M. de Saint-Priest conveyed my words to Madame. My resistance continued to occupy the minds of the Princess's environment Madame de Saint-Priest,çoisRené with her nobility of sentiment, appeared to entertain the keenest regret. Madame de Podenas had not lost the habit of that serene smile which shows her beautiful teeth: her calm was the more perceptible in the midst of our agitation.
We were not unlike a strolling company of French actors playing at Ferrara, by permission of the worshipful magistrates of the town, in the _Fugitive Princess_ or the _Persecuted Mother._ The scene represented, on the right, Tasso's prison; on the left, Ariosto's house; at the back, the castle in which the feasts of Leonora and Alphonsus took place. This royalty without a kingdom; those anxieties of a Court contained in two wandering carriages and having the Hôtel des Trois-Couronnes for its palace at night; those State councils held in a room at an inn: all that completed the variety of the scenes of my fortune. I put off my knight's helm in the wings and resumed my straw hat; I travelled with the _de jure_ monarchy rolled up in my portmanteau, while the _de facto_ monarchy flaunted its baubles at the Tuileries. Voltaire calls upon all the royalties to spend their carnival in Venice with Achmet III.[211]: Ivan[212] Emperor of All the Russias, Charles Edward King of England, the two Kings of the Polacks[213], Theodore[214] King of Corsica and four Serene Highnesses.
"'Sire, Your Majesty's post-chaise is at Padua, and the bark is ready.'
"'Sire, Your Majesty may set off when you please.'
"'Troth, Sire, they will trust Your Majesty no longer, nor myself neither; and we may both of us chance to be sent to gaol this very night.'"
"Gentlemen, how came you all to be kings? I must confess that neither my friend Martin here nor myself have any such titles."
It was eleven o'clock in the evening; I was hoping that I had won my case and obtained my _exeat_ from Madame. I was very far out in my reckoning! Madame does not so soon relinquish a wish; she had not questioned me about France, because, preoccupied as she was with my resistance to her plan, she was making that her business of the moment. M. de Saint-Priest entered my room and brought me the rough draft of a letter which Her Royal Highness proposed to write to Charles X.: