Angelique et le roy Page #2

---

is hard to bear, Madame.

Here already, then?

How did you know to find me here?

I know everything.

This can be very tiresome, mind you,

because one then understands

that one knows nothing!

Isn't that true, Monsieur Savary?

You know him?

Yes. Alchemy and the authorities

have never gone together well.

What are you doing here?

He is my host!

In that case...

It will soon be dawn.

At 8:
00 this morning,

His Excellency Bachtiary Bey

will be attending an execution in Suresnes.

It would be an opportune moment

to make his acquaintance.

I shall not go.

- But I thought...

- You thought wrong!

I shall leave you, then.

Thank you.

Monsieur Apothecary, known criminal.

Madame of Peyrac and Plessis-Belliere.

He said Bachtiary Bey!

- Bachtiary Bey!

- So?

When I was in the East I heard about him.

He is ambassador and general-in-chief

of the Atlantic.

He never travels

without his amphora of naphtha.

Naphtha?

It's a liquid material

with infernal and magical properties.

Made in Persia?

It is not made. It springs unbidden

from the bowels of the earth.

Madame, if you could procure

just a little for me,

you would help me to continue

your husband's work.

In that case, I shall go.

A pity! He has already left.

When Desgrez leaves quickly,

he never goes very far.

Here he is.

You have changed your mind, Madame?

No. But I shall go all the same.

Chief Executioner, His Excellency asks...

He would like to know the procedure

for making the suffering last.

- It's over, I hope.

- Yes, yes.

Madame, His Excellency wishes you

to watch the spectacle at his side.

The spectacle?

It is one, alas.

Spectaculum means

"that which draws the attention."

Spectaculum!

Please.

As yet, His Excellency has only been

sent women unworthy of his rank.

Filthy, repulsive creatures.

He asks whether you are a gift.

His Excellency is... What's the word?

He's mortified, that's it,

at having missed the end of the torture.

How can he now recommend it

to the Shah?

He wishes to see it again.

- The torture?

- Yes.

I have no other prisoner.

- What did he say?

- To take one of his guards.

He's mad!

That word doesn't exist in Persian.

Translate it!

His Excellency orders you

to his residence for a light meal.

- He orders me?

- I'm only the translator!

Tell him that I submit.

Please take a seat, Madame.

So Your Excellency speaks French?

I do.

I hope you had fun.

I rarely have fun, Madame.

Was it those filthy trollops

who taught you such elegant French?

No.

It was a Jesuit priest

who was my tutor for nearly ten years.

Dead now, alas.

Did you try out a torture on him?

No, I pushed him into the lion's den.

They didn't leave a scrap.

He had thrashed me for a Latin text.

He thought my translation was too free.

I hate receiving blows

which I am unable to return.

As does everyone.

Not women.

You believe that?

I hope so, for their sake.

You are odious!

No man could speak to me thus and live.

I am a woman.

In my country, women are silent,

and hide their faces.

In France, they powder their noses

and men listen to them.

I hoped to find a civilization here.

You're nothing but barbarians!

Who are you? An ambassador?

No.

- A gift from the King?

- No.

Well, then?

I am the Marquise of Plessis-Belliere,

someone particularly interested in naphtha.

Don't tell me you are also versed

in the sciences?

And why not?

I begin to see why Monsieur Colbert

says the French are ungovernable.

Yet I shall show you the naphtha.

His Excellency Bachtiary Bey,

knowing that I negotiated

the Treaty of the Pyrenees

and therefore the King's marriage,

said to me, "My dear fellow..."

Monsieur Desgrez tells me that,

despite the orders you were given,

you left Madame of Plessis

alone with the Bey!

Yet all the blonde harlots

previously sent to the Bey

ended up as bloody corpses

along the banks of the Seine.

Your idiocy is no new thing, either!

On the Treaty of the Pyrenees

your incompetence was limitless!

You are revoked without title or pension!

Get out!

But, Desgrez, in your opinion,

can the Marquise suffer the same fate?

I fear the Bey cannot distinguish

between a French marquise

and a French streetwalker.

But why did he cut their throats?

Sire, I am intimately acquainted

with the passions of evildoers,

but not those of Orientals.

Take a hundred horses and bring her back!

Forgive me, but it is impossible

to intervene officially.

Or the Bey will leave for good.

Not like that.

How, then?

In France, Your Excellency,

a woman must be won.

When a man desires a woman,

he must first woo her.

What is that?

It means all the attentions

a man can show a woman,

which produce reciprocal attentions

from the woman to the man.

I prefer my method.

- And what is that?

- Rape.

My dress!

You can put on a robe of my country

while we clean yours.

You'd be the most beautiful

woman in my harem.

In that costume you seem closer to me.

- Because of my dress?

- Yes.

- But you ordered her to do it!

- Yes.

Make them stop!

It's only just begun.

She's to receive at least 100 lashes.

- For obeying you?

- Yes.

And if she'd disobeyed?

She would have suffered

a long, painful death.

- So...

- So she had no choice.

The thing that complicates life

for you Europeans is choice.

Stop it now!

I enjoy the sound of the whip

in certain circumstances.

It stirs the senses

and pushes one to one's limits.

Stop it!

You disappoint me.

Happy now?

I have never known such a monster!

What are you doing?

I have eliminated the problem of choice.

I shall give you time to gather your wits.

I shall come back later, and

you will be mine, willing or not.

Call your men

and give the order that I can leave.

My guards won't see me

beaten by a woman.

I'll cut your throat.

Death is nothing.

There's the artery.

To the right, a little higher.

One quick movement.

What are you waiting for?

There you are again,

the problem of choice.

Now there's no problem of choice.

Don't kill him!

She's right, gentlemen.

You'll pay with your life!

I can't afford it, it's all I have!

You will not take her!

Let me go!

Let me go, you fool!

Madame, you are saved.

I never asked for your help. Who are you?

Prince Vladimir Stanislas Racoczi.

Prince?

And Count, seventeen times.

I'm entitled to ride my horse into churches

and cathedrals.

Very practical!

Apart from your many titles,

what else do you do?

I hope, Madame.

For what, the moon?

No, for the liberation of Hungary.

I am heir to the throne.

For whom did you abduct me?

For myself.

- When my stepbrother...

- Who is your stepbrother?

Louis XIV, the Sun King!

Really?

When I was in his favor,

I saw you at Versailles.

And your beauty immediately

captured my heart.

- Will you marry me?

- Are you mad?

All Magyar princes are!

My great-uncle, Mathias Zapoli,

Bishop of Budapest,

so feared a flood that he had an ark built!

I called him Uncle Noah!

You're very silly but charming.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes