This merci, observe, is not said ironically, but gravely and gratefully. Having arranged this part of the business, he gives his daughter instructions as to what she is to do with herself, in the following sublime verses:—
TRIBOULET.
Écoute. Va chez moi, prends-y des habits d'homme,
Un cheval, de l'argent, n'importe quelle somme;
Et pars, sans t'arrêter un instant en chemin,
Pour Evreux, où j'irai te joindre après-demain.
—Tu sais ce coffre auprès du portrait de ta mère;
L'habit est là,—je l'ai d'avance exprès fait faire.
Having dismissed his daughter, he settles with a gipsy-man named Saltabadil, who is the brother of Maguelonne, all the details of the murder, which is to be performed in their house, a small cabaret at which the foul weather and the fair Maguelonne induce the royal rake to pass the night. Triboulet leaves them an old sack in which they are to pack up the body, and promises to return at midnight, that he may himself see it thrown into the Seine.
Blanche meanwhile departs; but feeling some compunctious visitings about the proposed murder of her lover, returns, and again applying her ear to the hole in the wall, finds that his majesty is gone to bed in the garret, and that the brother and sister are consulting about his death. Maguelonne, a very "delicate female," objects too; she admires his beauty, and proposes that his life shall be spared if any stranger happens to arrive whose body may serve to fill the sack. Blanche, in a fit of heroic tenderness, determines to be that stranger; exclaiming,
"Eh bien! ... mourons pour lui!"
But before she knocks at the door, she kneels down to say her prayers, particularly for forgiveness to all her enemies. Here are the verses, making part of those which have overthrown Racine:—
BLANCHE.
Oh! Dieu, vers qui je vais,
Je pardonne à tous ceux qui m'ont été mauvais:
Mon père et vous, mon Dieu! pardonnez-leurs de même
Au roi François Premier, que je plains et que j'aime.
She knocks, the door opens, she is stabbed and consigned to the sack. Her father arrives immediately after as by appointment, receives the sack, and prepares to drag it towards the river, handling it with revengeful ecstasy, and exclaiming—