Marion: Ah, Didier! If a woman's feeble hand
Can save you, mine shall do it! [She departs.
L'Angely (picking up the sword he lent to Didier):
Ha! Ha! Ha!
It was not I that played the fool to-night!
Act II
Scene—A hall in the castle of Chambord. King Louis XIII., a grey-haired, weak-minded man, is sitting, pale and sorrowful, in a chair of state. L'Angely stands beside him.
The King: Oh, it is miserable to be a king
That lives but does not govern. Richelieu
Is killing all my friends. I sometimes think
He wants their blood to dye his scarlet robes.
L'Angely: He works for France, sire——
The King: Yes, and for himself.
I hate him. Never did a king of France
Govern with so tyrannical a hand
As he now does. A single word from me
And all his pomp and splendour, all his power,
Would vanish. But I cannot say the word;
He will not let me. Come, amuse me, fool!
L'Angely: Is not life, sire, a thing of bitterness?
The King: It is. Man is a shadow.
L'Angely: And a king
The miserablest creature on this earth.