Here, and but shew himself, and to some one Or two make his request: There is a minute, When a man's presence speaks in his own cause, More than the tongues of twenty advocates. Rom. I have urged that.
Enter ROCHFORT and DU CROY. Charmi. Their lordships here are coming, I must go get me a place. You'll find me in court, And at your service. [Exit CHARMI.
Rom. Now, put on your spirits! Du Croy. The ease that you prepare yourself, my lord,
In giving up the place you hold in court, Will prove, 1 fear, a trouble in the state, And that no slight one.
Roch. Pray you, sir, no more.
Rom. Now, sir, lose not this offered means: Their looks,
Fixed on you with a pitying earnestness, Invite you to demand their furtherance To your good purpose.-This is such a dulness, So foolish and untimely, as-
Du Croy. You know him?
Roch. I do; and much lament the sudden fall Of his brave house. It is young Charalois, Son to the marshal, from whom he inherits His fame and virtues only.
Rom. Ha! they name you.
Du Croy. His father died in prison two days
Roch. Yes, to the shame of this ungrateful state;
That such a master in the art of war, So noble, and so highly meriting From this forgetful country, should, for want Of means to satisfy his creditors
The sums he took up for the general good, Meet with an end so infamous.
Rom. Dare you ever hope for like opportunity? Du Croy. My good lord!
Roch. My wish bring comfort to you! Du Croy. The time calls us. Roch. Good morrow, colonel!
[Exeunt ROCHFORT and DU CROY. Rom. This obstinate spleen,
You think becomes your sorrow, and sorts well With your black suits: But, grant me wit or judgment,
And, by the freedom of an honest man,
And a true friend to boot, I swear, 'tis shame
And therefore flatter not yourself with hope, Your sable habit, with the hat and cloak, No, though the ribbons help, have power to
To what you would: For those, that had no eyes To see the great acts of your father, will not, From any fashion sorrow can put on, Be taught to know their duties.
They are too old to learn, and I too young To give them counsel; since, if they partake The understanding and the hearts of men, They will prevent my words and tears: If not,
What can persuasion, though made eloquent With grief, work upon such as have changed na
With the most savage beast? Blest, blest be ever The memory of that happy age, when justice Had no guards to keep off wronged innocence From flying to her succours, and, in that, Assurance of redress! Where now, Romont, The damned with more ease may ascend from hell, Than we arrive at her. One Cerberus there Forbids the passage; in our courts a thousand, As loud and fertile-headed; and the client, That wants the sops to fill their ravenous throats, Must hope for no access. Why should I, then, Attempt impossibilities, you, friend, being Too well acquainted with my dearth of means To make my entrance that way?
Rom. Would I were not!
But, sir, you have a cause, a cause so just, Of such necessity, not to be deferred, As would compel a maid, whose foot was never Set o'er her father's threshold, nor, within The house where she was born, ever spake word Which was not usher'd with pure virgin blushes, To drown the tempest of a pleader's tongue, And force corruption to give back the hire It took against her. Let examples move you. You see men great in birth, esteem, and fortune, Rather than lose a scruple of their right, Fawn basely upon such, whose gowns put off, They would disdain for servants.
Char. And to these can I become a suitor? Rom. Without loss:
Would you consider, that, to gain their favours, Our chastest dames put off their modesties, Soldiers forget their honours, usurers Make sacrifice of gold, poets of wit,
And men religious part with fame and goodness. Be therefore won to use the means that may Advance your pious ends.
Char. You shall overcome.
Rom. And you receive the glory. Pray you now practise.
Char. And be again contemned! Nov. sen. I know what's to be done. 1 Cred. And, that your lordship Will please to do your knowledge, we offer first Our thankful hearts here, as a bounteous earnest To what we will add.
Nov. sen. One word more of this, I am your enemy. Am I a man, Your bribes can work on? Ha!
Lilad. Friends, you mistake
The way to win my lord; he must not hear this, But I, as one in favour in his sight, May hearken to you for my profit. Sir! Pray hear them.
Nov. sen. 'Tis well.
Lilad. Observe him now.
The worst of spirits, that strive to rob the tombs
Nov. sen. Your cause being good, and your pro- Of what is their inheritance, the dead:
Without corruption I am your friend; Speak your desires.
2 Cred. Oh, they are charitable;
The marshal stood engaged unto us three, Two hundred thousand crowns, which, by his death,
We are defeated of. For which great loss We aim at nothing but his rotten flesh; Nor is that cruelty.
That talks of nothing but of guns and armour, And swears he'll be a soldier; 'tis an humour I would divert him from; and I am told, That if I minister to him, in his drink, Powder made of this bankrupt marshal's bones, Provided that the carcase rot above ground, 'Twill cure his foolish frenzy.
Nov. sen. You shew in it
A father's care. I have a son myself, A fashionable gentleman, and a peaceful: And, but I am assured he is not so given, He should take of it too.
Nov. sen. What are you? Charal. A gentleman.
Nov. sen. So are many that rake dunghills. If you have any suit, move it in court:
I take no papers in corners.
Rom. Yes, as the matter may be carried, and whereby
To manage the conveyance-Follow him. Lilad. You're rude: I say he shall not pass. [Exeunt CHARALOIS, and Advocates. Rom. You say so! On what assurance? For the well-cutting of his lordship's corns, Picking his toes, or any office else Nearer to baseness!
Lilad. Look upon me better;
Are these the ensigns of so coarse a fellow? Be well advised.
Rom. Out, rogue! do not I know These glorious weeds spring from the sordid dunghill
Of thy officious baseness? Wert thou worthy Of any thing from me, but my contempt,
I would do more than this,-[Beats him.] more, you court-spider!
Lilad. But that this man is lawless, he should
For usurers bred by a riotous peace,
That hold the charter of your wealth and freedom,
By being knaves and cuckolds; that ne'er prayed, But when you fear the rich heirs will grow wise, To keep their lands out of your parchment toils; And then, the devil, your father, is called upon, To invent some ways of huxury ne'er thought on. Be gone, and quickly, or I'll leave no room Upon your foreheads for your horns to sprout on; Without a murmur, or I will undo you, For I will beat you honest.
We will bear this rather than hazard that. [Exeunt Creditors.
Re-enter CHARALOIS.
Rom. I am somewhat eased in this yet. Char. Only friend,
To what vain purpose do I make my sorrow Wait on the triumph of their cruelty? Or teach their pride, from my humility,
To think it has o'ercome? They are determined What they will do; and it may well become me, To rob them of the glory they expect From my submiss entreaties.
The difficulties that you encounter with, Will crown the undertaking-Heaven! you weep, And I could do so too; but that I know, There's more expected from the son and friend Of him whose fatal loss now shakes our natures, Than sighs or tears, in which a village nurse, Or cunning strumpet, when her knave is hanged, May overcome us. We are men, young lord, Let us not do like women. To the court, And there speak like your birth: Wake sleeping justice,
Or dare the axe. This is a way will sort With what you are: I call you not to that I will shrink from myself; I will deserve Your thanks, or suffer with you-O how bravely That sudden fire of anger shews in you! Give fuel to it; since you are on a shelf Of extreme danger, suffer like yourself. [Exeunt.
SCENE II The Court of Justice.
Enter ROCHFORT, NOVALL, sen. Presidents, CHARMI, DU CROY, BEAUMONT, Advocates, Officers, and three Creditors.
Du Croy. Your lordships seated, may this meeting prove
Prosperous to us, and to the general good of Burgundy!
Nov. sen. Speak to the point. Du Croy-Which is
With honour to dispose the place and power Of premier president, which this reverend man, Grave Rochfort (whom for honour's sake I name), Is purposed to resign; a place, my lords, In which he hath with such integrity.
Performed the first and best parts of a judge, That, as his life transcends all fair examples Of such as were before him in Dijon,
So it remains to those that shall succeed him, A precedent they may imitate, but not equal. Roch. I may not sit to hear this.
(Which guilty, nay, condemned men, dare not
It will erect a trophy of your mercy,
Which married to that justice
Nov. sen. Speak to the cause.
Charmi. I will, my lord. To say, the late dead marshal,
And thankfulness we are bound to pay to good- The father of this young lord here, my client,
In this o'ercome your modesty.
Roch. My thanks
For this great favour shall prevent your trouble. The honourable trust that was imposed Upon my weakness, since you witness for me It was not ill discharged, I will not mention; Nor now, if age had not deprived me of The little strength I had to govern well The province that I undertook, forsake it. Nov. sen. That we could lend you of our years! Du Croy. Or strength!
Nov. sen. Or, as you are, persuade you to continue
The noble exercise of your knowing judgment! Roch. That may not be; nor can your lordships' goodness,
Since your employments have conferred upon
Sufficient wealth, deny the use of it;
And though old age, when one foot's in the grave,
In many, when all humours else are spent, Feeds no affection in them, but desire To add height to the mountain of their riches, In me it is not so. I rest content
With the honours and estate I now possess: And, that I may have liberty to use, What Heaven, still blessing my poor industry, Hath made me master of, I pray the court To ease me of my burthen, that I may Employ the small remainder of my life In living well, and learning how to die so.
Enter ROMONT and CHARALOIS.
Rom. See, sir, our advocate.
Du Croy. The court entreats
Your lordship will be pleased to name the man, Which you would have your successor, and in me All promise to confirm it.
Hath done his country great and faithful service, Might tax me of impertinence, to repeat What your grave lordships cannot but remem- ber:
He, in his life, became indebted to These thrifty men, (I will not wrong their credits, By giving them the attributes they now merit,) And failing, by the fortune of the wars, Of means to free himself from his engagements, He was arrested, and, for want of bail, Imprisoned at their suit; and, not long after, With loss of liberty ended his life.
And, though it became a maxim in our laws, All suits die with the person, these men's malice In death finds matter for their hate to work on, Denying him the decent rites of burial, Which the sworn enemies of the christian faith Grant freely to their slaves. May it therefore
Rom. Yet I, that, in my service done my coun- try,
Disdain to be put in the scale with thee, Confess myself unworthy to be valued With the least part, nay, hair of the dead mar- shal;
Of whose so many glorious undertakings, Make choice of any one, and that the meanest, Performed against the subtle fox of France, The politic Lewis, or the more desperate Swiss, And 'twill outweigh all the good purposes, Though put in act, that ever gownman practised. Nov. sen. Away with him to prison! Rom. If that curses,
Urged justly, and breathed forth so, ever fell On those that did deserve them, let not mine Be spent in vain now, that thou, from this in- stant, Mayest, in thy fear that they will fall upon thee, Be sensible of the plagues they shall bring with them.
And for denying of a little earth,
To cover what remains of our great soldier, May all your wives prove whores, your factors thieves,
And, while you live, your riotous heirs undo you! And thou, the patron of their cruelty, Of all thy lordships live not to be owner Of so much dung as will conceal a dog, Or, what is worse, thyself in! And thy years, To th' end thou mayst be wretched, I wish many; And, as thou hast denied the dead a grave, May misery in thy life make thee desire one, Which men, and all the elements, keep from thee!-
I have begun well; imitate, exceed. [To CHAR. Roch. Good counsel, were it a praise-worthy deed. [Exeunt officers with ROMONT. Du Croy. Remember what we are. Char. Thus low my duty Answers your lordship's counsel. I will use, In the few words with which I am to trouble Your lordship's ears, the temper that you wish
Not that I fear to speak my thoughts as loud, And with a liberty beyond Romont; But that I know, for me, that am made up Of all that's wretched, so to haste my end, Would seem to most rather a willingness
To quit the burden of a hopeless life, Than scorn of death, or duty to the dead. I, therefore, bring the tribute of my praise To your severity, and commend the justice, That will not, for the many services
That any man hath done the commonwealth, Wink at his least of ills. What though my father
Writ man before he was so, and confirmed it, By numbering that day no part of his life, In which he did not service to his country; Was he to be free therefore from the laws, And ceremonious form in your decrees? Or else, because he did as much as man, In those three memorable overthrows, At Granson, Morat, Nancy, where his master, The warlike Charalois (with whose misfortunes I bear his name) lost treasure, men, and life, To be excused from payment of those sums Which (his own patrimony spent) his zeal To serve his country forced him to take up? Nov. sen. The precedent were ill. Char. And yet, my lord, this much I know you'll grant: after those great defeatures, Which in their dreadful ruins buried quick
Courage and hope in all men but himself, He forced the proud foe, in his height of con- quest,
To yield unto an honourable peace, And in it saved an hundred thousand lives, To end his own, that was sure proof against The scalding summer's heat, and winter's frost, Ill airs, the cannon, and the enemy's sword, In a most loathsome prison.
Du Croy. 'Twas his fault To be so prodigal.
Nov. sen. He had from the state Sufficient entertainment for the army.
Char. Sufficient, my lords? You sit at home, And, though your fees are boundless at the bar, Are thrifty in the charges of the warBut your wills be obeyed. To these I turn, To these soft-hearted men, that wisely know They're only good men that pay what they owe. 2 Cred. And so they are.
1 Cred. 'Tis the city doctrine; We stand bound to maintain it.
Char. Be constant in it;
And, since you are as merciless in your natures, As base and mercenary in your means, By which you get your wealth, I will not urge The court to take away one scruple from The right of their laws, or [wish] one good thought In you to mend your disposition with. I know there is no music to your ears So pleasing as the groans of men in prison, And that the tears of widows, and the cries Of famished orphans, are the feasts that take
That to be in your danger, with more care Should be avoided than infectious air, The loathed embraces of diseased women, A flatterer's poison, or the loss of honour.
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