2 Cit. [Looking out.] Look you, gentlemen, ’tis Grillon, the fierce colonel; he that devours our wives, and ravishes our children.

1 Cit. He looks so grum, I don’t care to have to do with him; would I were safe in my shop, behind the counter.

2 Cit. And would I were under my wife’s petticoats.  Look you, gentlemen.

Mel. You, neighbour, behind your counter, yesterday paid a bill of exchange in glass louis d’ors; and you, friend, that cry, look you, gentlemen, this very morning was under another woman’s petticoats, and not your wife’s.

2 Cit. How the devil does he know this?

Mel. Therefore, fight lustily for the cause of heaven, and to make even tallies for your sins; which, that you may do with a better conscience, I absolve you both, and all the rest of you:  Now, go on merrily; for those, that escape, shall avoid killing; and those, who do not escape, I will provide for in another world.
                                [Cry within, on the other side of the
                                 stage, Vive le Roi, vive le Roi!

Enter GRILLON, and his Party.

Gril. Come on, fellow soldiers, Commilitones; that’s my word, as

’twas Julius Caesar’s, of pagan memory.  ’Fore God, I am no speech maker; but there are the rogues, and here’s bilbo, that’s a word and a blow; we must either cut their throats, or they cut ours, that’s pure necessity, for your comfort:  Now, if any man can be so unkind to his own body,—­for I meddle not with your souls,—­as to stand still like a good Christian, and offer his weasand to a butcher’s whittle,—­I say no more, but that he may be saved, and that’s the best can come on him. [Cry on both sides, Vive le Roi,
                                     vive Guise! They fight.

Mel. Hey, for the duke of Guise, and property!  Up with religion and the cause, and down with those arbitrary rogues there!  Stand to’t, you associated cuckolds. [Citizens go back.] O rogues!  O cowards!—­Damn these half-strained shopkeepers, got between gentlemen and city wives; how naturally they quake, and run away from their own fathers! twenty souls a penny were a dear bargain of them.
[They all run off, MELANAX with them;
the 1st and 2d Citizens taken.

Gril. Possess yourselves of the place, Maubert, and hang me up those two rogues, for an example.

1 Cit. O spare me, sweet colonel; I am but a young beginner, and new set up.

Gril. I’ll be your customer, and set you up a little better, sirrah;—­go, hang him at the next sign-post:—­What have you to say for yourself, scoundrel? why were you a rebel?

2 Cit. Look you, colonel, ’twas out of no ill meaning to the government; all that I did, was pure obedience to my wife.