The Burgomaster of Stilemonde: A Play in Three Acts

The BURGOMASTER’S study, a large and very comfortably furnished room on the first floor of the house, used partly as an office, and partly as a horticultural laboratory. Leather easy-chairs, a glass book-case. A large table laden with papers and with vases, dishes and baskets full of flowers and fruit: orchids, peaches, plums and magnificent bunches of grapes. In the various corners, a grandfather’s clock, garden-tools, pulverizers, retorts, test-tubes, bee-hives, etc. At the back, a French window opening on a balcony. On the right a heavy door.

As the CURTAIN rises, the MUNICIPAL SECRETARY is writing at a corner of the table. ENTER, on the right, JEAN GILSON. He is dressed in ill-fitting peasant’s clothes, and carries his arm in a sling.