No single hair of yours shall suffer harm.

[The PRINCESS bows.]

FIRST CITIZEN

But this, Senora, is no place for you,
For we mean mischief here! Yet first will grant
Safe conduct for you to the Palace gates,
Or elsewhere, as you wish

PRINCESS

My wish is nought.
Do what you will with me. But he's not here.

[Several of them form an escort, and accompany her from the room
and out of the house. Those remaining, now a great throng, begin
searching the room, and in bands invade other parts of the mansion.]

SOME CITIZENS [returning]

It is no use searching. She said he was not here, and she's a woman
of honour.

FIRST CITIZEN [drily]

She's his wife.

[They begin knocking the furniture to pieces, tearing down the
hangings, trampling on the musical instruments, and kicking holes
through the paintings they have unhung from the walls. These,
with clocks, vases, carvings, and other movables, they throw out
of the window, till the chamber is a scene of utter wreck and
desolation. In the rout a musical box is swept off a table, and
starts playing a serenade as it falls on the floor. Enter the
COUNT OF MONTIJO.]

MONTIJO

Stop, friends; stop this! There is no sense in it--
It shows but useless spite! I have much to say:
The French Ambassador, de Beauharnais,
Has come, and sought the King. And next Murat,
With thirty thousand men, half cavalry,
Is closing in upon our doomed Madrid!
I know not what he means, this Bonaparte;
He makes pretence to gain us Portugal,
But what want we with her? 'Tis like as not
His aim's to noose us vassals all to him!
The King will abdicate, and shortly too,
As those will live to see who live not long.--
We have saved our nation from the Favourite,
But who is going to save us from our Friend?

[The mob desists dubiously and goes out; the musical box upon
the floor plays on, the taper burns to its socket, and the room
becomes wrapt in the shades of night.]

SCENE III

LONDON: THE MARCHIONESS OF SALISBURY'S

[A large reception-room is disclosed, arranged for a conversazione.
It is an evening in summer following, and at present the chamber is
empty and in gloom. At one end is an elaborate device, representing
Britannia offering her assistance to Spain, and at the other a
figure of Time crowning the Sp