Enter D'ORMEA.

Long live King Charles !—

No-Charles's counsellor !

Well, is it over, Marquis? Did I jest?

D'O. "King Charles!" What then may you be? Vic.

Any thing!

A country gentleman that's cured of bustle,
And beats a quick retreat toward Chambery
To hunt and hawk, and leave you noisy folk
To drive your trade without him. I'm Count Remont-
Count Tende any little place's Count!

D'O. Then, Victor, Captain against Catinat,

At Staffarde, where the French beat you; and Duke
At Turin, where you beat the French; King, late,
Of Savoy, Piedmont, Montferrat, Sardinia,

-Now, "any little place's Count"

Vic.

Proceed!

D'O. Breaker of vows to God, who crowned you first; Breaker of vows to Man, who kept you since;

Most profligate to me, who outraged God

And Man to serve you, and am made

I was but privy to, by passing thus

pay crimes

To your imbecile son-who, well you know,
Must, (when the people here, and nations there,
Clamour for you, the main delinquent, slipt
From King to-Count of any little place)
-Surrender me, all left within his reach,—
I, sir, forgive you: for I see the end-

See

you on your return (you will return) To him you trust in for the moment . . . Vic.

Trust in him? (merely a prime-minister
This D'Ormea!) How trust in him?

D'O.

How?

In his fear

His love, but pray discover for yourself
What you are weakest, trusting in!

Aha,

Vic.
My D'Ormea, not a shrewder scheme than this
In your repertory? You know old Victor-
Vain, choleric, inconstant, rash—(I've heard
Talkers who little thought the King so close)
Felicitous, now, were't not, to provoke him
To clean forget, one minute afterward,
His solemn act-to call the nobles back
And pray them give again the very power
He has abjured!-for the dear sake of-what?
Vengeance on you! No, D'Ormea: such am I,
Count Tende or Count any thing you please,
-Only, the same that did the things you say,
And, among other things you say not, used
Your finest fibre, meanest muscle,—you
I used, and now, since will have it so,

you

Leave to your fate-mere lumber in the midst,
You and your works-Why, what on earth beside
Are

you made for, you sort of ministers ? D'O.-Not left, though, to my fate!

son

Your witless

Has more wit than to load himself with lumber:

He foils you that way, and I follow you.

Vic. Stay with my son-protect the weaker side!
D'O. Ay, be tossed to the people like a rag,
And flung by them to Spain and Austria-so
Abolishing the record of your part

In all this perfidy!

Vic.

My own return !

Prevent, beside,

D'O. That's half prevented now!

"Twill go hard but you'll find a wondrous charm
In exile to discredit me. The Alps-

Silk-mills to watch-vines asking vigilance-
Hounds open for the stag—your hawk's a-wing—
Brave days that wait the Louis of the South,
Italy's Janus!

Vic. [after a slight pause.] · I've kept them wait

ing? Yes!

...

Come in-complete the Abdication, sir! [They go out.

Enter POLYXENA.

Pol. A shout? The sycophants are free of Charles !

Oh, is not this like Italy? No fruit

Of his or my distempered fancy, this-
But just an ordinary fact! Beside,

Here they've set forms for such proceedings-Victor
Imprisoned his own mother-he should know,
If any, how a son's to be deprived

Of a son's right. Our duty's palpable.
Ne'er was my husband for the wily king
And the unworthy subjects-be it so!

Come you safe out of them, my Charles! Our life
Grows not the broad and dazzling life, I dreamed
Might prove your lot-for strength was shut in you
None guessed but I-strength which, untrammelled once,
Had little shamed your vaunted ancestry-

Patience and self-devotion, fortitude,

Simplicity and utter truthfulness

-All which, they shout to lose!

So, now my work

Begins to save him from regret. Save Charles

Regret?-the noble nature! He's not made

Like the Italians: 'tis a German soul.

CHARLES enters crowned.

Oh, where's the King's heir?

prince? Gone—

Gone-the Crown

Where's Savoy? Gone:-Sardinia? Gone!—But Charles
Is left! And when my Rhine-land bowers arrive,
If he looked almost handsome yester-twilight

As his gray eyes seemed widening into black

Because I praised him, then how will he look?
Farewell, you stripped and whited mulberry-trees
Bound each to each by lazy ropes of vine!
Now I'll teach you my language—I'm not forced
To speak Italian now, Charles?

Pol.

Oh worst, worst, worst of all! Tell me what, Victor? He has made you King? What's he then? What's to follow this? You, King? Cha. Have I done wrong? Yes-for you were not by! Pol. Tell me from first to last.

Cha.

Hush- -a new world

Brightens before me; he is moved away
-The dark form that eclipsed it, he subsides
Into a shape supporting me like you,

And I, alone, tend upward, more and more
Tend upward: I am grown Sardinia's King.
Pol. Now stop
At ten years old?

Cha.

Pol.

was not this Victor, Duke of Savoy

He was.

And the Duke spent

Since then, just four-and-fifty years in toil