SCENE II.

THE FRENCH COURT AT ARRAS.

An antechamber in the Maison de Ville.

TRISTRAM

OF LESTOVET, clerk of the council, and SIR
FLEUREANT OF HEURlee.

SIR FLEUREANT.

When I forgive him, may the stars rain down

And pierce me with ten thousand points of fire!
His whore his leman!

LESTOVET.

Had she been his wife,

A small transgression might have passed. Learn thou
To keep thy hands from meddling with men's whores ;
For dubious rights are jealously enforced,

And what men keep for pleasure is more precious
Than what need is they keep.

SIR FLEUREANT.

He'll be the worse,

And knows it. When I fled I left behind

A notion of my purpose.

There's none here

Can know like me his weakness and his strength.

Let but the council hear me; I shall tell

What shall be worth to them ten thousand spears.

LESTOVET.

"Tis now their time to meet; but the young king Lies long abed. Here comes my Lord of Burgundy.

Enter Duke of Burgundy.

BURGUNDY.

Good-morrow, sirs, good-morrow! So, your stars, They tell me, are your good friends still, good Flurry; You always come clear off;-well, I'm glad on't.

SIR FLEUREANT.

I give your highness thanks.

BURGUNDY.

So, so, Lestovet,

My brother of Bourbon keeps his mind, they say;

He is for Tournay still; 'tis wonderful,

A man of sense to be so much besotted!

LESTOVET.

His grace of Bourbon, sir, is misdirected;

He is deluded by a sort of men

That should know better.

BURGUNDY.

They shall rue it dearly.

To turn aside ten leagues, ten Flemish leagues,

With sixty thousand men ! 'tis moonish madness!

LESTOVET.

Sir Fleureant here, who left the rebel camp

No longer past than Wednesday, says their strength Lies wholly eastward of the Scheldt.

SIR FLEUREANT.

The towns

Betwixt the Scheldt and Lis, your grace should know,

Are shaking to their steeple-tops with fear

Of the French force; and westward of the Lis

You need but blow a trumpet, and the gates
Of Ypres, Poperinguen, Rousselaere,

And Ingelmunster, gape to take you in.

BURGUNDY.

They are my words; they are my very

words;

Twenty times over have I told my brother

Those towns would join us if he would but let them;
But he's as stubborn as a mule; and oh!
That constable! Oh, Oliver of Clisson!

That such a man as thou, at such a time,

Should hold the staff of constable of France!

Well! such men are!

LESTOVET.

My lord, I crave your pardon

For so exorbitantly shooting past

My line of duty as to tender words

Of counsel to your highness; but my thoughts
Will out, and I have deemed that with his grace
Your royal brother, you have dealt too shortly.
The noble frankness of your nature breaks
Too suddenly upon the minds of men

That love themselves, and with a jealous love
Are wedded to their purposes: not only
His grace of Bourbon, but full many lords
Who bear a part against you in the council,
Would yield upon a gentle provocation,
That stiffen with a rougher.

- BURGUNDY.

That may

But, Lestovet, to sue to them to turn!

I cannot do it.

LESTOVET.

be;

May it please your grace

To leave it in my hands. With easier ear
They listen to a man of low condition;
And under forms that in your grace to use

It were unseemly, I can oft approach,

And with a current that themselves perceive not Can turn the tenour of their counsels.

You are a wise and wary man; this day
I leave the field to you; say that the gout

Confines me to my chamber.