive her ? — there's no cause ! 
 
96 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act hi. 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Now, bless you, Sire, 
 For that one word. My task is done. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Already ? 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 What can I more ? Oh, let me hasten back ! 
 
 What rapture must be hers who can but fill 
 
 An atom of the heart of godlike Louis ! 
 
 How much more the whole soul ! — To lose thy love 
 
 Must be, not grief, but some sublime despair 
 
 Like that the Roman felt who lost a world ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 By Heaven, she fires me ! — a brave, royal spirit. 
 Worthy to love a king ! 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 To know thee hers. 
 What pride ! — what glory ! Though all earth cried 
 
 ' Shame !' 
 Earth could not still the trumpet at her heart, 
 That, with its swelling and exultant voice. 
 Told her the earth was but the slave of Louis, 
 And she the partner ! And, O hour of dread ! 
 
SCENE IV.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 97 
 
 When (for the hour must come) some fairer form 
 
 Shall win thee from her — still, methinks, 'twould be 
 
 A boast to far posterity to point 
 
 To all the trophies piled about thy throne, 
 
 And say — ' He loved me once V — O Sire, your 
 
 pardon ; 
 I am too bold. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Why, this were love, indeed, 
 Could we but hope to win it. And such love 
 Would weave the laurel in its wreaths of myrtle. 
 Beautiful lady ! while thou speak'st, I dream 
 What love should be, — and feel where love is not ! 
 Thou com'st the suitor, to remain the judge ; 
 And I could kneel to thee for hope and mercy. 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Ah, no ! — ah, no ! — she is my friend. And if 
 She love not as I love — I mean, I might love — 
 Still she believes she loves thee. Tempt me not. 
 Who could resist thee ! Sire, farewell ! 
 
 [Exit Madame de Montespan. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Her voice 
 Is hush'd ; but still its queen-like music lingers 
 In my rapt ears, I dreamt Louise had loved me ; 
 
 H 
 
98 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act hi. 
 
 She who felt love disgrace ! Before the true, 
 
 How the tame counterfeit grows pale and lifeless. 
 
 By the sad brow of yon devout La Valliere 
 
 I feel a man, and fear myself a culprit ! 
 
 But this high spirit wakes in mine the sense 
 
 Of what it is — I am that Louis whom 
 
 The world has called *The Great!' — and in her 
 
 pride 
 Mirror mine own. This jaded life assumes 
 The zest, the youth, the glory of excitement I 
 To-night we meet again ; — speed fast, dull hours ! 
 
 [Exit Louis. 
 
SCENE V ] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 99 
 
 SCENE v: 
 
 Grand Saloon in the Palace of Versailles; in the 
 back ground the suite of Apartments is seen in per- 
 spective — the Queen seated to the left of the stage ; 
 some of the Ladies of the blood royal- seated also, 
 but on stools — many Ladies standing round. 
 
 Several Ladies enter, one by one salute the Queen, 
 and pass on to the front of the stage — the Queen 
 half rises to each, and appears to address them in 
 passing, but in dumb show. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 How graciously the Queen receives the Quiches ! 
 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 See, fair La Tremouille's again in favour ! 
 
 THIRD LADY. 
 
 Hush ! Lo, the star that rarely gilds the nights 
 Of the court-heaven — the beautiful La Valhere ! 
 
 Enter the Duchess de la Valliere — salutes the Queen, 
 who half turns her back upon her in silence. 
 
 FIRST LADY. 
 
 Saw you the Queen's marked rudeness ? 
 
 H 2 
 
100 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act hi. 
 SECOND LADY. 
 
 Tush ! the Queen 
 Is but a cypher ! 'tis the King alone 
 Whose smile makes up the sum of royal favour. 
 
 THIRD LADY. 
 
 You're right; and while that smile is still La 
 
 Valli^re's, 
 She is the real Queen. How say you, Ladies ? 
 Shall we not pay our court to her ? 
 
 (The Ladies crowd round the Duchess, and appear 
 to render her the most reverential homage, which 
 she receives with humility and embarrassment.) 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE (aside.) 
 
 These smiles 
 Cannot efface that injured woman's frown. 
 Oh, how the heart that wrong'd avenges her ! 
 
 Enter Lauzun, Marquis de Montespan, and several 
 Courtiers, who, after saluting the Queen, surround 
 the Duchess de la Valliere with still greater homage. 
 
 FIRST COURTIER. 
 
 {Approaching the Duchess de la Valliere.) 
 
 Madam, your goodness is to France a proverb ! 
 If I might dare request, this slight memorial 
 You would convey to our most gracious Master ? 
 
SCENE v.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 101 
 
 The rank of colonel in the royal guard 
 
 Is just now vacant. True, I have not served ; 
 
 But I do trust my valour is well known : 
 
 I've killed three noted swordsmen in a duel ! — 
 
 And, for the rest, a word from you were more 
 
 Than all the laurels Holland gave to others. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 My Lord, forgive me ! I might ill deserve 
 
 The friendship of a monarch, if, forgetting 
 
 That honours are the attributes of merit ; — 
 
 And they who sell the service of the public 
 
 For the false coin, soft smiles and honeyed words. 
 
 Forge in the antechambers of a palace, 
 
 Defraud a people to degrade a king ! 
 
 If you have merits, let them plead for you ; 
 
 Nor ask in whispers what you claim from justice. 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN {tO fivst Courticr, dS the 
 
 Duchess de la Valliere turns away.) 
 Give me the paper. Hush ! the King shall see it. 
 
 Music. 
 
 Enter the King, Grammont, and other Courtiers. He 
 pauses by the Queen, and accosts her respectfully in 
 dumb show. 
 
 GRAM MONT (aside.) 
 
 With what a stately and sublime decorum 
 His Majesty throws grandeur o'er his foibles ! 
 
102 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act hi. 
 
 He not disguises vice ; but makes vice kingly — 
 Most gorgeous of all sensualists ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 How different 
 His royal rival in the chase of pleasure, 
 The spendthrift, sauntering, Second Charles of Eng- 
 land ! 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 Ay, Jove to Comus ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Silence ! Jove approaches ! 
 
 {The Queen rises, the crowd breaks up into groups ; 
 the King passes sloivly from each till he joins 
 the Duchess de la Valliere ; the Courtiers retire.) 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Why, this is well. I thank you. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 And forgive me ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Forgive you ! You mistake me ; wounded feeling 
 Is not displeasure. Let this pass, Louise. 
 Your lovely friend has a most heavenly smile 1 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 And a warm heart. In truth, my Liege, I'm glad 
 You see her with my eyes. 
 
SCENE v.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 103 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 You have no friend 
 Whose face it glads me more to look upon. 
 
 (Aside, and gazing on Montespan,) 
 (What thrilling eyes !) — {Aloud.) My thanks are 
 
 due to her, 
 For, with the oil of her mellifluous voice, 
 Smoothing the waves the passing breeze had 
 ruffled. 
 (Joins Madame de Montespan, and leads her through 
 the crowd to the hack of the stage.) 
 
 LAUZUN (to Marquis de Montespan.) 
 Ar'n't you enraptured, Marquis? 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 Hum! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 The King 
 Is very condescending to your lady ! 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 Oh, mighty condescending ! How he eyes her ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Tis all for love of you. 
 
104 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act hi. 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 I shall despair 
 If the King mean me shame 1 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 He means you honour. 
 
 what a great man you will be, dear Marquis. 
 Do not forget your friends ! 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 Why, as you say, 
 'Tis very flattering — and, on second thoughts, 
 
 1 clearly see I ought to be enraptured ! 
 
 {Lauzun leaves Montespan, who mingles with the 
 crowd, and should keep out of sight -for the rest of 
 the scene, and joins the Duchess de la Valliere.) 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Your Grace resolves no more to be content 
 Eclipsing others. You eclipse yourself. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 I thought you were a friend, and not a flatterer. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Friendship would lose its dearest privilege 
 
 If friendship were forbidden to admire ! 
 
 Why, ev'n the King admires your Grace's friend, — 
 
 Told me to-day she was the loveliest lady 
 
SCENE v.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 105 
 
 The court could boast. Nay, see how, while they 
 
 speak. 
 He gazes on her. How his breathing fans 
 The locks that shade the roses of her cheek ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Ha ! Nay, be still, my heart. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 It is but friendship ; 
 But it looks wondrous warm ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 He cannot mean it ! 
 And yet — and yet — he lingers on her hand — 
 He whispers ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 How the gossips gaze and smile ! 
 There'll be much scandal. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Lauzun ! — what ! — thou thinks 't not ? 
 No, no, thou canst not think — 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 That courts know treachery, 
 That women are ambitious, or men false ; 
 I will not think it. Pshaw ! 
 
106 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act hi. 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 My brain swims round ! 
 Louis, of late, hath been so changed. How fair 
 She looks to-night ! — and, oh, she has not fallen ! 
 He comes — he nears us — he has left her. Fie ! 
 My foolish fancies wronged him ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 The spell works. 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 {As the King quits her, to first Courtier, giving him 
 hack the paper J 
 My Lord, your suit is granted. 
 
 FIRST COURTIER. 
 
 Blessings, Madam ! 
 {The other Courtiers come round him.) 
 
 SECOND COURTIER. 
 
 Her influence must be great. I know three dukes 
 Most pressing for the post. 
 
 THIRD COURTIER. 
 
 A rising sun. 
 Worthier of worship than that cold La Valh^re. 
 The King as well, me thinks, might have no mis- 
 tress. 
 As one by whom no courtier grew the richer. 
 {The Courtiers group round Madame de Montespan.) 
 
SCENE v.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 107 
 
 LOUIS. 
 My Lords, you do remember the bright Hsts 
 Which, in the place termed thenceforth ' The 
 
 Carrousel,'^ 
 We some time held ? — a knightly tournament, 
 That brought us back the age of the first Francis ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Of all your glorious festivals, the greatest ! 
 Who but remembers ? 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE (ttside.) 
 
 Then he wore my colours. 
 How kind to bring back to my yearning heart 
 That golden spring-time of our early loves ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Next week we will revive the heroic pageant. 
 Proud plumes shall wave, and levelled spears be 
 
 shivered ; 
 Our self will take the lists, and do defy 
 The chivalry of our renowned France, 
 In honour of that lady of our court 
 For whom we wear the colours, and the motto 
 Which suits her best — ' Most bright where all are 
 
 brilliant !' 
 
 * The Place du Carrousel was so named from a splendid 
 festival given by Louis. On the second day, devoted to 
 knightly games, the King, who appeared in the character of 
 Roger, carried off four prizes. All the crown jewels were 
 prodigalized on his arms and the trappings of his horse. 
 
108 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act hi. 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 Oh, a most kingly notion ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Ere we part, 
 Let each knight choose his colours and his lady. 
 Ourself have set the example. 
 
 {The Courtiers mingle with the Ladies, S^c. ; many 
 Ladies give their colours.) 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE {timidly.) 
 
 Oh, my Louis ! 
 I read thy heart ; thou hast chosen this device 
 To learn thy poor La Valli^re to he proud. 
 Nay, turn not from my blessings. Once before 
 You wore my colours, though I gave them not. 
 To-night I give them ! — Louis loves me still ! 
 
 {Takes one of the knots from her breast , and pre- 
 sents it.) 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Lady, the noblest hearts in France would beat 
 
 More high beneath your badge. Alas 1 my service 
 
 Is vowed already here. 
 
 {Turning to Madame de Montespan, and placing 
 
 a knot of her colours over his order of the Saint 
 
 Esprit.) 
 
 These are my colours 1 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 How ! How ! 
 
I 
 
 SCENE. v.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 109 
 
 {The King converses apart with Madame de Mon- 
 tespan.) 
 
 LAUZUN (to the Duchess de la Valliere.) 
 
 Be calm, your Grace ; a thousand eyes 
 Are on you. Give the envious crowd no triumph. 
 Ah ! had my fortune won so soft a heart 
 I would have 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Peace ! — Away ! Betrayed — Undone ! 
 
 END OF ACT III. 
 
110 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act iv. 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 The Gardens at Versailles. 
 Enter Lauzun. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 So far, so prosperous ! From the breast of Louis, 
 The blooming love it bore so long a summer, 
 Falls like a fruit o'er-ripe ; and, in the court, 
 And o'er the King, this glittering Montespan 
 Queens it without a rival, — awes all foes. 
 And therefore makes all friends. State, office, 
 
 honours, 
 Reflect her smile, or fade before her frown. 
 So far, so well ! Enough for Montespan. 
 For Lauzun now ! — I love this fair La Valli^re, 
 As well, at least, as woman's worth the loving ; 
 
SCENE I.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. HI 
 
 And if the jewel has one trifling flaw, 
 The gold 'tis set in will redeem the blemish. 
 The King's no niggard lover ; and her wealth 
 Is vast. I have the total in my tablets — 
 (Besides estates in Picardy and Provence.) 
 I'm very poor — my debtors very pressing. 
 I've robbed the Duchess of a faithless lover, 
 To give myself a wife, and her a husband. 
 Wedlock's a holy thing, — and wealth a good one ! 
 
 Enter Marquis de Montespan. 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 O Duke, behold a miserable man ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 What ! in despair ? 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 S Despair, sir ! — that's a thing 
 I That happens every hour ! But this 
 
 \ 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Take breath. 
 What is the matter ? 
 
 I MONTESPAN. 
 
 t Banished from the court ! 
 
112 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act iv. 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Banished ? For what offence ? 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 Because the King 
 Complains my wife's an angel ! and declares 
 Her health will be affected by my temper. 
 My temper ! — I'm a lamb ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Perhaps the King 
 Is jealous of you ? 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 On my life, youVe hit it ! 
 And yet, I never gave him any cause ! 
 
 Enter Louis. 
 LOUIS (to Marquis de Montespan.) 
 
 You, my Lord, in the precincts of our palace ! — 
 This is too daring. 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 Oh, your Majesty, 
 I do beseech your grace. I am most sorry 
 To have a wife so good. 'Tis not my fault. Sire. 
 
SCENE I.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 113 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Silence, my Lord! Your strange and countless 
 
 follies — 
 The scenes you make — your loud domestic broils — 
 Bring scandal on our court. Decorum needs 
 Your banishment ; or, since you cannot live 
 With your fair lady in harmonious concord, 
 Leave her in peace, and live alone ! 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 Alas! 
 There is no broil. 
 
 LAUZUN {aside.) 
 
 What, contradict the King ! 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 My wife and I are doves ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 You must perceive 
 That it were best for both to break a chain 
 You both abhor. 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 I swear 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Peace, Marquis ! Go ! 
 And for your separate household, which entails 
 
114 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act iv. 
 
 A double cost, our treasurer shall accord you 
 A hundred thousand crowns. 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 O generous Monarch ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Mind, your poor lady, from this hour, is free. 
 
 No more. Your exile is revoked. Good day, sir 1 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 A hundred thousand crowns ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Begone ! 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 With rapture ! 
 [Exit Marquis de Montespan, 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 A fool, well rid of. Strange that such a dolt 
 Should e'er be mated with the bright Athen^. 
 Pleasure is never stagnant in her presence ; 
 But every breeze of woman's changeful skies 
 Ripples the stream, and freshens e'en the sunshine. 
 
SCENE I.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLltlRE. 115 
 
 \h 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 'Tis said, your Majesty, ' that contrast's sweet,' 
 And she you speak of well contrasts another, 
 Whom once- 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 I loved ; and still devoutly honour 
 This poor La Valli^re ! — could we will affection, 
 I would have never changed. And even now 
 I feel Athen^ has but charmed my senses, 
 And my void heart still murmurs for Louise ! 
 I would we could be friends, since now not lovers. 
 Nor dare be happy while I know her wretched. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Wearies she still your Majesty with prayers, 
 Tender laments, and passionate reproaches ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Her love outlives its hopes. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 An irksome task 
 To witness tears we cannot kiss away, 
 And with cold friendship freeze the ears of love ! 
 
 LOUIS, 
 
 Most irksome and most bootless ! 
 
116 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act iv. 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Haply, Sire, 
 In one so pure, the charm of wedded life 
 Might lull keen griefs to rest, and curb the love 
 Thou fii'st from to the friendship that thou seekest ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 I've thought of this. The Duke de Longueville 
 
 loves her. 
 And hath besought before her feet to lay 
 His princely fortunes. 
 
 LAUZUN (quickly.) 
 
 Ha ! — and she 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Rejects him. 
 
 Sire, if love's sun, once set, bequeaths a twilight, 
 'Twould only hover o'er some form whom chance 
 Had linked with Louis — some one (though un- 
 worthy) 
 Whose presence took a charm from brighter 
 
 thoughts 
 That knit it with the past. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Why, how now, Duke J — 
 Thou speak'st not of thyself? 
 
SCENE I.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 117 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 I dare not, Sire ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Ha ! ha ! — poor Lauzun ! — what ! the soft La Valliere 
 Transfer her sorrowing heart to thee ! Ha ! ha ! . 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 My name is not less noble than De Longueville's ; 
 My glory greater, since the world has said 
 Louis esteems me more. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Esteems ! No ! — -favours ! 
 And thou dost think that she, who shrunk from 
 
 love, 
 Lest love were vice, would wed the wildest Lord 
 That ever laughed at virtue ? 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Sire, you wrong me , 
 Or else you (pardon me) condemn yourself. 
 Is it too much for one the King calls friend 
 To aspire to one the King has call'd 
 
 , LOUIS. 
 
 Sir, hold ! 
 I never so malign'd that hapless Lady 
 
118 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act iv. 
 
 As to give her the title only due 
 To such as Montespan, who glories in it — 
 The last my mistress ; but the first my victim : 
 A nice distinction, taught not in your logic, 
 Which, but just now, confused esteem and favour. 
 Go to ! we kings are not the dupes you deem us. 
 
 LAUZUN (aside.) 
 
 So high ! I'll win La Valliere to avenge me. 
 And humble this imperial vanity. 
 
 (Aloud.) 
 
 Sire, I offend ! Permit me to retire. 
 
 And mourn your anger ; nor presume to guess 
 
 Whence came the cause. And, since it seems your 
 
 favour 
 Made me aspire too high, in that I loved 
 Where you. Sire, made love noble, and half- 
 dreamed 
 Might be — nay, am not — wholly there disdained — 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 How, Duke ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 I do renounce at once 
 The haughty vision. Sire, permit my absence. 
 
SCENE I.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 119 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Lauzun, thou hintest that, were suit allowed thee, 
 La Valliere might not scorn it ; — is it so ? 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 I crave your pardon, Sire. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Must I ask twice ? 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 I do helieve, then. Sire, with time and patience, 
 The Duchess might be won to — not reject me ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Go, then, and prove thy fortune. We permit thee. 
 And, if thou prosperest, why then love's a riddle, 
 And woman is — no matter ! Go, my Lord ; 
 We did not mean to wound thee. So, forget it ! 
 Woo when thou wilt — and wear what thou canst 
 win. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 My gracious Liege, Lauzun commends him to thee ; 
 
 And if one word, he merit not, may wound him. 
 
 He'll think of favours words can never cancel. 
 
 Memory shall med'cine to his present pain. 
 
 God save you. Sire ! — (Aside) to he the dupe I 
 
 deem you ! 
 
 [E.xii Lauzun. 
 
120 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act iv. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 I love her not ; and yet, me thinks, am jealous ! 
 Lauzun is wise and witty — ^knows the sex ; 
 What if she do ? — ^No 1 I will not believe it. 
 And what is she to me ? — a friend — a friend ! 
 And I would have her wed. 'Twere best for both — 
 A balm for conscience — an excuse for change ! 
 'Twere best : — I marvel much if she'll accept him ! 
 
 [Exit Louis. 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 A private Apartment in the Palace of the Duchess de 
 la Valliere. 
 
 Enter the Duchess de la Valliere. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 He loves me, then, no longer ! All the words 
 Earth knows shape but one thought — ' He loves no 
 
 longer!' 
 Where shall I turn ? My mother — my poor mother ! 
 Sleeps the long sleep ! Tis better so ! Her life 
 Ran to its lees. I will not mourn for her. 
 
SCENE II.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 121 
 
 But it is hard to be alone on earth ! 
 This love, for which I gave so much, is dead. 
 Save in my heart ; and love, surviving love, 
 Changes its nature, and becomes despair ! 
 Ah, me ! — ah, me ! how hateful is this world ! 
 
 Enter Gentleman of the Chamber. 
 
 GENTLEMAN. 
 
 The Duke de Lauzun ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 News, sweet news, of Louis ! 
 Enter Lauzun. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Dare I disturb your thoughts ? 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 My Lord, you're welcome ! 
 Came you from court to-day ? 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 I left the King 
 But just now, in the gardens. 
 
122 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act iv. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE {eagerly.) 
 Well! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 He bore him 
 With his accustomed health ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Proceed. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Dear Lady, 
 I have no more to tell. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE {aSlde.) 
 
 Alas ! No message ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 We did converse, 'tis true, upon a subject 
 Most dear to one of us. Your Grace divines it ? 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE {joyfully.) 
 
 Was it of me he spoke ? 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Of you 
 / spoke, and he replied. I praised your beauty — 
 
SCENE II.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 123 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 You praised ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Your form, your face — that wealth of mind 
 Which, play'd you not the miser, and concealed it, 
 Would buy up all the coins that pass for wit. 
 The King, assenting, wished he might behold you 
 As happy — as your virtues should have made you. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLItlRE. 
 
 'Twas said in mockery ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Lady, no ! — in kindness. 
 
 Nay, more, (he, added,) would you yet your will 
 Mould to his wish — 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 His wish ! — the Ughtest ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Ah! 
 You know not how my heart throbs while you 
 
 speak ! 
 Be not so rash to promise ; or, at least, 
 Be faithful to perform ! 
 
124 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLlfeRE. [act iv. 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 You speak in riddles. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Of your lone state and beautiful affections, 
 Formed to make Home an Eden, our good King, 
 Tenderly mindful, fain would see you link 
 Your lot to one whose love might be your shelter. 
 He spake, and all my long-concealed emotions 
 Gush'd into words, and I confess'd — O Lady, 
 Hear me confess once more — how well I love thee ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 You dared ? — and he — the King — 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Upon me smiled. 
 And bade me prosper. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Ah! 
 {Sinks down, and covers her face with her hands.) 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Nay, nay, look up ! 
 The heart that could forsake a love like thine 
 Doth not deserve regret. Look up, dear Lady ! 
 
SCENE II.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 125 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 He bade thee prosper ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Pardon ! My wild hope 
 Outran discretion. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Louis bade thee prosper ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Ah, if this thankless — this remorseless love 
 
 Thou couldst forget ! Oh, give me but thy friend- 
 
 ship, 
 And take respect, faith, worship, all, in Lauzun ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Consign me to another ! Well, 'tis well ! 
 Earth's latest tie is broke ! — earth's hopes are 
 over ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Speak to me, sweet Louise ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Soj thou art he 
 To whom this shattered heart should be sur- 
 rendered ? — 
 
12G THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLltllE. [act iv. 
 
 And thou, the high-born, gUttering, scornful 
 
 Lauzun, 
 Wouldst take the cast-ofF leman of a King, 
 Nor think thyself disgraced ! Fie ! — fie ! thouVt 
 
 shameless ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 You were betray 'd by love, and not by sin. 
 
 Nor low ambition. Your disgrace is honour 
 
 By the false side of dames the world calls spotless. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Go, sir, nor make me scorn you. If I've erred, 
 I know, at least, the majesty of virtue. 
 And feel — what you forget. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Yet hear me, Madam ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Go, go ! You are the King's friend — you were mine ; 
 I would not have you thus debased : refused 
 By one, at once the fallen and forsaken ! 
 His friend shall not be shamed so ! 
 
 [Exit the Duchess de la Valliere. 
 
SCENE III.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 127 
 
 LAUZUN {passing his hand over his eyes.) 
 
 I do swear 
 These eyes are moist ! And he who owned this 
 
 gem 
 Casts it away, and cries * divine ' to tinsel ! 
 So falls my hope. My fortunes call me back 
 To surer schemes. Before that ray of goodness 
 How many plots shrunk, blinded, into shadow ! 
 Lauzun forgot himself, and dreamt of virtue ! 
 
 [Exit Lauzun. 
 
 SCENE III. 
 
 Gentleman of the Chamber, and Bragelone, as a 
 Franciscan friar. 
 
 GENTLEMAN. 
 
 The Duchess gone ! I fear me that, to-day. 
 You are too late for audience, reverend father. 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Audience ! — a royal phrase ! — it suits the Duchess. 
 Go, son ; announce me. 
 
128 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act iv. 
 GENTLEMAN. 
 
 By what name, my father ? 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 I've done with names. Announce a nameless monk, 
 Whose prayers have risen o'er some graves she 
 
 honours. 
 
 GENTLEMAN (ttside.) 
 
 My lady is too lavish of her bounty 
 
 To these proud shavelings : yet, methinks, this 
 
 friar 
 Hath less of priest than warrior in his bearing. 
 He awes me with his stern and thrilling voice. 
 His stately gesture, and imperious eye. 
 And yet, I swear, he comes for alms ! — the varlet ! 
 Why should I heed him ? 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Didst thou hear ? Begone ! 
 [Exit Gentleman. 
 Yes, she will know me not. My lealest soldier. 
 One who had march'd, bare-breasted, on the steel, 
 If I had bid him cast away the treasure 
 Of the o'er- valued life ; the nurse that reared me, 
 Or mine own mother, in these shroudlike robes, 
 And in the immature and rapid age 
 
SCENE III.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLlkUE. 129 
 
 Which, from my numb'd and withering heart, hath 
 
 crept 
 Unto my features, now might gaze upon me, 
 And pass the stranger by. Why should she know 
 
 me. 
 If they who lov'd me know not? Hark! I hear 
 I her: 
 
 That silver footfall ! — still it hath to me 
 Its own peculiar and most spiritual music. 
 Trembling along the pulses of the air. 
 And dying on the heart that makes its echo ! 
 Tis she ! How lovely yet I 
 
 Enter the Duchess de la Valliere. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Your blessing, father. 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Let courts and courtiers bless the favoured Duchess : 
 Courts bless the proud ; God's ministers, the 
 humble. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 He taunts me, this poor friar ! Well, my father, 
 I have obeyed your summons. Do you seek 
 Masses for souls departed ? — or the debt 
 The wealthy owe the poor ? — say on ! 
 
 K 
 
130 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act iv. 
 BRAGELONE (asidc.) 
 
 Her heart 
 Is not yet hardened ! Daughter, such a mission 
 Were sweeter than the task which urged me hither : 
 You had a lover once — a plain, bold soldier ; 
 He loved you well ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIICRE. 
 
 Ah, Heaven ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 And you forsook him. 
 Your choice was natural — some might call it noble ! 
 And this blunt soldier pardoned the desertion, 
 But sunk at what his folly termed dishonour. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 O, Father, spare me ! — if dishonour were, 
 It rested but with me. 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 So deemed the world, 
 But not that foolish soldier ! — he had learned 
 To blend his thoughts, his fame, himself , with thee ; 
 Thou wert a purer, a diviner self; 
 He loved thee as a warrior worships glory ; 
 He loved thee as a Roman honoured virtue ; 
 
SCENE III.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 131 
 
 He loved thee as thy sex adore ambition ; 
 And when Pollution breathed upon his idol, 
 It blasted glory, virtue, and ambition, 
 Fill'd up each crevice in the world of thought, 
 And poisoned earth with thy contagious shame ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Spare me ! in mercy, spare me ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 This poor fool, 
 This shadow, living only on thy light. 
 When thou wert darkened, could but choose to die. 
 He left the wars ; — no fame, since thine was dim : 
 He left his land ; — what home without Louise ? 
 It broke — that stubborn, stern, unbending heart — 
 It broke ! and, breaking, its last sigh — forgave thee 1 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 And I live on ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 One eve, methinks, he told me, 
 Thy hand around his hauberk wound a scarf; 
 And thy voice bade him ' Wear it for the sake 
 Of one who honoured worth !' Were those the 
 words ? 
 
 K 2 
 
132 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLlilRE. [act iv. 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 They were. Alas ! alas ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 He wore it, Lady, 
 Till memory ceased. It was to him the token 
 Of a sweet dream ; and, from his quiet grave, 
 He sends it now to thee. — Its hues are faded. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Give it me ! — let me bathe it with my tears 1 
 Memorial of my guilt — 
 
 BRAGELONE (iw tt soft and tender accent.) 
 And his forgiveness ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 That tone ! — ha ! while thou speakest, in thy voice. 
 And in thy presence, there is something kindred 
 To him we jointly mourn : thou art-^ 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 His brother ; 
 Of whom, perchance, in ancient years he told thee ; 
 Who, early wearied of this garish world. 
 Fled to the convent-shade, and found repose. 
 
SCENE III.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIl^RE. 133 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLiERE {appToaching .) 
 
 Ay, is it so ? — thou'rt Bragelone's brother ? 
 Why, then, thou art what he would be, if living — 
 A friend to one most friendless ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Friendless ! — Ay, 
 Thou hast learnt, betimes, the truth, that man's 
 
 wild passion 
 Makes but its sport of virtue, peace, affection ; 
 And breaks the plaything when the game is done ! 
 Friendless ! — I pity thee ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Oh ! holy Father, 
 Stay with me ! — succour me ! — reprove, but guide 
 
 me : 
 Teach me to wean my thoughts from earth to 
 
 heaven. 
 And be what God ordained his chosen priests — 
 Foes to our sin, but friends to our despair. 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Daughter, a heavenly and a welcome duty. 
 But one most rigid and austere : there is 
 No composition with our debts of sin. 
 [ God claims thy soul ; and, lo ! his creature there ! 
 Thy choice must be between them — God or man, 
 Virtue or guilt ; a Louis or — 
 
 L 
 
134 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act iv. 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 A Louis ! 
 Not mine the poor atonement of the choice ; 
 I am, myself, the Abandoned One ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 I know it ; 
 Therefore my mission and my ministry. 
 When he who loved thee died, he bade me wait 
 The season when the sicklied blight of change 
 Creeps o'er the bloom of Passion, when the way 
 Is half prepared by Sorrow to Repentance, 
 And seek you then, — he trusted not in vain : 
 Perchance an idle hope, but it consoled him. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 No, no ! — not idle ! — in my happiest hours. 
 When the world smiled, a void was in this heart 
 The world could never fill : thy brother knew me ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 I do believe thee, daughter. Hear me yet ; 
 
 My mission is not ended. When thy mother 
 
 Lay on the bed of death, (she went before 
 
 The sterner heart the same blow broke more slowly,) 
 
 As thus she lay, around the swimming walls 
 
 Her dim eyes wandered, searching, through the 
 
 shadows, 
 As if the spirit, half-redeemed from clay. 
 
SCENE III.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 135 
 
 Could force its will to shape, and, from the dark- 
 ness, 
 Body a daughter's image — (nay, be still !) 
 Thou wert not there ; — alas ! thy shame had mur- 
 dered 
 Even the blessed sadness of that duty ! 
 But o'er that pillow watched a sleepless eye, 
 And by that couch moved one untiring step, 
 And o'er that suffering rose a ceaseless prayer ; 
 And still thy mother's voice, whene'er it called 
 Upon a daughter — found a son ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 O God ! 
 Have mercy on me ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Coldly, through the lattice, 
 Gleamed the slow dawn, and, from their latest sleep, 
 Woke the sad eyes it was not thine to close ! 
 And, as they fell upon the haggard brow, 
 And the thin hairs — grown grey, but not by Time — 
 Of that lone watcher — while upon her heart 
 Gushed all the memories of the mighty wrecks 
 Thy guilt had made of what were once the shrines 
 For Honour, Peace, and God ! — that aged woman 
 (She was a hero's wife) upraised her voice 
 To curse her child ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Go on ! — be kind, and kill me ! 
 
136 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act iv. 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Then he, whom thoughts of what he was to thee 
 Had made her son, arrested on her Hps 
 The awful doom, and, from the earHer past. 
 Invoked a tenderer spell — a holier image ; 
 Painted thy gentle, soft, obedient childhood — 
 Thy guileless youth, lone state, and strong temp- 
 tation ; 
 Thy very sin the overflow of thoughts 
 From wells whose source was innocence ; and thus 
 Sought, with the sunshine of thy maiden spring, 
 To melt the ice that lay upon her heart, 
 Till all the mother flowed again ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 And she ? — 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Spoke only once again ! She died — and blest thee 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE {rUsMng OUt.) 
 
 No more ! — I can no more ! — my heart is breaking ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 The angel hath not left her ! — if the plumes 
 Have lost the whiteness of their younger glory, 
 The wings have still the instinct of the skies, 
 And yet shall bear her up ! 
 
SCENE III.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 137 
 
 LOUIS (without.) 
 
 We need you not, Sir ; 
 Ourself will seek the Duchess. 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 The King's voice ! 
 How my flesh creeps ! — my foe, and her destroyer ! 
 The ruthless, heartless — 
 
 (His hand seeks y rapidly and mechanically, for his 
 sword-hilt.) 
 
 Why, why ! — where's my sword ? 
 O Lord ! I do forget myself to dotage : 
 The soldier, now, is a poor helpless monk. 
 That hath not even curses ! Satan, hence ! 
 Get thee behind me, Tempter ! — There, Fm calm. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 Louis — Brag clone. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 I can no more hold parley with impatience, 
 But long to learn how Lauzun's courtship prospers. 
 She is not here. At prayers, perhaps. The Duchess 
 Hath grown devout. A friar ! — Save you, father ! 
 
138 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act iv. 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 I thank thee, son. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 He knows me not. Well, Monk, 
 Are you her Grace's almoner ? 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Sire, no ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 So short, yet know us ? 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Sire, I do. You are 
 The man — 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 How, priest ! — the man ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 The word offends you ? 
 The King, who raised a maiden to a Duchess. 
 That maiden's father was a gallant subject : 
 Kingly reward ! — you made his daughter Duchess. 
 That maiden's mother was a stainless matron : 
 Her heart you broke, though mother to a Duchess ! 
 That maiden was affianced from her youth 
 To one who served you well — nay, saved your life : 
 
SCENE IV.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 139 
 
 His life you robbed of all that gave life value ; 
 And yet — you made his fair betrothed a Duchess ! 
 You are that King. The world proclaims you 
 
 ' Great ;' 
 A million warriors bled to buy your laurels ; 
 A million peasants starved to build Versailles : 
 Your people famish ; but your court is splendid ! 
 Priests from their pulpits bless your glorious reign ; 
 Poets have sung the greater than Augustus ; 
 And painters placed you on immortal canvass, 
 Limn'd as the Jove whose thunders awe the world : 
 But to the humble minister of God, 
 You are the King who has betrayed his trust — 
 Beggared a nation but to bloat a court, 
 Seen in men's lives the pastime to ambition, 
 Looked but on virtue as the toy for vice ; 
 And, for the first time, from a subject's lips. 
 Now learns the name he leaves to Time and God ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Add to the bead-roll of that King's offences 
 
 That, when a foul-mouthed Monk assumed the rebel, 
 
 The Monster-King forgave him. Hast thou done ? 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Your changing hues belie your royal mien ; 
 111 the high monarch veils the trembling man ! 
 
140 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act iv. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Well, you are privileged 1 It ne'er was said 
 The Fourteenth Louis, in his proudest hour, 
 Bow'd not his sceptre to the Church's crozier. 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Alas ! the Church ! 'Tis true, this garb of serge 
 Dares speech that daunts the ermine, and walks free 
 Where stout hearts tremble in the triple mail. 
 But wherefore ? — Lies the virtue in the robe. 
 Which the moth eats ? or in these senseless beads ? 
 Or in the name of Priest ? The Pharisees 
 Had priests that gave their Saviour to the cross ! 
 No ! we have high immunity and sanction, 
 That Truth may teach humanity to Power, 
 Glide through the dungeon, pierce the armed 
 
 throng. 
 Awaken Luxury on her Sybarite couch, 
 And, startling souls that slumber on a throne, 
 Bow kings before that priest of priests — the Con- 
 science ! 
 
 LOUIS (aside.) 
 
 An awful man ! — unlike the reverend crew 
 Who praise my royal virtues in the pulpit. 
 And — ask for bishoprics when church is over ! 
 
SCENE IV.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 141 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 This makes us sacred. The profane are they 
 Honouring the herald while they scorn the mission. 
 The king who serves the church, yet clings to 
 
 mammon, 
 Who fears the pastor, but forgets the flock, 
 Who bows before the monitor, and yet 
 Will ne'er forego the sin, may sink, when age 
 Palsies the lust and deadens the temptation, 
 To the priest-ridden, not repentant, dotard, — 
 For pious hopes hail superstitious terrors. 
 And seek some sleek Iscariot of the church. 
 To sell salvation for the thirty pieces ! 
 
 LOUIS (aside.) 
 He speaks as one inspired ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Awake ! — awake ! 
 Great though thou art, awake thee from the dream 
 That earth was made for kings — mankind for 
 
 slaughter — 
 Woman for lust — the People for the Palace ! 
 Dark warnings have gone forth ; along the air 
 Lingers the crash of the first Charles's throne ! 
 Behold the young, the fair, the haughty king ! 
 The kneeling courtiers, and the flattering priests ; 
 Lo ! where the palace rose, behold the scaffold — 
 
142 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act iv. 
 
 The crowd — the axe — the headsman — and the 
 
 Victim ! 
 Lord of the silver lilies, canst thou tell 
 If the same fate await not thy descendant ! 
 If some meek son of thine imperial line 
 May make no brother to yon headless spectre ! 
 And when the sage who saddens o'er the end 
 Tracks back the causes, tremble, lest he find 
 The seeds, thy wars, thy pomp, and thy profusion 
 Sowed in a heartless court and breadless people, 
 Grew to the tree from which men shaped the 
 
 scaffold, — 
 And the long glare of thy funereal glories 
 Light unborn monarchs to a ghastly grave ! 
 Beware, proud King ! the Present cries aloud, 
 A prophet to the Future ! Wake ! — beware ! 
 
 [Exit Bragelone. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Gone ! Most ill-omened voice and fearful shape ! 
 Scarce seemed it of the earth ; a thing that breathed 
 But to fulfil some dark and dire behest ; 
 To appal us, and to vanish. — The quick blood 
 Halts in my veins. Oh ! never till this hour 
 Heard I the voice that awed the soul of Louis, 
 Or met one brow that did not quail before 
 My kingly gaze ! And this unmitred monk ! 
 I'm glad that none were by. — It was a dream ; 
 
SCENE IV.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 143 
 
 So let its memory like a dream depart. 
 
 I am no tyrant — nay, I love my people. 
 
 My wars were made but for the fame of France ! 
 
 My pomp ! why, tush ! — what king can play the 
 
 hermit ? 
 My conscience smites me not ; and but last eve 
 I did confess, and was absolved ! — A bigot ; 
 And half, me thinks, a heretic ! I wish 
 The Jesuits had the probing of his doctrines. 
 Well, well, 'tis o'er !— What ho, there ! 
 
 Enter Gentleman of the Chamber. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Wine ! Apprise 
 Once more the Duchess of our presence. — Stay ! 
 Yon monk, what doth he here ? 
 
 GENTLEMAN. 
 
 I know not. Sire, 
 Nor saw him till this day. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Strange !— Wine ! 
 [Exit Gentleman. 
 
144 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act iv. 
 
 SCENE V. 
 
 Duchess de la Valliere — Louis, 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Well, Madam, 
 We've tarried long your coming, and meanwhile 
 Have found your proxy in a madman monk, 
 Whom, for the future, we would pray you spare us. 
 
 {Re-enter Gentleman with wine.) 
 So, so ! the draught restores us. Fair La Valliere, 
 Make not yon holy man your confessor ; 
 You'll find small comfort in his lectures. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Sire, 
 His meaning is more kindly than his manner. 
 I pray you, pardon him. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Ay, ay ! No more ; 
 Let's think of him no more. You had, this morn, 
 A courtlier visitant, methinks — De Lauzun ? 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Yes, Sire. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 A smooth and gallant gentleman. 
 You're silent. Silence is assent ; — 'tis well ! 
 
SCENE v.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 145 
 MADAME DE LA VALLIERE (aside.) 
 
 Down, my full heart! the Duke declares your wish 
 Is that — that I should bind this broken heart 
 And — no ! I cannot speak — 
 
 (With great and sudden energy.) 
 
 You wish me wed, Sire ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Twere best that you should wed; and yet, De 
 
 Lauzun 
 Is scarce the happiest choice. — But as thou wilt. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 ' 'Twere best that I should wed ! ' — thou saidst it, 
 
 Louis ; 
 Say it once more ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 In honesty, I think so. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 My choice is made, then — I obey the fiat, 
 And will become a bride ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 The Duke has sped ! 
 I trust he loves thyself, and not thy dower. 
 
146 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act iv. 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 The Duke 1 what, hast thou read so ill this soul 
 That thou couldst deem thus meanly of that book 
 Whose every page was bared to thee ? A bitter 
 Lot has been mine — and this sums up the measure. 
 Go, Louis ! go ! — All glorious as thou art — 
 Earth's Agamemnon — the great king of men — 
 Thou wert not worthy of this woman's heart ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Her passion moves me ! — Then your choice has 
 
 fallen 
 Upon a nobler bridegroom ? 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Sire, it hath ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 May I demand that choice ? 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Too soon thou'lt learn it. 
 Not yet ! Ah me ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Nay, sigh not, my sweet Duchess. 
 Speak not so sadly. What, though love hath past. 
 Friendship remains ; and still my fondest hope 
 Is to behold thee happy. Come ! — thy hand ; 
 Let us be friends ! We are so ! 
 
SCENE v.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 147 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Friends ! — No more ! 
 So, it hath come to this ! I am contented ! 
 Yes— we are friends ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 And when your choice is made, 
 You will permit your friend to hail your bridals ? 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Ay, when my choice is made I 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 This poor De Lauzun 
 
 Hath then no chance ? Fm glad of it, and thus 
 
 Seal our new bond of friendship on your hand. 
 
 Adieu! — and Heaven protect you ! 
 
 [Exit Louis. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE (gaziug after him.) 
 
 Heaven hath heard thee, 
 And in this last most cruel, but most gracious. 
 Proof of thy coldness, Ijreaks the lingering chain 
 That bound my soul to earth. 
 
 {Enter Bragelone.) 
 
 O holy father ! 
 Brother to him whose grave my guilt prepared, 
 
 L 2 
 
148 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLltRE. [act iv. 
 
 Witness my iirm resolve, support my struggles, 
 And guide me back to Virtue through Repentance ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Pause, ere thou dost decide. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 I've paused too long, 
 And now, impatient of this weary load, 
 Sigh for repose. 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Oh, Heaven, receive her back ! 
 Through the wide earth, the sorrowing dove hath 
 
 flown, 
 And found no haven ; weary though her wing 
 And sullied with the dust of lengthened travail. 
 Now let her flee away and be at rest ! 
 The peace that man has broken — thou restore 
 Whose holiest name is Father ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Hear us, Heaven ! 
 
 END OF ACT IV. 
 
SCENE 1.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 149 
 
 ACT V. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 The Gardens at Versailles. 
 
 Enter Madame de Montespan, Grammont, and 
 Courtiers. 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 So she has fled from court — the saintly Duchess ; 
 A convent's grate must shield this timorous virtue. 
 Methinks they're not so many to assail it ! 
 Well, trust me, one short moon of fast and penance 
 Will bring us back the recreant novice 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 And 
 End the eventful comedy by marriage. 
 Lauzun against the world were even odds ; 
 But Lauzun loith the world — what saint can stand 
 it? 
 
150 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLI^RE. [act v. 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN (ttside.) 
 
 Lauzun ! — the traitor ! What ! to give my rival 
 
 The triumph to reject the lawful love 
 
 Of him whose lawless passion first betrayed me ! 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 Talk of the devil ! Humph — you know the proverb. 
 Enter Lauzun. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Good day, my friends. Your pardon, Madam ; I 
 Thought 'twas the sun that blinded me. — (Aside.) 
 
 Athene ! 
 Pray you, a word. 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 {Aloud y and turning away disdainfully.) 
 
 We're not at leisure, Duke. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Ha ! (Aside.) Nay, Athen^, spare your friend these 
 
 graces. 
 Forget your state one moment ; have you asked 
 The King the office that you undertook 
 To make my own? My creditors are urgent. 
 
SCENE I.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 151 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN (aloud.) 
 
 No, my Lord Duke, I have not asked the King ! 
 I grieve to hear your fortunes are so broken. 
 And that your honoured and august device, 
 To mend them by your marriage, failed. 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 She hits him 
 Hard on the hip. Ha, ha ! — the poor De Lauzun ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Sir ! — Nay, I'm calm ! 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Pray, may we dare to ask 
 How long youVe loved the Duchess ? 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Ever since 
 You were her friend and confidante. 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 You're bitter. 
 Perchance you deem your love a thing to boast of. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 To boast of ! — Yes ! 'Tis something ev'n to love 
 The only woman Louis ever honoured ! 
 
152 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act v. 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN {laying her hand 071 LauzuTi' s 
 
 arm,) 
 
 Insolent ! You shall rue this ! If I speak 
 Your name to Louis, coupled with a favour, 
 The suit shall be your banishment ! 
 
 [Exit Madame de Montespan. 
 
 FIRST COURTIER. 
 
 Let's follow. 
 Ha ! ha ! — Dear Duke, your game, I fear, is lost ! 
 You've played the knave, and thrown away the 
 king. 
 
 COURTIERS. 
 
 Ha ! ha !— Adieu ! 
 
 [Exeunt. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Ha ! ha ! — the devil take you ! 
 
SCENE II.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIEIIE. 153 
 
 SCENE 11. 
 
 Enter to Lofuzun the Marquis de Montespan. 
 
 MARQUIS DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 My wife's not here ! that's well ! We're not to speak ; 
 But, when we meet, I bow — she smiles politely. 
 A hundred thousand crowns for being civil 
 To one another ! Well now, that's a thing 
 That happens but to Marquises. It shews 
 My value in the state ! The King esteems 
 My comfort of such consequence to France, 
 He pays me down a hundred thousand crowns 
 Rather than let my wife disturb my temper ! 
 Lauzun ! Aha ! he seems as something crossed him. 
 I will console him. Duke, I'm ravish'd ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Damn you ! 
 
 MONTESPAN. 
 
 Damn me ! What ! damn a Marquis ! Heaven 
 
 would think 
 Twice of it, Sir, before it damn'd a man 
 Of my rank ! Damn a Marquis ! there's religion ! 
 
 [Exit Montespan. 
 
154 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act v. 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 So, she would ruin me ! Fore-armed — fore-warned ! 
 
 I have the King's ear yet, and know some secrets 
 
 That could destroy her ! Since La Valliere's flight, 
 
 Louis grows sad and thoughtful, and looks cold 
 
 On her vain rival, who too coarsely shews 
 
 The world the stuff court ladies' hearts are made of. 
 
 She will undo herself — and I will help her. 
 
 Weave on thy web, false Montespan, weave on ; 
 
 The bigger spider shall devour the smaller. 
 
 The war's declared — 'tis clear that one must fall : — 
 
 I'll be polite — the Lady to the wall ! 
 
 [Exit Lauzun. 
 
 SCENE in. 
 
 Sunset — the old Chateau of La Valliere — the Convent 
 of the Carmelites at a distance — the same scene as^ 
 that with which the play opens. 
 
 Enter the Duchess de La Valliere and Bragelone from 
 the Chateau. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Once more, ere yet I take farewell of earth, 
 
 I see mine old, familiar, maiden home ! 
 
 All how unchanged ! — the same the hour, the scene. 
 
SCENE III.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 155 
 
 The very season of the year ! — the stillness 
 Of the smooth wave — the stillness of the trees, 
 Where the winds sleep like dreams ! — and, oh ! the 
 
 calm 
 Of the blue heavens around yon holy spires, 
 Pointing, like gospel truths, through calm and storm, 
 To man's great home ! 
 
 BRAGELONE {CLSlde.) 
 
 Oh ! how the years recede ! 
 Upon this spot I spoke to her of love. 
 And dreamt of bliss for earth ! 
 
 {The vesper-hell tolls.) 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Hark ! the deep sound, 
 That seems a voice from some invisible spirit. 
 Claiming the world for God. — When last I heard it 
 Hallow this air, here stood my mother, living ; 
 And I — ^was then a mother's pride ! — and yonder 
 Came thy brave brother in his glittering mail ; 
 And — ah ! these thoughts are bitter ! — were he 
 
 living 
 How would he scorn them ! 
 
 BRAGELONE (who hus been greatly agitated.) 
 
 No ! — ah, no ! — thou wrongest him ! 
 
156 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act v. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Yet, were he living, could I but receive 
 From his own lips my pardon, and his blessing, 
 My soul would deem one dark memorial rased 
 Out of the page most blistered with its tears ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Then have thy wish ! and in these wrecks of man 
 Worn to decay, and rent by many a storm, 
 Survey the worm the world called Bragelone. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Avaunt ! — avaunt ! — I dream ! — the dead returned 
 To earth to mock me ! — No ! this hand is warm ! 
 I have one murther less upon my soul. 
 I thank thee, Heaven ! — (swoons.) 
 
 BRAGELONE (supporting her.) 
 
 The blow strikes home ; and yet 
 What is my life to her? Louise! — She moves not; 
 She does not breathe ; how still she sleeps ! — I saw 
 
 her 
 Sleep in her mother's arms, and then, in sleep 
 She smiled. There's no smile now ! — poor child ! 
 
 One kiss ! 
 It is a brother's kiss — it has no guilt ; 
 
SCENE III.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 157 
 
 Kind Heaven, it has no guilt. — I have survived 
 All earthlier thoughts : her crime, my vows, effaced 
 
 them. 
 A brother's kiss ! — Away ! I'm human still ; 
 I thought I had been stronger ; God forgive me ! 
 Awake, Louise ! — awake ! She breathes once more ; 
 The spell is broke ; the marble warms to life ! 
 And I — freeze back to stone ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 I heard a voice 
 That cried ' Louise!' — Speak, speak ! — my sense is 
 
 dim. 
 And struggles darkly with a blessed ray 
 That shot from heaven. — My shame hath not de- 
 
 stroy'd thee ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 No ! — ^life might yet serve thee ! — and I lived on 
 Dead to all else. I took the vows, and then, 
 Ere yet I laid me down, and bade the Past 
 Fade like a ghost before the dawn of heaven. 
 One sacred task was left. — If love was dust. 
 Love, like ourselves, hath an immortal soul. 
 That doth survive whate'er it takes from clay ; 
 And that — the holier part of love — became 
 A thing to watch thy steps — a guardian spirit 
 
158 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act v. 
 
 To hover round, disguised, unknown, undream'd of, 
 To soothe the sorrow, to redeem the sin, 
 And lead thy soul to peace ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 O bright revenge ! 
 Love strong as death, and nobler far than woman's ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 To peace — ah, let me deem so ! — the mute cloister, 
 The spoken ritual, and the solemn veil. 
 Are nought themselves ; — the Huguenot abjures 
 The monkish cell, but breathes, perchance, the 
 
 prayer 
 That speeds as quick to the Eternal Throne ! 
 In our own souls must be the solitude ; 
 In our own thoughts the sanctity ! — 'Tis then 
 The feeling that our vows have built the wall 
 Passion can storm not, nor temptation sap, 
 Gives calm its charter, roots out wild regret, 
 And makes the heart the world-disdaining cloister. 
 This — this is peace ! but pause, if in thy breast 
 Linger the wish of earth. Alas ! all oaths 
 Are vain, if nature shudders to record them — 
 The subtle spirit 'scapes the sealed vessel ! 
 The false devotion is the true despair ! 
 
SCENE III.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 159 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Fear not ! — I feel 'tis not the walls of stone, 
 
 Told beads, nor murmnred hymns, that bind the 
 
 heart. 
 Or exorcise the world ; the spell's the thought 
 That where most weak weVe banished the tempta- 
 tion. 
 And reconciled, what earth would still divide, 
 The human memories and the immortal conscience. 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 Doubt fades before thine accents. On the day 
 That gives thee to the veil we'll meet once more. 
 Let mine be man's last blessing in this world. 
 Oh ! tell me, then, thou'rt happier than thou hast 
 
 been ; 
 And when we part, I'll seek some hermit cell 
 Beside the walls that compass thee, and prayer. 
 Morning and night, shall join our souls in heaven. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Yes, generous spirit ! think not that my future 
 Shall be repining as the past. Thou hvest, 
 And conscience smiles again. The shattered bark 
 Glides to its haven. Joy ! the land is near. 
 
 [Exit Duchess de la Valliere into the Chateau. 
 
160 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act v. 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 So, it is past ! — the secret is disclosed ! 
 
 The hand she did reject on earth has led her 
 
 To holier ties. I have-not lived in vain ! 
 
 Yet who had dreamed, when through the ranks of 
 
 war 
 Went the loud shout of *' France and Bragelone !" 
 That the monk's cowl would close on all my 
 
 laurels ? 
 A never-heard philosopher is Life ! — 
 Our happiest hours are sleep's ; — and sleep pro- 
 claims, 
 Did we but listen to its warning voice. 
 That REST is earth's elixir. Why, then, pine 
 That, ere our years grow feverish with their toil, 
 Too weary-worn to find the rest they sigh for. 
 We learn betimes the moral of repose ? 
 I will lie down, and sleep away this world. 
 The pause of care, the slumber of tired passion. 
 Why, why defer till night is well nigh spent ? 
 When the brief sun that gilt the landscape sets, 
 When o'er the music on the leaves of life 
 Chill silence falls, and every fluttering hope 
 That voiced the world with song has gone to roost, 
 Then let thy soul, from the poor labourer, learn 
 ' Sleep's sweetest taken soonest ! ' 
 
 {As he moves away, his eye falls upon a glove dropped 
 by the Duchess de la Valliere — he takes it up.) 
 
SCENE IV.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 161 
 
 And this hath touched her hand ! — it were a comfort 
 To hoard a single relic ! 
 
 {Kisses the glove, and then suddenly dropping it) 
 No ! — 'tis sinful ! 
 
 [Exit Bragelone. 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 The exterior of the Gothic Convent of the Carmelites — 
 The windows illumined — Music heard from within — 
 A crowd without — Enter Courtiers, Ladies, Priests^ 
 ^c, and pass through the door of the Chapel, in the 
 centre of the building. 
 
 Enter Lauzun from a door in the side wing of the 
 Convent — To him, Grammont. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Where hast thou left the king ? 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 Not one league hence 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Ere the clock strikes, La Valli^re takes the veil. 
 
 M 
 
162 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLlfeRE. [act v. 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 Great Heaven ! so soon ! — and Louis sent me on, 
 To learn how thou hadst prospered with the Duchess. 
 He is so sanguine — this imperious King, 
 Who never heard a " No" from living lips ! 
 How did she take his letter ? 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 In sad silence ; 
 Then mused a little while, and some few tears 
 Stole down her cheeks, as, with a trembling hand, 
 She gave me back the scroll. 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 You mean her answer. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 No ; the King's letter. '' Tell him that I thank 
 
 him ;" 
 (Such were her words ;) ** but that my choice is 
 
 made ; 
 And ev'n this last assurance of his love 
 I dare not keep : 'tis only when I pray. 
 That I may think of him. This is my answer." 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 No more ? — no written word ? 
 
SCENE IV.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 163 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 None, Grammont. Then 
 She rose and left me ; and I heard the bell 
 Calling the world to see a woman scorn it. 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 Tlie King will never brook it. He will grasp her 
 Back from this yawning tomb of living souls. 
 The news came on him with such sudden shock ; 
 The long noviciate thus abridged ; and she — 
 Ever so waxen to his wayward will ! — 
 She cannot yet be marble. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Wronged affection 
 Makes many a Niobe from tears. Haste, Gram- 
 mont, 
 Back to the King, and bid him fly to save, 
 Or nerve his heart to lose, her. I will follow, — 
 My second charge fulfilled. 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Revenge and justice ! — Go ! 
 
 M 2 
 
 And what is that ? 
 
 [Exit Grammont, 
 
164 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act v. 
 
 LAUZUN (looking down the stage) 
 
 I hear her laugh — 
 I catch the glitter of her festive robe ! 
 Athen^ comes to triumph — and to tremble ! 
 
 SCENE V. 
 Madame de Montespan, Courtiers, and Lauzun: 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN (aside.) 
 
 Now for the crowning cup of sparkling fortune ! 
 A rarer pearl than Egypt's queen dissolved 
 I have immersed in that delicious draught, 
 A woman's triumph o'er a fairer rival ! 
 
 (As she turns to enter the convent, she perceives Lauzun.) 
 
 What ! you here, Duke ? 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Ay, Madam ; I've not ye 
 To thank you for — my banishment ! 
 
SCENE v.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 165 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 The Ides 
 Of March are come — not over ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Are they not ? 
 For some they may he ! You are here to witness — 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 My triumph ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 And to take a friend's condolence. 
 I bear this letter from the King ! 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 The King ! 
 (Reads the letter.) 
 
 '' We do not blame you ; blame belongs to love, 
 And love had nought with you." — What ! what 1 I 
 
 tremble ! 
 " The Duke de Lauzun, of these lines the bearer, 
 Confirms their purport : from our royal court 
 We do excuse your presence." Banished, Duke ? 
 Is that the word ? — What, banished ! 
 
166 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act v. 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Hush ! — you mar 
 The holy silence of the place. 'Tis true ; 
 You read aright. Our gracious King permits you 
 To quit Versailles. Versailles is not the world. 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Perdition ! — banished ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 You can take the veil. 
 Meanwhile, enjoy your triumph ! 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Triumph !— Ah ! 
 She triumphs o'er me to the last. My soul 
 Finds hell on earth — and hers makes earth a 
 heaven ! 
 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 Hist ! — will you walk within ? 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 O, hateful world ! 
 What ! — hath it come to this ? 
 
SCENE v.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIE'RE. 167 
 LAUZUN. 
 
 You spoil your triumph ! 
 
 MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Lauzun, I thank thee ! — thank thee — thank — and 
 curse thee ! 
 
 [Exit Madame de Montespan. 
 
 LAUZUN (looking after her with a subdued laugh.) 
 
 Ha, ha ! — the broken heart can know no pang 
 Like that which racks the bad heart when its sting 
 Poisons itself. Now, then, away to Louis. 
 The bell still tolls : there's time. This soft La 
 
 VaUi^re ! 
 The only thing that ever baffled Lauzun, 
 And felt not his revenge I — revenge, poor soul ! 
 Revenge upon a dove ! — she shall be saved 
 From the pale mummies of yon Memphian vault, 
 Or the great Louis will be less than man, — 
 Or that fond sinner will be more than woman. 
 
 [Exit Lauzun. 
 
168 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act v. 
 
 SCENE VI. 
 
 The interior of the Chapel of the Carmelite Convent — 
 On the foreground, Courtiers, Ladies, S^c. — At the 
 back of the stage, the altar, only partially seen through 
 the surrounding throng — The Officials pass to 
 and fro, swinging the censers — The stage darkened — 
 Lights suspended along the aisle, and tapers by the 
 altar. 
 
 {As the Scene opens, solemn music, to which is chaunted 
 the following — ) 
 
 HYMN. 
 
 Come from the world, O weary soul, 
 For run the race and near the goal I 
 Flee from the net, O lonely dove, 
 Thy nest is built the clouds above ! 
 Turn, wild and worn with panting fear, 
 And slake thy thirst, thou wounded deer. 
 
 In Jordan's holy springs ! 
 Arise I O fearful soul, arise I 
 For broke the chain and calm the skies ! 
 As moths fly upward to the star, 
 The light allures thee from afar. 
 Though earth is lost, and space is wide, 
 The smile of God shall be thy guide. 
 
 And Faith and Hope thy wings ! 
 
SCENE VI.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 169 
 
 {As the Hymn ends, Bragelone enters, and stands 
 apart in the background.) 
 
 FIRST COURTIER. 
 
 Three minutes more, and earth has lost La Valli^re ! 
 
 SECOND COURTIER. 
 
 So young ! — so fair ! 
 
 THIRD COURTIER. 
 
 'Twas whispered, that the King 
 Would save her yet ! 
 
 FIRST COURTIER. 
 
 What ! snatch her from the altar ? 
 He durst not, man ! 
 
 Enter Louis, Grammont, and Lauzun. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Hold ! we forbid the rites ! 
 {As the King advances hastily up the aisle, Bragelone 
 places himself before him.) 
 
 Back, monk ! revere the presence of the King ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 And thou the palace of the King of kings ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Dotard ! we claim our subject. 
 
170 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act v. 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 She hath past 
 The Hmit of your realm. Ye priests of God, 
 Complete your solemn task ! — The church's curse 
 Hangs on the air. Descendant of Saint Louis, 
 Move — and the avalanche falls ! 
 
 {The Duchess de la Valliere, still drest in the bridal 
 and gorgeous attire assumed before the taking 
 of the veil, descends from the altar.) 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 No, holy friend I 
 I need it not ; my soul is my protector. 
 Nay, thou mayst trust me. . 
 
 BRAGELONE {after a pause.) 
 
 Thou art right. — I trust thee ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 {Leading the Duchess de la Valliere to the front of 
 the stage.) 
 
 Thou hast not ta'en the veil? — Ev'n Time had 
 
 mercy. 
 Thou art saved ! — thou art saved ! — to love — to life ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Ah, Sire! 
 
SCENE VI.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLI^RE. 171 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Call me not Sire ! — forget that dreary time 
 When thou wert Duchess, and myself the King. 
 Fly back, fly back, to those delicious hours 
 When I was but thy lover and thy Louis ! 
 And thou my dream — my bird — my fairy flower — 
 My violet, shrinking in the modest shade 
 Until transplanted to this breast — to haunt 
 The common air with odours ! Oh, Louise ! 
 Hear me ! — the fickle lust of change allured me, 
 The pride thy virtues wounded armed against 
 
 thee, 
 Until I dreamed I loved thyself no longer ; 
 But now this dread resolve, this awe of parting. 
 Re-binds me to thee — bares my soul before me — 
 Dispels the lying mists that veiled thine image, 
 And tells me that I never loved but thee ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 I am not then despised ! — thou lov'st me still ! 
 And when I pray for thee, my heart may feel 
 That it hath nothing to forgive ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Louise ! 
 Thou dost renounce this gloomy purpose ? 
 
172 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act v. 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Never ! 
 It is not gloomy ! — think'st thou it is gloom 
 To feel that, as my soul becomes more pure, 
 Heaven will more kindly listen to the prayers 
 That rise for thee ? — is that thought gloom, my 
 Louis ? 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Oh ! slay me not with tenderness ! Return ! 
 And if thy conscience startle at my love, 
 Be still my friend — my angel ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 I am weak, 
 But, in the knowledge of my weakness, strong ! 
 I could not breathe the air that's sweet with thee. 
 Nor cease to love ! — in flight my only safety ; 
 And were that flight not made by solemn vows 
 Eternal, it were bootless ; for the wings 
 Of my wild soul know but two bournes to speed to — 
 Louis and Heaven ! And, oh ! in Heaven at last 
 My soul, unsinning, may unite with Louis ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 I do implore thee ! — 
 
SCENE VI.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 173 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 No ; thou canst not tempt me ! 
 My heart already is the nun. 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Thou know'st not 
 I have dismissed thy rival from the court. 
 Return ! — though mine no more, at least thy Louis 
 Shall know no second love ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 What ! wilt thou, Louis, 
 Renounce for me eternally my rival, 
 And live alone for 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Thee ! Louise, I swear it ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE {raising her arms to 
 Heaven.) 
 
 Father ! at length, I dare to hope for pardon, 
 For now remorse may prove itself sincere ! 
 Bear witness, Heaven ! I never loved this man 
 So well as now ! and never seemed his love 
 Built on so sure a rock ! Upon thine altar 
 I lay the offering. I revoke the past ; 
 
174 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act v. 
 
 For Louis, Heaven was left — and now I leave 
 Louis, when tenfold more beloved, for Heaven ! 
 Ah ! pray with me ! Be this our latest token — 
 This memory of sweet moments — sweet, though 
 
 sinless ! 
 Ah ! pray with me ! that I may hive till death 
 Tlie thought — * we prayed together for forgiveness !' 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 Oh 1 wherefore never knew I till this hour 
 
 The treasure I shall lose I I dare not call thee 
 
 Back from the Heaven where thou art half already ! 
 
 Thy soul demands celestial destinies, 
 
 And stoops no more to earth. Be thine the peace, 
 
 And mine the penance ! Yet these awful walls, 
 
 The rigid laws of this severest order, 
 
 Yon spectral shapes, this human sepulchre, — 
 
 And thou, the soft, the delicate, the highborn. 
 
 The adored delight of Europe's mightiest king, — 
 
 Thou canst not bear it ! 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 I have borne much worse — 
 Thy change and thy desertion I — Let it pass ! 
 There is no terror in the things without ; 
 Our souls alone the palace or the prison ; 
 And the one thought, that I have fled from sin 
 
SCENE VI.] THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLlfeRE. 175 
 
 Will fill the cell with images more glorious, 
 And haunt its silence with a mightier music, 
 Than ever thronged illumined halls, or broke 
 From harps by mortal strung ! 
 
 LOUIS. 
 
 I will not hear thee ! 
 I cannot brave these thoughts. Thy angel voice 
 But tells me what a sun of heavenly beauty 
 Glides from the earth, and leaves my soul to 
 
 darkness. 
 This is my work ! — 'twas I for whom that soul 
 Forsook its native element ; for me, 
 Sorrow consumed thy youth, and conscience gnawed 
 That patient, tender, unreproachful heart. 
 And now this crowns the whole ! the priest — the 
 
 altar — 
 The sacrifice — the victim ! Touch me not ! 
 Speak not ! I am unmanned enough already. 
 I — I — I choke ! These tears — let them speak for me. 
 Now I now thy hand — O, God ! farewell, for ever ! 
 
 [Exit Louis. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 For ever ! till the angel's trump shall wake 
 Affection from the grave. Ah ! blessed thought. 
 For ever ! that's no word for earth ; but angels 
 
176 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act v. 
 
 Shall cry * for ever' when we meet again : 
 Be firm, my heart, be firm ! 
 
 {After a pause, turning to Bragelone, with a slight 
 smile.) 
 
 Tis past ! we've conquered ! 
 
 {The Duchess de la Valliere re-ascends to the altar — 
 the crowd close around.) 
 
 Music. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Hark ! to the nuptial train are opened wide 
 The Eternal Gates. Hosanna to the bride I 
 
 GRAMMONT. 
 
 She has ta'en the veil — the last dread rite is done. 
 
 ABBESS Cfrom the altar.) 
 
 Sister Louise ! before the eternal grate 
 Becomes thy barrier from the living world, 
 It is allowed thee once more to behold 
 The face of men, and bid farewell to friendship. 
 
 BRAGELONE {asidc.) 
 
 Why do I shudder ? why shrinks back my being 
 From our last gaze, like Nature from the Grave ? 
 One moment, and one look, and o'er her image 
 
SCENE VI.] DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 177 
 
 Thick darkness falls, till Death, that morning star, 
 Heralds immortal day. I hear her steps 
 Treading the mournful silence ; o'er my soul 
 Pauses the freezing time. O Lord, support me ! 
 One effort more — one effort ! — Wake, my soul 1 
 'Tis thy last trial ; wilt thou play the craven ? 
 
 {The crowd give way, the Duchess de la Valliere, in 
 the habit of the Carmelite nuns, passes down the 
 steps of the altar, led by the Abbess — As she pauses 
 to address those whom she recognises in the crowd, 
 the chorus chaunts) — 
 
 Sister, look and speak thy last, 
 From the world thou'rt dying fast ; 
 While farewell to life thou'rt giving, 
 Dead already to the living. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE {coming to the front of 
 the stage, sees Lauzun.) 
 
 Lauzun ! thou serv'st a King, whate'er his faults. 
 Who merits all thy homage : honour — love him. 
 His glory needs no friendship ; but in sickness. 
 Or sorrow, kings need love. Be faithful, Lauzun ! 
 And, far from thy loud world, one lowly voice 
 Shall not forget thee. 
 
 BRAGELONE (aside.) 
 
 All the strife is hushed ! 
 
 N 
 
178 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. [act v. 
 
 My heart's wild sea lies mute, and o'er the waves 
 The Saviour walks. 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE {approacMng Bragelone, 
 and kneeling to him.) 
 
 And now, oh 1 friend and father, 
 Bless the poor Nun ! 
 
 BRAGELONE. 
 
 As Duchess of La Valliere 
 Thou wert not happy ; as the Carmelite Sister, 
 Say — art thou happy ? 
 
 DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. 
 
 Yes ! 
 BRAGELONE {laying his hand on her head,) 
 
 O Father, bless her ! 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Hark I in heaven is mirth ! 
 
 Jubilate ! 
 Grief leaves guilt on earth ! 
 
 Jubilate ! 
 Joy for sin forgiven ! 
 
 Jubilate ! 
 Come, O Bride of Heaven ! 
 
 Jubilate I 
 
 Curtain falls slowly. 
 
 END. 
 
EPILOGUE, 
 
 SPOKEN IN THE CHARACTER 
 
 THE MARQUIS DE MONTESPAN. 
 
 Damn me I — What, damn a Marquis ! there's a phrase 
 That's only fit for peasants, or for plays ! 
 A Marquis damn'd ! — the gods will never do it 
 While authors live ; — I hear they're brought up' to it. 
 But folks still talk of what runs in their head I — 
 Methinks, I see some persons better bred : — 
 Ah ! if your hearts one kindly impulse touches. 
 You will notjdamn the Marquis — nor the Duchess ! 
 
 Far from so harsh a fate, you all must know, 
 Though born about two hundred years ago. 
 Though, at the court of Louis, called <■ The Great,' 
 My pension proves how well I served the state ; 
 Yet / alone, of all my age, survive, 
 My Portia's gone — still Brutus is alive ! 
 
 Strange changes, gentlemen, methinks have been 
 Since Pomp and Louis walk'd the living scene. 
 When I was young, were Dukes inclined to roam, — 
 Six horses bore them half a mile from home ; 
 But now a Duke takes journeys to the moon, 
 And steps his half a mile from a balloon ! 
 Once, from the state when honest folks could squeeze, 
 Like me, a competence, they lived at ease ! 
 But now, all men, no matter what their stations, 
 Run after things called—* tempting speculations !* 
 
EPILOGUE. 
 
 Tell me, my friends, (it puzzles my invention,) 
 
 How, with most profit, to invest my Pension ! 
 
 I like not land — one never gets one's rent ; 
 
 Stocks ? — who the deuce can live on two per cent. ? 
 
 But, Heaven be thanked, there are, to cheer one's vapours. 
 
 Some famous speculations — in the papers ! 
 
 (^Takes out a newspaper.) 
 First of the many modes the wind to raise, 
 " Forty per cent. — new nine-wheeled Cabriolets /" 
 " Railway to Gretna Green, ten miles a minute. 
 Five pounds-a-share-deposit !" — Catch me in it ! 
 *' Grand Caoutchouc Co. !" (Ah, hard words catch the 
 
 lubber,) 
 For making gateposts out of Indian rubber. 
 New banks that pay you three per cent. ! — I see — 
 They grab your hundred, and return you three ! 
 All are called Companies — all call for cash, 
 And all make bubbles, if they make a splash. 
 Nay, when you've gone the round of all the rest, 
 You've still, I find, your body to invest ; 
 And a new company your bones will bury 
 In that gay spec — The London Cemetery ! 
 Well, well ! let other flies be caught by honey, 
 These gully-plots shall never catch my money; — 
 Brisk though the wind, I'll just heave out the anchor. 
 And, gad, Pll keep my pension with my banker. 
 
 How I run on ! — excuse this idle chatter, 
 But pensions, now, are such a ticklish matter ! 
 You seem delightful persons, I declare ; 
 Pray come again — don't drive us to despair ! 
 What though the convent has our Duchess captured, 
 Forgive her faults — and she'll be charmed, enraptured ! 
 
 T. C. Savill, Printer, 107, St. Martin's Lane. 
 
COMPLETE LIST OF WORKS 
 
 THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 PROSE FICTIONS. 
 
 (new editions of) 
 
 FALKLAND. DEVEREUX. 
 
 PELHAM. PAUL CLIFFORD. 
 
 THE DISOWNED. EUGENE ARAM. 
 
 THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE. (Illustrated.) 
 THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. 
 RIENZI. 
 
 DISQUISITIONS AND ESSAYS, 
 
 MORAL OR POLITICAL. 
 
 ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH. {Fourth Edition.) 
 
 THE STUDENT. {Fourth Edition.) 
 
 A LETTER TO A CABINET MINISTER ON THE CRISIS 
 
 OF 1834. {Twenti/ -first Edition.) 
 
 POETRY. 
 
 THE DUCHESS DE LA VALLIERE. A Play, in Five Acts. 
 THE SIAMESE TWINS AND MILTON. 
 
 OLIVER CROMWELL. A Tragedy, in Five Acts. {In the 
 Press.) 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
 (l N T H E P R E S S.) 
 
 ATHENS ; ITS RISE AND FALL. 
 
NEW WORKS PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION, 
 
 BY 
 
 MESSRS. SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, 
 
 CONDUIT STREET, HANOVER SQUARE. 
 
 1. 
 MR. BULWER's ATHENS. 
 
 IQ Two Volumes, Octavo, 
 
 ATHENS AND THE ATHENIANS, 
 
 By the Author of " Th E Last Days of Pompeii," " Rienzi," &c. 
 
 II. 
 GENERAL LAFAYETTE's MEMOIRS. 
 
 In Octavo, 
 
 MEMOIRS OF GENERAL LAFAYETTE, 
 
 WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. 
 
 Now first published from the Original Manuscript, under the immediate 
 Superintendence of his Family. 
 
 III. 
 
 In Three Volumes, Post Octavo, 
 
 THE VICTIM OF SOCIETY, 
 
 By the Countess of Blessington. 
 
 IV. 
 
 In Three Volumes, Post Octavo, 
 
 A NEW WORK BY MISS MITFORD, 
 
 Author of " Our Village." 
 
 V. 
 
 In Three Volumes, Post Octavo, 
 
 A NEW WORK BY MRS. SHELLEY, 
 
 Author of " Frankenstein," &c. 
 
 VI. 
 
 In Two Volumes, Post Octavo, 
 
 THE STATE PRISONER, 
 
 A Tale of tlie French Regency. 
 By the Hon. Miss M. L. Boyle.