A short study of the “mad scenes” will shew the strength and the weakness of this character. The particular form of his mania is brought out very clearly. The madman is perfectly sure about the plots laid for him; his friends are really enemies disguised to “sift into” his words;
he “can see and can beware”; he has his wits about him and thanks Heaven for it! The burst of laughter with which the audience would greet this assertion is at once hushed as the Lady laments the o’erthrow of her lover’s noble mind;
“That was the fairest hope the French court bred,
The worthiest and the sweetest-temper’d spirit,
The truest, and the valiantest, the best of judgment.”[110:1]
She is remorse-stricken at being the cause of it all, and prays Heaven to be merciful; she will do all she can to restore her lover to his senses.
A long interval elapses before Shattillion is again introduced.[110:2] Now he has heard of the “new duke” and he is suspicious and curious, so much so that he is gesticulating and enquiring about it in the open street. The Lady appears and begs Madam Marine to take him into her house “from the broad eyes of people.” She does so. Shattillion, now believing that he is “betray’d” and about to be beheaded, is led away giving his last instructions. Before long, we see him once more, this time in Marine’s house, proving to Marine that he (Shattillion) is of the blood royal, and but for the interference of his friends he would seize Marine as a traitor. In the next act he persuades Jacques, Marine’s old servant, that he too is in danger of his life, and drags him into his house for shelter. As they
go in, the Lady appears, and, knocking at Shattillion’s door, is repulsed as another enemy. The madman’s imagination goes so far as to see “some twenty musketeers in ambush,” and he suspects his love of being their captain. Meanwhile Jacques, disguised as a woman, is leaving the house, when his preserver stops him, accuses him of being
“A yeoman of the guard,
Disguised in woman’s clothes, to work on me,