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Updated: May 25, 2025
Boulingrin woke up beside the Duchess de Cicogne at the same time as the Princess and all her household. As he rubbed his eyes, his mistress said: "Boulingrin, you have been asleep." "Not at all, dear lady, not at all." He spoke in good faith. Having slept without dreaming for a hundred years, he did not know that he had been asleep.
Boulingrin and Cicogne hired from the castle steward an old seventeenth-century trap drawn by an animal which was already very aged before it went to sleep for a hundred years, and drove to the station of Eaux-Perdues, where they caught a train which, in two hours, deposited them in the capital of the country. Great was their surprise at all that they saw and heard.
"Sire, it is not probable," answered Monsieur Gastinel, "but in the domain of pathology, we can never say with certainty, 'This will or will not happen." "One might mention Brunhild," said Monsieur Gerberoy, "who was pricked by a thorn, fell asleep, and was awakened by Sigurd." "There was also Guenillon," said the Duchess of Cicogne, first lady-in-waiting to the Queen.
The Duchess of Cicogne climbed the secret staircase to the chambers of her old friend, whom she found in his night-cap, smiling, for he was reading La Fiancée du roi de Garbe. Cicogne told him the news, and how the Princess was lying on a blue bed in a state of lethargy. The Secretary of State listened attentively.
Monsieur de Boulingrin dearly loved the Duchess of Cicogne, wife of the ambassador to Vienna, first lady-in-waiting to the Queen, who belonged to the highest aristocracy of the realm; a witty woman, somewhat lean, and a trifle close, who was losing her income, her estates, and her very chemise at faro.
I detest strong-minded people; I believe what I ought to believe; but in this particular case, I suspect a dark intrigue." At the moment when Cicogne spoke these words, the fairy Vivien touched them both with her ring, and sent them to sleep like the rest. * Contes de Perrault, pp. 87-88.
And she hummed: She was sent to the wood To gather some nuts, The bush was too high, The maid was too small. The bush was too high, The maid was too small, She pricked her poor hand With a very sharp thorn. She pricked her poor hand With a very sharp thorn, From the pain in her finger The maid fell asleep. "What are you thinking of, Cicogne?" said the Queen. "You are singing."
Once again Monsieur de Boulingrin had failed to recognize the fairies, mistresses of the destinies of men. The Duchess of Cicogne awaited him impatiently. "You come very late, my friend," she said. He answered, as he kissed her fingers, that it was very kind of her to reproach him. His excuse was that he had been somewhat unwell. "Boulingrin," she said, "sit down there."
The storm has got to be faced. Show yourself, or you are lost!" "Calumny," said Boulingrin, "is the curse of this world. It has killed the greatest of men. Whoever honestly serves his King must make up his mind to pay tribute to that crawling, flying horror." "Boulingrin," said Cicogne, "get dressed." And she snatched off his night-cap, and threw it down by the bed-side.
Meanwhile, Cicogne and Boulingrin waited side by side upon their bench. "Boulingrin," whispered the Duchess in her old friend's ear, "does it not seem to you that there is something suspicious in this business? Don't you suspect an intrigue on the part of the King's brothers to get the poor man to abdicate? He is well known as a good father. They may well have wished to throw him into despair."
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