Corneille! Racine! Voltaire!--This is tragedy,--tragedy played on the stage of the Théâtre Français--tragedy which it has been declared in the face of day shall "lift the ground from under you!" Such is the march of mind! After this glorious soliloquy, her lover Rodolpho pays Catarina a visit--again in her bed-room, in her guarded palace, surrounded by spies and sentinels. How he gets there, it is impossible to guess: but in the burlesque at the Vaudeville they make this matter much clearer;--for there these unaccountable entrées are managed at one time by the falling down of a wall; at another, by the lover's rising through the floor like a ghost; and at another, by his coming flying down on a wire from an opening in the ceiling like a Cupid. The lovers have a long talk; but she does not tell him a word about the killing, for fear it should bring him into mischief,--though where he got in, it might be easy enough for her to get out. However, she says nothing about "_les choses_" behind the curtain, but gives him a kiss, and sends him away in high glee. No sooner does he disappear, than Angelo and the Tisbe enter, and a conversation ensues between the three on the manner of the doomed lady's death that none but M. Victor Hugo could have written. He would represent nature, and he makes a high-born princess, pleading for her life to a sovereign who is her husband, speak thus: "Parlons simplement. Tenez ... vous êtes infâme ... et puis, comme vous mentez toujours, vous ne me croirez pas. Tenez, vraiment je vous méprise: vous m'avez épousée pour mon argent...." Then she makes a speech to the Tisbe in the same exquisite tone of nature; with now and then a phrase or expression which is quite beyond even the fun of the Vaudeville to travestie; as for instance--"Je suis toujours restée honnête--vous me comprenez, vous--mais je ne puis dire cela à mon mari. _Les hommes ne veulent jamais nous croire_, vous savez; cependant nous leur disons _quelquefois_ des choses bien vraies...." At last the Tyrant gets out of patience. "ANGELO. "C'en est trop! Catarina Bragadina, le crime fait, veut un châtiment; la fosse ouverte, veut un cercueil; le mari outragé, veut une femme morte. _Tu perds toutes les paroles qui sortent de ta bouche_ (montrant le poison). "Voulez vous, madame? "CATARINA. "Non! "ANGELO. "Non?... J'en reviens à ma première idée alors. Les épées! les épées! Troilo! qu'on aille me chercher.... J'y vais!" * * * * * Now we all know that his première idée was not to stab her with one or more swords, but to cut her head off on a block--and that _les choses_ are all hid ready for it behind the curtain. But this "J'y vais" is part of the machinery of the fable; for if the Tyrant did not go away, the Tisbe could have found no opportunity of giving her rival a hint that the poison was not so dangerous as she believed. So when Angelo returns, the Tisbe tells him that "elle se résigne au poison."