So much it seems necessary to premise concerning this somewhat unfamiliar story, which the poets appear to have gathered from French and Latin chroniclers who stress very quaintly Anna’s piety. One old historian thus describes her:
Icele dame pensoit plus aux choses a venir que aux choses presentes ... dont il avint qu’ele fist estorer a Senliz une Yglise en l’enor S. Vincent.
The Abbey at Senlis which she built, and in particular St Vincent’s tower, is used very effectively both as a setting for the play and as a symbol of that in Anna’s character which was deep and strong enough to defeat her love. The strength of this religious sense, and the consequent rigour of the conflict, are of course to be measured by her love; for which reason the whole first act is devoted to a vigorous presentment of Anna, the widowed queen, mother and regent of the young king, putting off her royalty to claim Raoul’s love, and sweeping aside every obstacle in order to become his wife. It is, therefore, as no feeble puppet of the Church that she twice betrays her love to her faith at the crucial moment; for she has force, decision, independence of character. It is from something deeper than these, which also the poet is careful to indicate in the first act—;a religious instinct which lies at the roots of her nature and which is, in some of its aspects, identical with her love. Thus when, in the opening of the second act, the Pope orders her to renounce Raoul, she at first joins in his defiance, and yields only to the archbishop’s lurid prophecy of the damnation present and to come which she will bring upon Raoul. The third act finds her in retreat at the convent which she endowed, profoundly discouraged and disillusioned. She perceives her act to have been foolish and futile, of the worst cruelty to Raoul, because it has driven him back to his wife and a life of debauchery. At the command of the Church, in a kind of perverse obedience, he has taken back the repudiated Aliénor, and both have plunged into an orgy of sensuality. Stories of their abandoned living penetrate the Abbey walls, are whispered among the sisterhood, and reach Anna’s ears. They cost her remorse for her own folly, and wrath against Raoul’s infamous wife. The act opens in the convent garden on a winter afternoon. Twilight is falling rapidly, and an old nun who has been talking to Anna puts away her gardening-tools and goes into the convent. Anna, left alone in the gathering darkness, sees the gate open and the figure of a man enter. She recognizes instantly that it is Raoul; but he strides forward without knowing her.
Raoul. What are you,
Crossing my pathway, like a ghost?
Anna. You come?
Raoul. To search this convent. Aliénor, my wife,
Is here in hiding. I am come to kill her.
Say where she hides.
Anna. I cannot.
Raoul. By all saints,
You are a hypocrite. I shall discover
My victim in your bleating flock. [He passes on.
Anna. I think,
Oh, I believe he does not know my voice;
He passes on beyond me—;to what deed?
To one most righteous, one that long ago
He should have wrought. But is it possible
That she abides here? Ah! I recollect....
I have the clew!—;My lord!
Raoul [turning]. And who are you?
Your name? Your purpose? [Coming closer.]
Well, my crystal flower,
What is the part you play? Are you a Queen,
My Countess, or a little temptress nun?
Give me the word.