YVETTE (_raising her voice_) Nantes! Nantes! DE VARDES By all the gods!— YVETTE À moi! À moi! Nantes! [_An answering cry from within._ DE VARDES Herd girl of Morbec— LALAIN Right of the Seigneur! YVETTE À moi! Citoyens! Patriots! _Reënter mob._ DE VARDES Courage, Clarice! THE MARQUISE O all ye saints! YVETTE Citoyens! This ci-devant, this black Aristocrat! Oh! all this while she was in hiding here! Beside the pillar there she kneeled and laughed. Do I not know her laughter, rippling sweet Or o’er a broken fan or broken heart, Or in green Morbec and a garden fair, Or on the moonlit road to ancient Vannes?— She, she the ci-devant, the emigrée! Who to false England with her jewels fled,— Rubies, emeralds, and long strings of pearls! The while in barren fields her peasants starved!— I denounce the Citoyenne Blanchefôret! THE CROWD Ah—h—h! THE MARQUISE O terror! DE VARDES Thy hand in mine, Clarice! YVETTE What of, what of the dark line of De Vardes? What tales are told of Morbec’s black château? More wicked and more lost than sunken Ys! Wolves were they all, the seigneurs of Morbec! Henri, Philippe, Gil, René, Amaury— All, all were wolves who lurked, who sprang, who tore, No heart of lamb, but just the heart of man! Heart of a man, heart of a woman too! Morbec! De Vardes! No direr names in France! Right hands of kings, priests, soldiers, cardinals, Courtiers and lovers of the fleur-de-lis! Passionate, proud, a whirlwind and a flame! Morbec! De Vardes! ‘Ware all who came between The whirlwind and its goal, the stubble and the flame! DE VARDES Thou lost soul! LALAIN Thou lovely fiend! YVETTE De Vardes! De Vardes! The name comes on the blast Up from the gulf where lie the thrones of kings. Battle, oppression, tyranny and wrong— Miramand, Blanchefôret! on sea winds in they float From that dim palace where that lost Ahès Down to her emerald windows beckons man And spreads the bridal bed in sunken Ys! NANON Mon Dieu! The bridal bed! YVETTE