Chapter 4: Masquerade Part 1 | All Hallows Eve
For various reasons of their own, the companions decide to
attend the Royal Masquerade which is being held at the Hôtel of the Duke de
Bellegarde – a location with which they are already familiar from a previous tale.
Courtyard Level
Guy and Norbert arrive together, Guy dressed as Death with a
Scythe and Norbert attired as an veil wearing Princess. During their
introductions to the Duke and Duchess, Norbert says in a falsetto voice that
“Monsieur de Bourges is my escort. Tee, hee, hee!” Guy looks pained. Meawhile
Gaston and Father Signoret arrive dressed as a Wolf and a Bear. Once they have
arrived, the companions separate to mingle with the crowd and to try recognize
their friends and foes.
Garden and Ballroom Level
Despite his disguise, Guy is quickly recognized and berated
by Seigneur Bertrand Renault who blames Guy for the death of his daughter, the
poisoner. Guy’s admirer, Mme. Deladier leads him away from the angry crowd. But
her attempt to spend time with Guy is cut short as a tray of fish in sauce is
accidently dumped onto her costume by a clumsy servant. Guy calls Collette over
to assist her, but the young Mademoiselle is humiliated in front of her
perceived rival and she runs off in tears. Guy ponders how Renault was able to
spot him and Collette tells him that Renault has been very vocal in blaming Guy
and his friend the Provost of Paris. “I see,” says Guy. Renault must have
bribed someone at my costumer.
Father Signoret glimpses a sinister iron masked figure, but
chooses to talk to a pair of Red Bishops instead. He fools the Bishops into
thinking he is part of their group by faking a mumbled response to their
challenge: “If I said, St. Bartholomew’s Day, what would you say?” While he
succeeds in making him think he is part of their conspiracy, he does not know
that the proper response is. However he does uncover the fact that the Red
Bishops are plotting something for tonight.
Norbert tests his natural talent for acting by continuing to
pretend to be a Princess and to speak in a falsetto voice. At the buffet,
despite his pretense at Princess-hood, he yields the last sausage to a burly,
but noble Bear. Norbert than dances with the Bear who he later learns is
actually the Baron de Gras.
Meanwhile a drunken guest spills his wine all over Gaston’s
Wolf costume. Annoyed at the court fop who cannot hold his drink, Gaston
angrily drags the fop outside to the garden. When they are momentarily alone,
Gaston punches the courtier unconscious and tosses him in the bushes.
Chapter 5: Masquerade Part 2 | One Death Two Many
Guy who has spotted someone dressed as a Rabbit speaking in
close conversation to Cardinal Richelieu, whose costume Guy had discovered
prior to the Masquerade, sends Gaston to find out the Rabbit’s identity.
Gaston, who is dressed as a Wolf, grabs the Rabbit by the back of the neck
saying, as he gives the Rabbit’s neck a shake, “Have you ever seen how a wolf
kills a rabbit?...Snaps their neck.” Thoroughly intimidated, the reveler
reveals he is Baron Charnace and that he was reporting to his Eminence on the
diplomatic mission to the Netherlands. He reveals that he warned the Cardinal
that Guy and Signoret “have no vision and that they cannot see the wider
picture or the best interests of France.”
Norbert notices a minor noble dressed as a Trojan Warrior
crudely flirting with a lady-in-waiting. Norbert intervenes, but his
intervention results in a duel of courtly insults, which he loses to the much
more courtly nobleman. Norbert retreats in defeat to the buffet to restore his
composure with some more wine and delicacies and perhaps another few sausages.
Meanwhile, Guy, still dressed as Death, impersonates the
aide of the Spanish Ambassador, who is also dressed as Death. Guy learns the
Baron St. Giron is somehow involved with the Spanish. This is surprising since
St. Giron is a client of the Prince of Condé, who leads the Huguenots. Guy,
guided by the Ambassador’s Raven guard, goes to meet St. Giron, but just in
time, he spots another Death, no doubt the real Ambassador’s aide, who is
already with the Baron. He also notices that his escort the Raven has the
familiar, burning fanatical gaze of the Left Hand of God. I thought I killed
him at the Pont Neuf. Shocked, Guy escapes into the crowd and quickly changes
his costume for a simple Skull mask.
Signoret, who is dressed as a Bear, learns that the Red
Bishops are working someone dressed as a “pudgy Bear.” Possibly this is Baron
de Gras? Deciding to impersonate the pudgy Bear, Signoret stuffs cushions
underneath his costume to make himself more rotund.
Gaston, having released the Rabbit is looking for Guy, when
he overhears, two nobles, one dressed as a Barbarian King and the other as a
White Chess Knight plotting.
White
Knight: So your plan miscarried? Well we tried your way, now we try mine. Shall
we place a wager on my plan’s success?
Barbarian
King: I can’t afford to wager with you. I’ve had to sell or pawn everything I
could lay my hands on to raise my share of the money for your idea.
White
Knight: You insisted we try your plan first and, despite my reservations, I
willingly provided the funds you needed. But your plan failed. So now we try a
more subtle approach. And for my plan to succeed this play must not only be
seen, but you must be seen to be the patron responsible for this poetic master
stroke.
Barbarian
King: Yes, yes, I know. You’ve said all this before. I’d rather carve him
into little bits myself…
White
Knight: You can’t treat a peasant the same way you would a noble…[Their voices fade as they move away.]
The Barbarian King’s voice seems familiar and Gaston
realizes the he is the Baron Villemorin. Gaston accosts the Baron and they
trade insults. As that occurs, behind Gaston, but in plain view of the Baron,
Guy appears in yet another costume with the graying face of Villemorin’s dead
brother, Paulin. The sight of his dead brother appearing behind Gaston upsets
and unsettles the Baron, but Guy disappears back into the crowd before
Villemorin can take any action.
Still at the buffet, Norbert inadvertently bumps into a
Trojan noble who is with a similarly armored friend. He realizes this is the
same Trojan he met earlier. The pair object to a clodhopper like Norbert (a)
bumping into one of the them, (b) having the temerity to attend a noble
function at all, and (c) breathing the same air as do they. One of the nobles
insists on satisfaction. When Norbert refuses, the nobles threaten to gather
his peers to physically eject Norbert from the Masquerade.
Seeking to avoid a quarrel near the Royal presence, Norbert
grabs a tray of canapés and exits out the French doors into the garden, but he
slips and despite his juggling expertise he ends up tossing the canapés onto a
lady. He moves forward to brush the sticky mess off her dress, but she is
unsettled by the mountainous Princess who seems to be reaching out to grab and
crush her and she screams in fright. In response, the Trojan nobles and several
bystanders attack Norbert. He shoves several of them into a fountain, but as
more spectators look like they are about to enter the fray, he decides the
discretion is the better part of valor. Gaston tosses a tray of slippery
appetizers to try to delay pursuit, but it is only his cousin’s quick thinking
to duck into a hedge maze that allows him to elude pursuit. The bystanders
summon some of the King’s Musketeers on guard to their assistance, but Norbert
uses his Herculean Might to crash through the hedge. He then leaps the wall,
steals a boat, and escapes down the Seine with the shouts of his pursuers
echoing behind him.
Father Signoret, now attired as a Pudgy Bear talks to a Red
Bishop and learns that something, which seems like an assassination, is going
to occur tonight. He also realizes that the Red Bishops are working with the
Spanish Ambassador. He makes contact with Guy and Gaston, but realizes that one
of the Red Bishops is now following him. He and Guy head towards the courtyard
while Gaston lingers to deal with the Bishop.
In the courtyard the cousins separate and Guy notices a
Pudgy Bear heading upstairs as well as a furtive and late arriving guest. He
follows the late arrival and discovers that he is a secret messenger who passes
in to see someone in the Queen’s faction then he witnesses Cardinal Richelieu’s
humiliation as he dances the saraband before the Queen in costume “a complete
suit, such as was worn by the Pantaloon of the theatre, a red and green suit
made in an absurd fashion, one leg red and the other green, and trimmed with
silver bells – besides which his Eminence wore a cap trimmed with bells. The
Cardinal danced the saraband in with castanets in his hands, and when, having
finished his saraband, the Cardinal fell at the Queen’s feet and declared his
passion, Anne, though almost convulsed with laughter, recovered herself
sufficiently to repulse the minister with scorn and indignation. Tricked and
laughed at! Someone has played Armand de Richelieu for a fool and surely
someone will pay!
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