IMAGINARY INTERVIEW WITH MONSIEUR TRIBOULET

Triboulet:

But had I been a father—and of a daughter no less—rest assured that I indeed would have kept her away from the palace at all costs.

JC: Why?

Triboulet:

It would have been no place for her. Too many vipers.

JC:

Exactly, vipers! Including, by all accounts, you by the time King Francis began to tire of you.

Triboulet:

Maybe so, maybe so. But I survived, did I not?

JC:

But at what cost? They treated every aspect of your existence with such smiling disgust. Not even your daughter was out of bounds. It drove you to arrange a murder!

Triboulet: Again, sir, you mistake me for…

JC: Right, sorry. At least please tell me how you survived. What did you have to become to endure it for so long, through two kings and countless other noble men?

Triboulet: Hmm. That question gives me pause.

JC: Take your time.

Triboulet: No, no. Time is something I want no more of. So, I will answer thusly: My tears were no less salty than their spit.

JC: I’m not sure I…

Triboulet: Look, you called my bluff correctly before. I was never their colleague. I was only their jester. But even a jester can make perfect use of himself, if cunning enough and willing enough to employ a certain viciousness on occasion. It is true that in their sport I was merely the ball, but it is just as true that without the ball, the game could not be played. I’ll ask you a question now, even though you have already answered it in your preamble. Who is most remembered today? Did Maestro Verdi name his opera for one of the court lackeys? The monarch himself? Or even my daughter ? Or did he name it for the fool?

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