Bagatelle

From Act II of The Audacity of Ideas (2010 version) by Gareth Russell

THE ANTECHAMBER OF THE COMTE D'ARTOIS, VERSAILLES
Thursday Morning

THE COMTE DE SAINT-PRIEST: Where’s Bagatelle?

THE MARQUIS DE BOMBELLES: I beg your pardon?

SAINT-PRIEST: Bagatelle. The place where the butler was in charge of; the one who just died. I’ve never heard of it.

BOMBELLES: It’s the Prince’s countryside retreat. Near the Bois de Boulogne. I’m told the gardens there are quite unbearably lovely.

SAINT-PRIEST: And he goes there often?

BOMBELLES: I’m afraid I couldn’t say. Admittance is by invitation only and I am hardly part of His Royal Highness’s inner circle.

SAINT-PRIEST: Do you like him?

BOMBELLES: Excuse me?

SAINT-PRIEST: As a person, I mean: do you like him?

BOMBELLES: The prince?

SAINT-PRIEST: Of course.

BOMBELLES: I can’t say I’ve ever considered ‘liking’ him in the way one would like or dislike a normal person.

SAINT-PRIEST: Everybody I know hates him.

BOMBELLES: But have presumably never had the honour of meeting him?

SAINT-PRIEST: Of course they have. Most of them, I mean.

BOMBELLES: Intimately enough to form an opinion or from a distance?

SAINT-PRIEST: Well, it’s not as if he makes himself easily accessible, is it?

BOMBELLES: They sound like republicans.

SAINT-PRIEST: Some of them are, I suppose.

BOMBELLES: In which case they are also traitors, which is deeply unfortunate.

SAINT-PRIEST: I don’t like him.

BOMBELLES: And I’m sorry to say that the feeling seems to be, as they say, mutual. And in the final estimation, his sentiments matter far more than yours or mine.

*

Tea at Trianon carries a post about the creation of Bagatelle, the country retreat of Charles, Comte d'Artois, the younger brother of King Louis XVI of France, a man who Elena Maria Vidal aptly describes as "prince of the fashionable world." I had great fun playing Charles in productions of The Audacity of Ideas in 2006 and 2008, and in a production of All Those Who Suffered in 2004.

The Comte d'Artois survived the Revolution and reigned as King Charles X from 1824 to 1830.