"C'est lui! c'est lui!" she cries wildly; and it turns out that she takes the prince for the Drac! And he, with his mind turning on the object of his search, says that he recognises her. "O fleur du Rhone epanouie sur l'eau."
"Drac, je te reconnais! car sous la lone
Je t'ai vu dans la main le bouquet que tu tiens.
A ta barbette d'or, à ta peau blanche,
A tes yeux glauques, ensorceleurs, perçants,
Je vois bien qui tu es."
Rather embarrassing for Monsieur le Prince! However he is quite equal to the occasion. He presents her with the flower, and then—suddenly he trembles! It is scarcely necessary to add (we are in Provence) that the next canto is occupied with the loves of Anglore and the blond prince.
These go simply and smoothly on board the barge, where the mariners show the most astonishing tact and never seem to get in the way. When the Prince asks Anglore what she would say if he told her he was really the son of the King of Holland, she replies, "My Drac, I should simply say that you can transfigure yourself into any form that may be agreeable to you, and if you have taken that of the Prince of Orange it is for some freak or mad fancy. Oh! my Drac, of what use is it to try to hide yourself?"
What was there to be done (the poem demands) but instantly to embrace "la folatre"? It is hard to say, adds the poet, "which is the more intoxicated, more under the spell of enchantment."
And so, in their great happiness they float down stream.