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44 you may flay me alive," cried the king, "but I will marry no one but Florine. I am resolved. You may therefore exercise your power upon me as you please!" Soussio tried in turn mildness, menaces, promises, prayers. Truitonne wept, shrieked, groaned, stormed, and became calm again. The king uttered not another word, looking on them both with an air of the greatest indignation; he made not the slightest answer to anything they said to him.

Twenty days and twenty nights passed without their ceasing to talk; without eating, sleeping, or sitting down. At length Soussio, quite tired and out of patience, said to the king, "Well, since you are so obstinate that you will not listen to reason, choose at once whether you will marry my god-daughter, or do penance for seven years as a punishment for breaking your word." The king, who up to this time had been perfectly silent, suddenly exclaimed, "Do what you will with me, provided I am freed from this wretch." "You are a wretch yourself," said Truitonne, in a passion. "A petty king like you, with your marsh-bred posters, to come into my country to break your word to me and insult me! Had you a groat's worth of honour in you, could you behave in this manner?" "What affecting reproaches!" said the king, in an ironical tone; "Behold what a mistake it is not to take so lovely a person for one's wife!" "No, no, she shall not be your wife," screamed Soussio, passionately; "you may fly out of that window if you like, for you shall be a Blue Bird for the next seven years!" At the same moment the king's person undergoes a total change; his arms are covered with feathers and form wings; his legs and feet become black and diminutive, and furnished with crooked talons; his body shrinks,—it is all garnished with long fine thin feathers of celestial blue; his eyes become rounder, and bright as two stars; his nose is but an ivory beak; a white crest rises on his head in the form of a crown; he sings and talks to perfection. In this state, uttering a cry of anguish at beholding himself so metamorphosed, he flies from the fatal palace of Soussio as fast as his wings can carry him.

Overwhelmed with grief, he roams from branch to branch, selecting only the trees consecrated to love or sorrow. Now upon myrtles, now upon cypresses, he sings the most plaintive airs, in which he deplores his sad fate and that of Florine.