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To avoid this difficulty a very hot draught was given to Britannicus, and when he wished for something cooler a swift and subtle poison was dropped into the cold water with which it was tempered. The boy drank, and instantly sank from his seat, gasping and speechless. The guests started up in consternation, and fixed their eyes on Nero.
Nero would, in consequence, be deposed, and Britannicus would succeed him, and thus the base ingratitude and treachery toward his mother which Nero had displayed would be avenged. This plan, she declared, she would immediately carry into effect. She would take Britannicus to the camp, and appeal to the army in his name.
The senate, like our own sovereign, represented the grandeur of the nation, the hospitality of the nation to illustrious strangers, and the gratitude of the nation in the distribution of honors. For the senate continued to be the fountain of honors, even to Caesar himself: the titles of Germanicus, Britannicus, Dalmaticus, &c.
For he attempted to persuade his father that his brother, Britannicus, was nothing but a changeling, because the latter had saluted him, notwithstanding his adoption, by the name of Aenobarbus, as usual. When his aunt, Lepida, was brought to trial, he appeared in court as a witness against her, to gratify his mother, who persecuted the accused.
The most interesting character, perhaps, in which we saw him perform after these, was Nero in Britannicus.
Divine honors were decreed to the murdered man, and preparations made for a funeral which was to rival in its splendour the one which Livia had ordered for Augustus. But the will which beyond all doubt had provided for the succession of Britannicus was quietly done away with, and its exact provisions were never known.
Agrippina observed, too, as she thought, various indications that Claudius was beginning to repent of having adopted Nero and thus displaced his own son from the line of inheritance; and that he was secretly intending to restore Britannicus to his true position.
They expected from Nero a less hard, less severe, less parsimonious government in a word, a government less Roman than the rule of his predecessors, a government which, instead of force, glory, and wisdom, meant pleasure and ease. So it happened that many soon forgot the unfortunate Britannicus, and some even tried to justify Nero by invoking State necessity.
I next appeared as Junie in Britannicus, with Mounet-Sully, who played admirably as Nero. In this delicious role of Junie I obtained an immense and incredible success. Then in 1873 I played Cherubin in Le Mariage de Figaro. Croizette played Suzanne, and it was a real treat for the public to see that delightful creature play a part so full of gaiety and charm.
By doing this the countenance of the dead was restored to its proper color, and afterward underwent no further change. Still the emperor was naturally impatient to have the body interred. The preparations were accordingly made that same evening, and in the middle of the night the body of Britannicus was buried in the Field of Mars, a vast parade-ground in the precincts of the city.
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