POMPDEBILE.  M-m-m, how extraordinary!  Let him be beaten fifteen strokes on the back.  Now, Pastry Cooks to the Royal Household, we await your decision!

(The COOKS bow as before; then each selects a tart from the tray on the table, lifts it high, then puts it in his mouth.  An expression of absolute ecstasy and beatitude comes over their faces.  They clasp hands, then fall on each other’s necks, weeping.)

POMPDEBILE (impatiently).  What on earth is the matter?

YELLOW HOSE.  Excuse our emotion.  It is because we have at last encountered a true genius, a great master, or rather mistress, of our art.

(They bow to VIOLETTA.)

POMPDEBILE.  They are good, then?

BLUE HOSE (his eyes to heaven).  Good!  They are angelic!

POMPDEBILE.  Give one of the tarts to us.  We would sample it.

(The PASTRY COOKS hand the tray to the KING, who selects a tart and eats it.)

POMPDEBILE (to VIOLETTA).  My dear, they are marvels! marvels! (He comes down from the throne and leads VIOLETTA up to the dais.) Your throne, my dear.

VIOLETTA (sitting down, with a sigh).  I’m glad it’s such a comfortable one.

POMPDEBILE.  Knave, we forgive your offense.  The temptation was very great.  There are things that mere human nature cannot be expected to resist.  Another tart, Cooks, and yet another!

CHANCELLOR.  But, Your Majesty, don’t eat them all.  They must go to the museum with the dishes of the previous Queens of Hearts.

YELLOW HOSE.  A museum—­those tarts!  As well lock a rose in a money-box!

CHANCELLOR.  But the constitution commands it.  How else can we commemorate, for future generations, this event?

KNAVE.  An Your Majesty, please, I will commemorate it in a rhyme.

POMPDEBILE.  How can a mere rhyme serve to keep this affair in the minds of the people?

KNAVE.  It is the only way to keep it in the minds of the people.  No event is truly deathless unless its monument be built in rhyme.  Consider that fall which, though insignificant in itself, became the most famous of all history, because someone happened to put it into rhyme.  The crash of it sounded through centuries and will vibrate for generations to come.

VIOLETTA.  You mean the fall of the Holy Roman Empire?

KNAVE.  No, Madam, I refer to the fall of Humpty Dumpty.

POMPDEBILE.  Well, make your rhyme.  In the meantime let us celebrate.  You may all have one tart. (The PASTRY COOKS pass the tarts.  To VIOLETTA) Are you willing, dear, to ride the white palfrey garlanded with flowers through the streets of the city?

VIOLETTA.  Willing!  I have been practising for days!

POMPDEBILE.  The people, I suppose, are still clamoring at the gates.

VIOLETTA.  Oh, yes, they must clamor.  I want them to.  Herald, tell them that to every man I shall toss a flower, to every woman a shining gold piece, but to the babies I shall throw only kisses, thousands of them, like little winged birds.  Kisses and gold and roses!  They will surely love me then!