POMPDEBILE (to VIOLETTA). My dear, they are marvels! marvels! (He comes down from the throne and leads VIOLETTA up to the dais.) Your throne, my dear.
VIOLETTA (sitting down, with a sigh). I'm glad it's such a comfortable one.
POMPDEBILE. Knave, we forgive your offense. The temptation was very great. There are things that mere human nature cannot be expected to resist. Another tart, Cooks, and yet another!
CHANCELLOR. But, Your Majesty, don't eat them all. They must go to the museum with the dishes of the previous Queens of Hearts.
YELLOW HOSE. A museum—those tarts! As well lock a rose in a money-box!
CHANCELLOR. But the constitution commands it. How else can we commemorate, for future generations, this event?
KNAVE. An Your Majesty, please, I will commemorate it in a rhyme.
POMPDEBILE. How can a mere rhyme serve to keep this affair in the minds of the people?
KNAVE. It is the only way to keep it in the minds of the people. No event is truly deathless unless its monument be built in rhyme. Consider that fall which, though insignificant in itself, became the most famous of all history, because someone happened to put it into rhyme. The crash of it sounded through centuries and will vibrate for generations to come.
VIOLETTA. You mean the fall of the Holy Roman Empire?