Page:Fairytales00auln.djvu/306

262 said, "Madam, I am too devoted a servant of your Majesty's to be a willing accomplice in the havoc which is being made in your very nice sweetmeats. Count Mirlifiche himself has already eaten three boxes full. He was crunching the fourth without any respect to your royal Majesty, when, touched to the heart, I came to inform your Majesty of it." "I thank you, my little friend Jackdaw," said the Queen, smiling, "but I can dispense with your zeal about my sweetmeats; I abandon them in favour of Babiole, whom I love with all my heart." The jackdaw, a little ashamed at having made a great noise for nothing, retired without another word. The ambassador with his suite shortly after entered the apartment. He was not dressed precisely in the height of the fashion, for since the return of the famous Fagotin, who had cut such a figure in the world, they had never seen a good model. He had a peaked hat, with a plume of green feathers in it, a shoulder belt of blue paper covered with gold spangles, large canions, and a walking stick. Perroquet, who passed for a tolerably good poet, having composed a very grave harangue, advanced to the foot of the throne where the Queen was seated, and addressed Babiole thus:—

Madam, the wondrous power of your eyes In great Magot's fond passion recognise! These apes, these cats, this equipage so rare,— These birds—all, all, his ardent flame declare! When 'neath a mountain cat's fierce talons fell Monette, (the beauteous ape he loved so well, And who alone could be compared to you,) When to her spouse she bade a last adieu, The king a hundred times swore by her shade, That love should never more his heart invade. Madam, your charms have from that heart effaced The tender image his first love had traced. Of you alone he thinks. If you but knew The state of frenzy he is driven to; To pity surely moved, your gentle breast Would share his pain, and so restore his rest. He whom we saw of late so fat, so gay, Now worn to skin and bone, a constant prey To a consuming care nought can remove. Madam, he knows too well what 'tis to love!