For me, I wish that mine may both rot off--
_Card._ No more.
_May._ The Council of Sixteen attend you.
_Gui._ I go--that vermin may devour my limbs;
That I may die, like the late puling Francis[5],
Under the barber's hands, imposthumes choak me,--
If while alive, I cease to chew their ruin;
Alphonso Corso, Grillon, priest, together:
To hang them in effigy,--nay, to tread,
Drag, stamp, and grind them, after they are dead. [_Exeunt._
ACT II. SCENE I.
_Enter Queen-Mother, Abbot_ DELBENE, _and_ POLIN.
_Qu. M._ Pray, mark the form of the conspiracy:
Guise gives it out, he journeys to Champaigne,
But lurks indeed at Lagny, hard by Paris,
Where every hour he hears and gives instructions.
Mean time the Council of Sixteen assure him,
They have twenty thousand citizens in arms.
Is it not so, Polin?
_Pol._ True, on my life;
And, if the king doubts the discovery,
Send me to the Bastile till all be proved.
_Qu. M._ Call colonel Grillon; the king would speak with him.
_Ab._ Was ever age like this? [_Exit_ POLIN.
_Qu. M._ Polin is honest;
Beside, the whole proceeding is so like
The hair-brained rout, I guessed as much before.
Know then, it is resolved to seize the king,
When next he goes in penitential weeds
Among the friars, without his usual guards;
Then, under shew of popular sedition,
For safety, shut him in a monastery,
And sacrifice his favourites to their rage.
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