Yes: I will live! The future who shall spell?
My wife, my son, will be enough for me.--
And I will give my hours to chronicling
In stately words that stir futurity
The might of our unmatched accomplishments;
And in the tale immortalize your names
By linking them with mine.
[He soon falls into a convalescent sleep. The marshals, etc. go
out. The room is left in darkness.]
SCENE V
BAYONNE. THE BRITISH CAMP
[The foreground is an elevated stretch of land, dotted over in rows
with the tents of the peninsular army. On a parade immediately
beyond the tents the infantry are drawn up, awaiting something.
Still farther back, behind a brook, are the French soldiery, also
ranked in the same manner of reposeful expectation. In the middle-
distance we see the town of Bayonne, standing within its zigzag
fortifications at the junction of the river Adour with the Nive.
On the other side of the Adour rises the citadel, a fortified
angular structure standing detached. A large and brilliant
tricolor flag is waving indolently from a staff on the summit.
The Bay of Biscay, into which the Adour flows, is seen on the
left horizon as a level line.
The stillness observed by the soldiery of both armies, and by
everything else in the scene except the flag, is at last broken
by the firing of a signal-gun from a battery in the town-wall.
The eyes of the thousands present rivet themselves on the citadel.
Its waving tricolor moves down the flagstaff and disappears.]
THE REGIMENTS [unconsciously]
Ha-a-a-a!
[In a few seconds there shoots up the same staff another flag--one
intended to be white; but having apparently been folded away a long
time, it is mildewed and dingy.
From all the guns on the city fortifications a salute peals out.
This is responded to by the English infantry and artillery with a
feu-de-joie.]
THE REGIMENTS
Hurrah-h-h-h!
[The various battalions are then marched away in their respective
directions and dismissed to their tents. The Bourbon standard is
hoisted everywhere beside those of England, Spain, and Portugal.
The scene shuts.]
SCENE VI
A HIGHWAY IN THE OUTSKIRTS OF AVIGNON
[The Rhone, the old city walls, the Rocher des Doms and its
edifices, appear at the back plane of the scene under the
grey light of dawn. In the foreground several postillions
and ostlers with relays of horses are waiting by the roadside,
gazing northward and listening for sounds. A few loungers
have assembled.]
FIRST POSTILLION
He ought to be nigh by this time. I should say he'd be very glad
to get this here Isle of Elba, wherever it may be, if words be true
that he's treated to such ghastly compliments on's way!
SECOND POSTILLION
Blast-me-blue, I don't care what happens to him! Look at Joachim
Murat, him that's made King of Naples; a man who was only in the
same line of life as ourselves, born and bred in Cahors, out in
Perigord, a poor little whindling place not half as good as our
own. Why should he have been lifted up to king's anointment, and
we not even have had a rise in wages? That's what I say.
FIRST POSTILLION
But now, I don't find fault with that dispensation in particular.
It was one of our calling that the Emperor so honoured, after all,
when he might have anointed a tinker, or a ragman, or a street
woman's pensioner even. Who knows but that we should have been
king's too, but for my crooked legs and your running pole-wound?
SECOND POSTILLION
We kings? Kings of the underground country, then, by this time, if
we hadn't been too rotten-fleshed to follow the drum. However, I'll
think over your defence, and I don't mind riding a stage with him,
for that matter, to save him from them that mean mischief here.
I've lost no sons by his battles, like some others we know.
[Enter a TRAVELLER on horseback.]
Any tidings along the road, sir of the Emperor Napoleon that was?
TRAVELLER
Tidings verily! He and his escort are threatened by the mob at
every place they come to. A returning courier I have met tells me
that at an inn a little way beyond here they have strung up his
effigy to the sign-post, smeared it with blood, and placarded it
“The Doom that awaits Thee!” He is much delayed by such humorous
insults. I have hastened ahead to escape the uproar.
SECOND POSTILLION
I don't know that you have escaped it. The mob has been waiting
up all night for him here.
MARKET-WOMAN [coming up]
I hope by the Virgin, as 'a called herself, that there'll be no
riots here! Though I have not much pity for a man who could treat
his wife as he did, and that's my real feeling. He might at least
have kept them both on, for half a husband is better than none for
poor women. But I'd show mercy to him, that's true, rather than
have my stall upset, and messes in the streets wi' folks' brains,
and stabbings, and I don't know what all!
FIRST POSTILLION
If we can do the horsing quietly out here, there will be none of
that. He'll dash past the town without stopping at the inn where
they expect to waylay him.--Hark, what's this coming?
[An approaching cortege is heard. Two couriers enter; then a
carriage with NAPOLEON and BERTRAND; then others with the
Commissioners of the Powers,--all on the way to Elba.
The carriages halt, and the change of horses is set about instantly.
But before it is half completed BONAPARTE'S arrival gets known, and
throngs of men and women armed with sticks and hammers rush out of
Avignon and surround the carriages.]
POPULACE
Ogre of Corsica! Odious tyrant! Down with Nicholas!
BERTRAND [looking out of carriage]
Silence, and doff your hats, you ill-mannered devils!
POPULACE [scornfully]
Listen to him! Is that the Corsican? No; where is he? Give him up;
give him up! We'll pitch him into the Rhone!
[Some cling to the wheels of NAPOLEON'S carriage, while others,
more distant, throw stones at it. A stone breaks the carriage
window.]
OLD WOMAN [shaking her fist]
Give me back my two sons, murderer! Give me back my children, whose
flesh is rotting on the Russian plains!
POPULACE
Ay; give us back our kin--our fathers, our brothers, our sons--
victims to your curst ambition!
[One of the mob seizes the carriage door-handle and tries to
unfasten it. A valet of BONAPARTE'S seated on the box draws his
sword and threatens to cut the man's arm off. The doors of the
Commissioners' coaches open, and SIR NEIL CAMPBELL, GENERAL
KOLLER, and COUNT SCHUVALOFF--The English, Austrian, and Russian
Commissioners--jump out and come forward.]
CAMPBELL
Keep order, citizens! Do you not know
That the ex-Emperor is wayfaring
To a lone isle, in the Allies' sworn care,
Who have given a pledge to Europe for his safety?
His fangs being drawn, he is left powerless now
To do you further harm.
SCHUVALOFF
People of France
Can you insult so miserable a being?
He who gave laws to a cowed world stands now
At that world's beck, and asks its charity.
Cannot you see that merely to ignore him
Is the worst ignominy to tar him with,
By showing him he's no longer dangerous?
OLD WOMAN
How do we know the villain mayn't come back?
While there is life, my faith, there's mischief in him!
[Enter an officer with the Town-guard.]
OFFICER
Citizens, I am a zealot for the Bourbons,
As you well know. But wanton breach of faith
I will not brook. Retire!
[The soldiers drive back the mob and open a passage forward. The
Commissioners re-enter their carriages. NAPOLEON puts his head
out of his window for a moment. He is haggard, shabbily dressed,
yellow-faced, and wild-eyed.]
NAPOLEON
I thank you, captain;
Also your soldiery: a thousand thanks!
[To Bertrand within] My God, these people of Avignon here
Are headstrong fools, like all the Provencal fold,
--I won't go through the town!
BERTRAND
We'll round it, sire;
And then, as soon as we get past the place,
You must disguise for the remainder miles.
NAPOLEON
I'll mount the white cockade if they invite me!
What does it matter if I do or don't?
In Europe all is past and over with me....
Yes--all is lost in Europe for me now!
BERTRAND
I fear so, sire.
NAPOLEON [after some moments]
But Asia waits a man,
And--who can tell?
OFFICER OF GUARD [to postillions]
Ahead now at full speed,
And slacken not till you have slipped the town.
[The postillions urge the horses to a gallop, and the carriages
are out of sight in a few seconds. The scene shuts.]
SCENE VII
MALMAISON. THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE'S BEDCHAMBER
[The walls are in white panels, with gilt mouldings, and the
furniture is upholstered in white silk with needle-worked flowers.
The long windows and the bed are similarly draped, and the toilet
service is of gold. Through the panes appears a broad flat lawn
adorned with vases and figures on pedestals, and entirely
surrounded by trees--just now in their first fresh green under
the morning rays of Whitsunday. The notes of an organ are audible
from a chapel below, where the Pentecostal Mass is proceeding.
JOSEPHINE lies in the bed in an advanced stage of illness, the
ABBE BERTRAND standing beside her. Two ladies-in-waiting are
seated near. By the door into the ante-room, which is ajar,
HOREAU the physician-in-ordinary and BOURDOIS the consulting
physician are engaged in a low conversation.]
HOREAU
Lamoureux says that leeches would have saved her
Had they been used in time, before I came.
In that case, then, why did he wait for me?
BOURDOIS
Such whys are now too late! She is past all hope.
I doubt if aught had helped her. Not disease,
But heart-break and repinings are the blasts
That wither her long bloom. Soon we must tell
The Queen Hortense the worst, and the Viceroy.
HOREAU
Her death was made the easier task for grief
[As I regarded more than probable]
By her rash rising from a sore-sick bed
And donning thin and dainty May attire
To hail King Frederick-William and the Tsar
As banquet-guests, in the old regnant style.
A woman's innocent vanity!--but how dire.
She argued that amenities of State
Compelled the effort, since they had honoured her
By offering to come. I stood against it,
Pleaded and reasoned, but to no account.
Poor woman, what she did or did not do
Was of small moment to the State by then!
The Emperor Alexander has been kind
Throughout his stay in Paris. He came down
But yester-eve, of purpose to inquire.
BOURDOIS
Wellington is in Paris, too, I learn,
After his wasted battle at Toulouse.
HOREAU
Has his Peninsular army come with him?
BOURDOIS
I hear they have shipped it to America,
Where England has another war on hand.
We have armies quite sufficient here already--
Plenty of cooks for Paris broth just now!
--Come, call we Queen Hortense and Prince Eugene.
[Exeunt physicians. The ABBE BERTRAND also goes out. JOSEPHINE
murmurs faintly.]
FIRST LADY [going to the bedside]
I think I heard you speak, your Majesty?
JOSEPHINE
I asked what hour it was---if dawn or eve?
FIRST LADY
Ten in the morning, Madame. You forget
You asked the same but a brief while ago.
JOSEPHINE
Did I? I thought it was so long ago!...
I wish to go to Elba with him so much,
But the Allies prevented me. And why?
I would not have disgraced him, or themselves!
I would have gone to him at Fontainebleau,
With my eight horses and my household train
In dignity, and quitted him no more....
Although I am his wife no longer now,
I think I should have gone in spite of them,
Had I not feared perversions might be sown
Between him and the woman of his choice
For whom he sacrificed me.
SECOND LADY
It is more
Than she thought fit to do, your Majesty.
JOSEPHINE
Perhaps she was influenced by her father's ire,
Or diplomatic reasons told against her.
And yet I was surprised she should allow
Aught secondary on earth to hold her from
A husband she has outwardly, at least,
Declared attachment to.
FIRST LADY
Especially,
With ever one at hand--his son and hers--
Reminding her of him.
JOSEPHINE
Yes.... Glad am I
I saw that child of theirs, though only once.
But--there was not full truth--not quite, I fear--
In what I told the Emperor that day
He led him to me at Bagatelle,
That 'twas the happiest moment of my life.
I ought not to have said it. No! Forsooth
My feeling had too, too much gall in it
To let truth shape like that!--I also said
That when my arms were round him I forgot
That I was not his mother. So spoke I,
But oh me,--I remembered it too well!--
He was a lovely child; in his fond prate
His father's voice was eloquent. One might say
I am well punished for my sins against him!
SECOND LADY
You have harmed no creature, madame; much less him!
JOSEPHINE
O but you don't quite know!... My coquetries
In our first married years nigh racked him through.
I cannot think how I could wax so wicked!...
He begged me come to him in Italy,
But I liked flirting in fair Paris best,
And would not go. The independent spouse
At that time was myself; but afterwards
I grew to be the captive, he the free.
Always 'tis so: the man wins finally!
My faults I've ransomed to the bottom sou
If ever a woman did!... I'll write to him--
I must--again, so that he understands.
Yes, I'll write now. Get me a pen and paper.
FIRST LADY [to Second Lady]
'Tis futile! She is too far gone to write;
But we must humour her.
[They fetch writing materials. On returning to the bed they find
her motionless. Enter EUGENE and QUEEN HORTENSE. Seeing the state
their mother is in, they fall down on their knees by her bed.
JOSEPHINE recognizes them and smiles. Anon she is able to speak
again.]
JOSEPHINE [faintly]
I am dying, dears;
And do not mind it--notwithstanding that
I feel I die regretted. You both love me!--
And as for France, I ever have desired
Her welfare, as you know--have wrought all things
A woman's scope could reach to forward it....
And to you now who watch my ebbing here,
Declare I that Napoleon's first-chose wife
Has never caused her land a needless tear.
Tell him--these things I have said--bear him my love--
Tell him--I could not write!
[An interval. She spasmodically flings her arms over her son and
daughter, lets them fall, and becomes unconscious. They fetch a
looking-glass, and find that her breathing has ceased. The clock
of the Chateau strikes noon. The scene is veiled.]
SCENE VIII
LONDON. THE OPERA HOUSE
[The house is lighted up with a blaze of wax candles, and a State
performance is about to begin in honour of the Allied sovereigns
now on a visit to England to celebrate the Peace. Peace-devices
adorn the theatre. A band can be heard in the street playing
“The White Cockade.”
An extended Royal box has been formed by removing the partitions
of adjoining boxes. It is empty as yet, but the other parts of
the house are crowded to excess, and somewhat disorderly, the
interior doors having been broken down by besiegers, and many
people having obtained admission without payment. The prevalent
costume of the ladies is white satin and diamonds, with a few in
lilac.
The curtain rises on the first act of the opera of “Aristodemo,”
MADAME GRASSINI and SIGNOR TRAMEZZINI being the leading voices.
Scarcely a note of the performance can be heard amid the exclamations
of persons half suffocated by the pressure.
At the end of the first act there follows a divertissement. The
curtain having fallen, a silence of expectation succeeds. It is
a little past ten o'clock.
Enter the Royal box the PRINCE REGENT, accompanied by the EMPEROR
OF RUSSIA, demonstrative in manner now as always, the KING OF
PRUSSIA, with his mien of reserve, and many minor ROYAL PERSONAGES
of Europe. There are moderate acclamations. At their back and in
neighbouring boxes LORD LIVERPOOL, LORD CASTLEREAGH, officers in
the suite of the sovereigns, interpreters, and others take their
places.
The curtain rises again, and the performers are discovered drawn
up in line on the stage. They sing “God save the King.” The
sovereigns stand up, bow, and resume their seats amid more
applause.]
A VOICE [from the gallery]
Prinny, where's your wife? [Confusion.]
EMPEROR OF RUSSIA [to Regent]
To which of us is the inquiry addressed, Prince?
PRINCE REGENT
To you, sire, depend upon't--by way of compliment.
[The second act of the Opera proceeds.]
EMPEROR OF RUSSIA
Any later news from Elba, sir?
PRINCE REGENT
Nothing more than rumours, which, 'pon my honour, I can hardly
credit. One is that Bonaparte's valet has written to say the
ex-Emperor is becoming imbecile, and is an object of ridicule to
the inhabitants of the island.
KING OF PRUSSIA
A blessed result, sir, if true. If he is not imbecile he is worse
--planning how to involve Europe in another way. It was a short-
sighted policy to offer him a home so near as to ensure its becoming
a hot-bed of intrigue and conspiracy in no long time!
PRINCE REGENT
The ex-Empress, Marie-Louise, hasn't joined him after all, I learn.
Has she remained at Schonbrunn since leaving France, sires?
EMPEROR OF RUSSIA
Yes, sir; with her son. She must never go back to France. Metternich
and her father will know better than let her do that. Poor young
thing, I am sorry for her all the same. She would have joined
Napoleon if she had been left to herself.--And I was sorry for the
other wife, too. I called at Malmaison a few days before she died.
A charming woman! SHE would have gone to Elba or to the devil with
him. Twenty thousand people crowded down from Paris to see her lying
in state last week.
PRINCE REGENT
Pity she didn't have a child by him, by God.
KING OF PRUSSIA
I don't think the other one's child is going to trouble us much.
But I wish Bonaparte himself had been sent farther away.
PRINCE REGENT
Some of our Government wanted to pack him off to St. Helena--an
island somewhere in the Atlantic, or Pacific, or Great South Sea.
But they were over-ruled. 'Twould have been a surer game.
EMPEROR OF RUSSIA
One hears strange stories of his saying and doings. Some of my
people were telling me to-day that he says it is to Austria that
he really owes his fall, and that he ought to have destroyed her
when he had her in his power.
PRINCE REGENT
Dammy, sire, don't ye think he owes his fall to his ambition to
humble England by rupture of the Peace of Amiens, and trying to
invade us, and wasting his strength against us in the Peninsula?
EMPEROR OF RUSSIA
I incline to think, with the greatest deference, that it was Moscow
that broke him.
KING OF PRUSSIA
The rejection of my conditions in the terms of peace at Prague, sires,
was the turning-point towards his downfall.
[Enter a box on the opposite side of the house the PRINCESS OF
WALES, attended by LADY CHARLOTTE CAMPBELL, SIR W. GELL, and
others. Louder applause now rings through the theatre, drowning
the sweet voice of the GRASSINI in “Aristodemo.”]
LADY CHARLOTTE CAMPBELL
It is meant for your Royal Highness!
PRINCESS OF WALES
I don't think so, my dear. Punch's wife is nobody when Punch himself
is present.
LADY CHARLOTTE CAMPBELL
I feel convinced that it is by their looking this way.
SIR W. GELL
Surely ma'am you will acknowledge their affection? Otherwise we may
be hissed.
PRINCESS OF WALES
I know my business better than to take that morsel out of my husband's
mouth. There--you see he enjoys it! I cannot assume that it is
meant for me unless they call my name.
[The PRINCE REGENT rises and bows, the TSAR and the KING OF PRUSSIA
doing the same.]
LADY CHARLOTTE CAMPBELL
He and the others are bowing for you, ma'am!
PRINCESS OF WALES
Mine God, then; I will bow too! [She rises and bends to them.]
PRINCE REGENT
She thinks we rose on her account.--A damn fool. [Aside.]
EMPEROR OF RUSSIA
What--didn't we? I certainly rose in homage to her.
PRINCE REGENT
No, sire. We were supposed to rise to the repeated applause of the
people.
EMPEROR OF RUSSIA
H'm. Your customs sir, are a little puzzling.... [To the King of
Prussia.] A fine-looking woman! I must call upon the Princess of
Wales to-morrow.
KING OF PRUSSIA
I shall, at any rate, send her my respects by my chamberlain.
PRINCE REGENT [stepping back to Lord Liverpool]
By God, Liverpool, we must do something to stop 'em! They don't
know what a laughing-stock they'll make of me if they go to her.
Tell 'em they had better not.
LIVERPOOL
I can hardly tell them now, sir, while we are celebrating the Peace
and Wellington's victories.
PRINCE REGENT
Oh, damn the peace, and damn the war, and damn Boney, and damn
Wellington's victories!--the question is, how am I to get over this
infernal woman!--Well, well,--I must write, or send Tyrwhitt to-
morrow morning, begging them to abandon the idea of visiting her
for politic reasons.
[The Opera proceeds to the end, and is followed by a hymn and
chorus laudatory to peace. Next a new ballet by MONSIEUR VESTRIS,
in which M. ROZIER and MADAME ANGIOLINI dance a pas-de-deux. Then
the Sovereigns leave the theatre amid more applause.
The pit and gallery now call for the PRINCESS OF WALES unmistakably.
She stand up and is warmly acclaimed, returning three stately
curtseys.]
A VOICE
Shall we burn down Carlton House, my dear, and him in it?
PRINCESS OF WALES
No, my good folks! Be quiet. Go home to your beds, and let me do
the same.
[After some difficulty she gets out of the house. The people thin
away. As the candle-snuffers extinguish the lights a shouting is
heard without.]
VOICES OF CROWD
Long life to the Princess of Wales! Three cheers for a woman wronged!
[The Opera-house becomes lost in darkness.]
ACT FIFTH
SCENE I
ELBA. THE QUAY, PORTO FERRAJO
[Night descends upon a beautiful blue cove, enclosed on three sides
by mountains. The port lies towards the western [right-hand] horn
of the concave, behind it being the buildings of the town; their
long white walls and rows of windows rise tier above tier on the
steep incline at the back, and are intersected by narrow alleys
and flights of steps that lead up to forts on the summit.
Upon a rock between two of these forts stands the Palace of the
Mulini, NAPOLEONS'S residence in Ferrajo. Its windows command
the whole town and the port.]
CHORUS OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music]
The Congress of Vienna sits,
And war becomes a war of wits,
Where every Power perpends withal
Its dues as large, its friends' as small;
Till Priests of Peace prepare once more
To fight as they have fought before!
In Paris there is discontent;
Medals are wrought that represent
One now unnamed. Men whisper, “He
Who once has been, again will be!”
DUMB SHOW
Under cover of the dusk there assembles in the bay a small flotilla
comprising a brig called _l'Inconstant_ and several lesser vessels.
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
The guardian on behalf of the Allies
Absents himself from Elba. Slow surmise
Too vague to pen, too actual to ignore,
Have strained him hour by hour, and more and more.
He takes the sea to Florence, to declare
His doubts to Austria's ministrator there.
SPIRIT IRONIC
When he returns, Napoleon will be--where?
Boats put off from these ships to the quay, where are now discovered
to have silently gathered a body of grenadiers of the Old Guard. The
faces of DROUOT and CAMBRONNE are revealed by the occasional fleck of
a lantern to be in command of them. They are quietly taken aboard
the brig, and a number of men of different arms to the other vessels.
CHORUS OF RUMOURS [aerial music]
Napoleon is going,
And nought will prevent him;
He snatches the moment
Occasion has lent him!
And what is he going for,
Worn with war's labours?
--To reconquer Europe
With seven hundred sabres.
About eight o'clock we observe that the windows of the Palace of
the Mulini are lighted and open, and that two women sit at them:
the EMPEROR'S mother and the PRINCESS PAULINE. They wave adieux
to some one below, and in a short time a little open low-wheeled
carriage, drawn by the PRINCESS PAULINE'S two ponies, descends
from the house to the port. The crowd exclaims “The Emperor!”
NAPOLEON appears in his grey great-coat, and is much fatter than
when he left France. BERTRAND sits beside him.
He quickly alights and enters the waiting boat. It is a tense
moment. As the boat rows off the sailors sing the Marseillaise,
and the gathered inhabitants join in. When the boat reaches the
brig its sailors join in also, and shout “Paris or death!” Yet
the singing has a melancholy cadence. A gun fires as a signal
of departure. The night is warm and balmy for the season. Not
a breeze is there to stir a sail, and the ships are motionless.
CHORUS OF RUMOURS
Haste is salvation;
And still he stays waiting:
The calm plays the tyrant,
His venture belating!
Should the corvette return
With the anxious Scotch colonel,
Escape would be frustrate,
Retention eternal.
Four aching hours are spent thus. NAPOLEON remains silent on the
deck, looking at the town lights, whose reflections bore like augers
into the water of the bay. The sails hang flaccidly. Then a feeble
breeze, then a strong south wind, begins to belly the sails; and the
vessels move.
CHORUS OF RUMOURS
The south wind, the south wind,
The south wind will save him,
Embaying the frigate
Whose speed would enslave him;
Restoring the Empire
That fortune once gave him!
The moon rises and the ships silently disappear over the horizon
as it mounts higher into the sky.
SCENE II
VIENNA. THE IMPERIAL PALACE
[The fore-part of the scene is the interior of a dimly lit gallery
with an openwork screen or grille on one side of it that commands
a bird's-eye view of the grand saloon below. At present the screen
is curtained. Sounds of music and applause in the saloon ascend
into the gallery, and an irradiation from the same quarter shines
up through chinks in the curtains of the grille.
Enter the gallery MARIE LOUISE and the COUNTESS OF BRIGNOLE,
followed by the COUNT NEIPPERG, a handsome man of forty two with
a bandage over one eye.]
COUNTESS OF BRIGNOLE
Listen, your Majesty. You gather all
As well as if you moved amid them there,
And are advantaged with free scope to flit
The moment the scene palls.
MARIE LOUISE
Ah, my dear friend,
To put it so is flower-sweet of you;
But a fallen Empress, doomed to furtive peeps
At scenes her open presence would unhinge,
Reads not much interest in them! Yet, in truth,
'Twas gracious of my father to arrange
This glimpse-hole for my curiosity.
--But I must write a letter ere I look;
You can amuse yourself with watching them.--
Count, bring me pen and paper. I am told
Madame de Montesquiou has been distressed
By some alarm; I write to ask its shape.
[NEIPPERG spreads writing materials on a table, and MARIE LOUISE
sits. While she writes he stays near her. MADAME DE BRIGNOLE
goes to the screen and parts the curtains.
The light of a thousand candles blazes up into her eyes from
below. The great hall is decorated in white and silver, enriched
by evergreens and flowers. At the end a stage is arranged, and
Tableaux Vivants are in progress thereon, representing the history
of the House of Austria, in which figure the most charming women
of the Court.
There are present as spectators nearly all the notables who have
assembled for the Congress, including the EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA
himself, has gay wife, who quite eclipses him, the EMPEROR
ALEXANDER, the KING OF PRUSSIA--still in the mourning he has
never abandoned since the death of QUEEN LUISA,--the KING
OF BAVARIA and his son, METTERNICH, TALLEYRAND, WELLINGTON,
NESSELRODE, HARDENBERG; and minor princes, ministers, and
officials of all nations.]
COUNTESS OF BRIGNOLE [suddenly from he grille]
Something has happened--so it seems, madame!
The Tableau gains no heed from them, and all
Turn murmuring together.
MARIE LOUISE
What may be?
[She rises with languid curiosity, and COUNT NEIPPERG adroitly
takes her hand and leads her forward. All three look down through
the grille.]
NEIPPERG
some strange news, certainly, your Majesty,
Is being discussed.--I'll run down and inquire.
MARIE LOUISE [playfully]
Nay--stay here. We shall learn soon enough.
NEIPPERG
Look at their faces now. Count Metternich
Stares at Prince Talleyrand--no muscle moving.
The King of Prussia blinks bewilderedly
Upon Lord Wellington.
MARIE LOUISE [concerned]
Yes; so it seems....
They are thunderstruck. See, though the music beats,
The ladies of the Tableau leave their place,
And mingle with the rest, and quite forget
That they are in masquerade. The sovereigns show
By far the gravest mien.... I wonder, now,
If it has aught to do with me or mine?
Disasters mostly have to do with me!
COUNTESS OF BRIGNOLE
Those rude diplomists from England there,
At your Imperial father's consternation,
And Russia's, and the King of Prussia's gloom,
Shake shoulders with hid laughter! That they call
The English sense of humour, I infer,--
To see a jest in other people's troubles!
MARIE LOUISE [hiding her presages]
They ever take things thus phlegmatically:
The safe sea minimizes Continental scare
In their regard. I wish it did in mine!
But Wellington laughs not, as I discern.
NEIPPERG
Perhaps, though fun for the other English here,
It means new work for him. Ah--notice now
The music makes no more pretence to play!
Sovereigns and ministers have moved apart,
And talk, and leave the ladies quite aloof--
Even the Grand Duchesses and Empress, all--
Such mighty cogitations trance their minds!
MARIE LOUISE [with more anxiety]
Poor ladies; yea, they draw into the rear,
And whisper ominous words among themselves!
Count Neipperg--I must ask you now--go glean
What evil lowers. I am riddled through
With strange surmises and more strange alarms!
[The COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU enters.]
Ah--we shall learn it now. Well--what, madame?
COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU [breathlessly]
Your Majesty, the Emperor Napoleon
Has vanished from Elba! Wither flown,
And how, and why, nobody says or knows.
MARIE LOUISE [sinking into a chair]
My divination pencilled on my brain
Something not unlike that! The rigid mien
That mastered Wellington suggested it....
Complicity will be ascribed to me,
Unwitting though I stand!... [A pause.]
He'll not succeed!
And my fair plans for Parma will be marred,
And my son's future fouled!--I must go hence,
And instantly declare to Metternich
That I know nought of this; and in his hands
Place me unquestioningly, with dumb assent
To serve the Allies.... Methinks that I was born
Under an evil-coloured star, whose ray
Darts death at joys!--Take me away, Count.--You [to the ladies]
Can stay and see the end.
[Exeunt MARIE LOUISE and NEIPPERG. MESDAMES DE MONTESQUIOU and
DE BRIGNOLE go to the grille and watch and listen.]
VOICE OF ALEXANDER [below]
I told you, Prince, that it would never last!
VOICE OF TALLEYRAND
Well, sire, you should have sent him to the Azores,
Or the Antilles, or best, Saint-Helena.
VOICE OF THE KING OF PRUSSIA
Instead, we send him but two days from France,
Give him an island as his own domain,
A military guard of large resource,
And millions for his purse!
ANOTHER VOICE
The immediate cause
Must be a negligence in watching him.
The British Colonel Campbell should have seen
That apertures for flight were wired and barred
To such a cunning bird!
ANOTHER VOICE
By all report
He took the course direct to Naples Bay.
VOICES [of new arrivals]
He has made his way to France--so all tongues tell--
And landed there, at Cannes! [Excitement.]
COUNTESS OF BRIGNOLE
Do now but note
How cordial intercourse resolves itself
To sparks of sharp debate! The lesser guests
Are fain to steal unnoticed from a scene
Wherein they feel themselves as surplusage
Beside the official minds.--I catch a sign
The King of Prussia makes the English Duke;
They leave the room together.
COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU
Yes; wit wanes,
And all are going--Prince Talleyrand,
The Emperor Alexander, Metternich,
The Emperor Francis.... So much for the Congress!
Only a few blank nobodies remain,
And they seem terror-stricken.... Blackly ends
Such fair festivities. The red god War
Stalks Europe's plains anew!
[The curtain of the grille is dropped. MESDAMES DE MONTESQUIOU
and DE BRIGNOLE leave the gallery. The light is extinguished
there and the scene disappears.]
SCENE III
LA MURE, NEAR GRENOBLE
[A lonely road between a lake and some hills, two or three miles
outside the village of la Mure, is discovered. A battalion of
the Fifth French royalist regiment of the line under COMMANDANT
LESSARD, is drawn up in the middle of the road with a company of
sappers and miners, comprising altogether about eight hundred men.
Enter to them from the south a small detachment of lancers with
an aide-de-camp at their head. They ride up to within speaking
distance.]
LESSARD
They are from Bonaparte. Present your arms!
AIDE [calling]
We'd parley on Napoleon's behalf,
And fain would ask you join him.
LESSARD
Al parole
With rebel bands the Government forbids.
Come five steps further and we fire!
AIDE
To France,
And to posterity through fineless time,
Must you then answer for so foul a blow
Against the common weal!
[NAPOLEON'S aide-de-camp and the lancers turn about and ride
back out of sight. The royalist troops wait. Presently there
reappears from the same direction a small column of soldiery,
representing the whole of NAPOLEON'S little army shipped from
Elba. It is divided into an advance-guard under COLONEL MALLET,
and two bodies behind, a troop of Polish lancers under COLONEL
JERMANWSKI on the right side of the road, and some officers
without troops on the left, under MAJOR PACCONI.
NAPOLEON rides in the midst of the advance-guard, in the old
familiar “redingote grise,” cocked hat, and tricolor cockade,
his well-known profile keen against the hills. He is attended
by GENERALS BERTRAND, DROUOT, and CAMBRONNE. When they get within
gun-shot of the royalists the men are halted. NAPOLEON dismounts
and steps forward.]
NAPOLEON
Direct the men
To lodge their weapons underneath the arm,
Points downward. I shall not require them here.
COLONEL MALLET
Sire, is it not a needless jeopardy
To meet them thus? The sentiments of these
We do not know, and the first trigger pressed
May end you.
NAPOLEON
I have thought it out, my friend,
And value not my life as in itself,
But as to France, severed from whose embrace]
I am dead already.
[He repeats the order, which is carried out. There is a breathless
silence, and people from the village gather round with tragic
expectations. NAPOLEON walks on alone towards the Fifth battalion,
Throwing open his great-coat and revealing his uniform and the
ribbon of the Legion of Honour. Raising his hand to his hat he
salutes.]
LESSARD
Present arms!
[The firelocks of the royalist battalion are levelled at NAPOLEON.]
NAPOLEON [still advancing]
Men of the Fifth,
See--here I am!... Old friends, do you not know me?
If there be one among you who would slay
His Chief of proud past years, let him come on
And do it now! [A pause.]
LESSARD [to his next officer]
They are death-white at his words!
They'll fire not on this man. And I am helpless.
SOLDIERS [suddenly]
Why yes! We know you, father. Glad to see ye!
The Emperor for ever! Ha! Huzza!
[They throw their arms upon the ground, and, rushing forward,
sink down and seize NAPOLEON'S knees and kiss his hands. Those
who cannot get near him wave their shakos and acclaim him
passionately. BERTRAND, DROUOT, and CAMBRONNE come up.]
NAPOLEON [privately]
All is accomplished, Bertrand! Ten days more,
And we are snug within the Tuileries.
[The soldiers tear out their white cockades and trample on them,
and disinter from the bottom of their knapsacks tricolors, which
they set up.
NAPOLEON'S own men now arrive, and fraternize with and embrace
the soldiers of the Fifth. When the emotion has subsided,
NAPOLEON forms the whole body into a square and addresses them.]
Soldiers, I came with these few faithful ones
To save you from the Bourbons,--treasons, tricks,
Ancient abuses, feudal tyranny--
From which I once of old delivered you.
The Bourbon throne is illegitimate
Because not founded on the nation's will,
But propped up for the profit of a few.
Comrades, is this not so?
A GRENADIER
Yes, verily, sire.
You are the Angel of the Lord to us;
We'll march with you to death or victory! [Shouts.]
[At this moment a howling dog crosses in front of them with a
cockade tied to its tail. The soldiery of both sides laugh
loudly.
NAPOLEON forms both bodies of troops into one column. Peasantry
run up with buckets of sour wine and a single glass; NAPOLEON
takes his turn with the rank and file in drinking from it. He
bids the whole column follow him to Grenoble and Paris. Exeunt
soldiers headed by NAPOLEON. The scene shuts.]
SCENE IV
SCHONBRUNN
[The gardens of the Palace. Fountains and statuary are seen
around, and the Gloriette colonnade rising against the sky on
a hill behind.
The ex-EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE is discovered walking up and down.
Accompanying her is the KING OF ROME--now a blue-eye, fair-haired
child--in the charge of the COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU. Close by is
COUNT NEIPPERG, and at a little distance MENEVAL, her attendant
and Napoleon's adherent.
The EMPEROR FRANCIS and METTERNICH enter at the other end of the
parterre.]
MARIE LOUISE [with a start]
Here are the Emperor and Prince Metternich.
Wrote you as I directed?
NEIPPERG
Promptly so.
I said your Majesty had not part
In this mad move of your Imperial spouse,
And made yourself a ward of the Allies;
Adding, that you had vowed irrevocably
To enter France no more.
MARIE LOUISE
Your worthy zeal
Has been a trifle swift. My meaning stretched
Not quite so far as that.... And yet--and yet
It matters little. Nothing matters much!
[The EMPEROR and METTERNICH come forward. NEIPPERG retires.]
FRANCIS
My daughter, you did not a whit too soon
Voice your repudiation. Have you seen
What the allies have papered Europe with?
MARIE LOUISE
I have seen nothing.
FRANCIS
Please you read it, Prince.
METTERNICH [taking out a paper]
“The Powers assembled at the Congress here
Owe it to their own troths and dignities,
And to the furtherance of social order,
To make a solemn Declaration, thus:
By breaking the convention as to Elba,
Napoleon Bonaparte forthwith destroys
His only legal title to exist,
And as a consequence has hurled himself
Beyond the pale of civil intercourse.
Disturber of the tranquillity of the world,
There can be neither peace nor truce with him,
And public vengeance is his self-sought doom.--
Signed by the Plenipotentiaries.”
MARIE LOUISE [pale]
O God,
How terrible!... What shall---[she begins weeping.]
KING OF ROME
Is it papa
They want to hurt like that, dear Mamma 'Quiou?
Then 'twas no good my praying for him so;
And I can see that I am not going to be
A King much longer!
COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU [retiring with the child]
Pray for him, Monseigneur,
Morning and evening just the same! They plan
To take you off from me. But don't forget--
Do as I say!
KING OF ROME
Yes, Mamma 'Quiou, I will!--
But why have I no pages now? And why
Does my mamma the Empress weep so much?
COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU
We'll talk elsewhere.
[MONTESQUIOU and the KING OF ROME withdraw to back.]
FRANCIS
At least, then, you agree
Not to attempt to follow Paris-ward
Your conscience-lacking husband, and create
More troubles in the State?--Remember this,
I sacrifice my every man and horse
Ere he Rule France again.
MARIE LOUISE
I am pledged already
To hold by the Allies; let that suffice!
METTERNICH
For the clear good of all, your Majesty,
And for your safety and the King of Rome's,
It most befits that your Imperial father
Should have sole charge of the young king henceforth,
While these convulsions rage. That this is so
You will see, I think, in view of being installed
As Parma's Duchess, and take steps therefor.
MARIE LOUISE [coldly]
I understand the terms to be as follows:
Parma is mine--my very own possession,--
And as a counterquit, the guardianship
Is ceded to my father of my son,
And I keep out of France.
METTERNICH
And likewise this:
All missives that your Majesty receives
Under Napoleon's hand, you tender straight
The Austrian Cabinet, the seals unbroke;
With those received already.
FRANCIS
You discern
How vastly to the welfare of your son
This course must tend? Duchess of Parma throned
You shine a wealthy woman, to endow
Your son with fortune and large landed fee.
MARIE LOUISE [bitterly]
I must have Parma: and those being the terms
Perforce accept! I weary of the strain
Of statecraft and political embroil:
I long for private quiet!... And now wish
To say no more at all.
[MENEVAL, who has heard her latter remarks, turns sadly away.]
FRANCIS
There's nought to say;
All is in train to work straightforwardly.
[FRANCIS and METTERNICH depart. MARIE LOUISE retires towards the
child and the COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU at the back of the parterre,
where they are joined by NEIPPERG.
Enter in front DE MONTROND, a secret emissary of NAPOLEON, disguised
as a florist examining the gardens. MENEVAL recognizes him and
comes forward.]
MENEVAL
Why are you here, de Montrond? All is hopeless!
DE MONTROND
Wherefore? The offer of the Regency
I come empowered to make, and will conduct her
Safely to Strassburg with her little son,
If she shrink not to breech her as a man,
And tiptoe from a postern unperceived?
MENEVAL
Though such quaint gear would mould her to a youth
Fair as Adonis on a hunting morn,
Yet she'll refuse! A German prudery
Sits on her still; more, kneaded by her arts
There's no will left to her. I conjured her
To hold aloof, sign nothing. But in vain.
DE MONTROND [looking towards Marie Louise]
I fain would put it to her privately!
MENEVAL
A thing impossible. No word to her
Without a word to him you see with her,
Neipperg to wit. She grows indifferent
To dreams as Regent; visioning a future
Wherein her son and self are two of three
But where the third is not Napoleon.
DE MONTROND [In sad surprise]
I may as well go hence then as I came,
And kneel to Heaven for one thing--that success
Attend Napoleon in the coming throes!
MENEVAL
I'll walk with you for safety to the gate,
Though I am as the Emperor's man suspect,
And any day may be dismissed. If so
I go to Paris.
[Exeunt MENEVAL and DE MONTROND.]
SPIRIT IRONIC
Had he but persevered, and biassed her
To slip the breeches on, and hie away,
Who knows but that the map of France had shaped
And it will never now!
[There enters from the other side of the gardens MARIA CAROLINA,
ex-Queen of Naples, and grandmother of Marie Louise. The latter,
dismissing MONTESQUIOU and the child, comes forward.]
MARIA CAROLINA
I have crossed from Hetzendorf to kill an hour;
Why art so pensive, dear?
MARIE LOUISE
Ah, why! My lines
Rule ruggedly. You doubtless have perused
This vicious cry against the Emperor?
He's outlawed--to be caught alive or dead,
Like any noisome beast!
MARIA CAROLINA
Nought have I heard,
My child. But these vile tricks, to pluck you from
Your nuptial plightage and your rightful glory
Make me belch oaths!--You shall not join your husband
Do they assert? My God, I know one thing,
Outlawed or no, I'd knot my sheets forthwith,
Were I but you, and steal to him in disguise,
Let come what would come! Marriage is for life.
MARIE LOUISE
Mostly; not always: not with Josephine;
And, maybe, not with me. But, that apart,
I could do nothing so outrageous.
Too many things, dear grand-dame, you forget.
A puppet I, by force inflexible,
Was bid to wed Napoleon at a nod,--
The man acclaimed to me from cradle-days
As the incarnate of all evil things,
The Antichrist himself.--I kissed the cup,
Gulped down the inevitable, and married him;
But none the less I saw myself therein
The lamb whose innocent flesh was dressed to grace
The altar of dynastic ritual!--
Hence Elba flung no duty-call to me,
Neither does Paris now.
MARIA CAROLINA
I do perceive
They have worked on you to much effect already!
Go, join your Count; he waits you, dear.--Well, well;
The way the wind blows needs no cock to tell!
[Exeunt severally QUEEN MARIA CAROLINA and MARIE LOUISE with
NEIPPERG. The sun sets over the gardens and the scene fades.]
SCENE V
LONDON. THE OLD HOUSE OF COMMONS
[The interior of the Chamber appears as in Scene III., Act I.,
Part I., except that the windows are not open and the trees
without are not yet green.
Among the Members discovered in their places are, of ministers
and their supporters, LORD CASTLEREAGH the Foreign Secretary,
VANSITTART Chancellor of the Exchequer, BATHURST, PALMERSTON
the War Secretary, ROSE, PONSONBY, ARBUTHNOT, LUSHINGTON, GARROW
the Attorney General, SHEPHERD, LONG, PLUNKETT, BANKES; and among
those of the Opposition SIR FRANCIS BURDETT, WHITBREAD, TIERNEY,
ABERCROMBY, DUNDAS, BRAND, DUNCANNON, LAMBTON, HEATHCOTE, SIR
SAMUEL ROMILLY, G. WALPOLE, RIDLEY, OSBORNE, and HORNER.
Much interest in the debate is apparent, and the galleries are
full. LORD CASTLEREAGH rises.]
CASTLEREAGH
At never a moment in my stressed career,
Amid no memory-moving urgencies,
Have I, sir, felt so gravely set on me
The sudden, vast responsibility
That I feel now. Few things conceivable
Could more momentous to the future be
Than what may spring from counsel here to-night
On means to meet the plot unparalleled
In full fierce play elsewhere. Sir, this being so,
And seeing how the events of these last days
Menace the toil of twenty anxious years,
And peril all that period's patient aim,
No auguring mind can doubt that deeds which root
In steadiest purpose only, will effect
Deliverance from a world-calamity
As dark as any in the vaults of Time.
Now, what we notice front and foremost is
That this convulsion speaks not, pictures not
The heart of France. It comes of artifice--
From the unique and sinister influence
Of a smart army-gamester--upon men
Who have shared his own excitements, spoils, and crimes.--
This man, who calls himself most impiously
The Emperor of France by Grace of God,
Has, in the scale of human character,
Dropt down so low, that he has set at nought
All pledges, stipulations, guarantees,
And stepped upon the only pedestal
On which he cares to stand--his lawless will.
Indeed, it is a fact scarce credible
That so mysteriously in his own breast
Did this adventurer lock the scheme he planned,
That his companion Bertrand, chief in trust,
Was unapprised thereof until the hour
In which the order to embark was given!
I think the House will readily discern
That the wise, wary trackway to be trod
By our own country in the crisis reached,
Must lie 'twixt two alternatives,--of war
In concert with the Continental Powers,
Or of an armed and cautionary course
Sufficing for the present phase of things.
Whatever differences of view prevail
On the so serious and impending question--
Whether in point of prudent reckoning
'Twere better let the power set up exist,
Or promptly at the outset deal with it--
Still, to all eyes it is imperative
That some mode of safeguardance be devised;
And if I cannot range before the House,
At this stage, all the reachings of the case,
I will, if needful, on some future day
Poise these nice matters on their merits here.
Meanwhile I have to move:
That an address unto His Royal Highness
Be humbly offered for his gracious message,
And to assure him that his faithful Commons
Are fully roused to the dark hazardries
To which the life and equanimity
Of Europe are exposed by deeds in France,
In contravention of the plighted pacts
At Paris in the course of yester-year.
That, in a cause of such wide-waked concern,
It doth afford us real relief to know
That concert with His Majesty's Allies
Is being effected with no loss of time--
Such concert as will thoroughly provide
For Europe's full and long security. [Cheers.]
That we, with zeal, will speed such help to him
So to augment his force by sea and land
As shall empower him to set afoot
Swift measures meet for its accomplishing. [Cheers.]
BURDETT
It seems to me almost impossible,
Weighing the language of the noble lord,
To catch its counsel,--whether peace of war. [Hear, hear.]
If I translate his words to signify
The high expediency of watch and ward,
That we may not be taken unawares,
I own concurrence; but if he propose
Too plunge this realm into a sea of blood
To reinstate the Bourbon line in France,
I should but poorly do my duty here
Did I not lift my voice protestingly
Against so ruinous an enterprise!
Sir, I am old enough to call to mind
The first fierce frenzies for the selfsame end,
The fruit of which was to endow this man,
The object of your apprehension now,
With such a might as could not be withstood
By all of banded Europe, till he roamed
And wrecked it wantonly on Russian plains.
Shall, then, another score of scourging years
Distract this land to make a Bourbon king?
Wrongly has Bonaparte's late course been called
A rude incursion on the soil of France.--
Who ever knew a sole and single man
Invade a nation thirty million strong,
And gain in some few days full sovereignty
Against the nation's will!--The truth is this:
The nation longed for him, and has obtained him....
I have beheld the agonies of war
Through many a weary season; seen enough
To make me hold that scarcely any goal
Is worth the reaching by so red a road.
No man can doubt that this Napoleon stands
As Emperor of France by Frenchmen's wills.
Let the French settle, then, their own affairs;
I say we shall have nought to apprehend!--
Much as I might advance in proof of this,
I'll dwell not thereon now. I am satisfied
To give the general reasons which, in brief,
Balk my concurrence in the Address proposed. [Cheers.]
PONSONBY
My words will be but few, for the Address
Constrains me to support it as it stands.
So far from being the primary step to war,
Its sense and substance is, in my regard,
To leave the House to guidance by events
On the grave question of hostilities.
The statements of the noble lord, I hold,
Have not been candidly interpreted
By grafting on to them a headstrong will,
As does the honourable baronet,
To rob the French of Buonaparte's rule,
And force them back to Bourbon monarchism.
That our free land, at this abnormal time,
Should put her in a pose of wariness,
No unwarped mind can doubt. Must war revive,
Let it be quickly waged; and quickly, too,
Reach its effective end: though 'tis my hope,
My ardent hope, that peace may be preserved.
WHITBREAD
Were it that I could think, as does my friend,
That ambiguity of sentiment
Informed the utterance of the noble lord
[As oft does ambiguity of word],
I might with satisfied and sure resolve
Vote straight for the Address. But eyeing well
The flimsy web there woven to entrap
The credence of my honourable friends,
I must with all my energy contest
The wisdom of a new and hot crusade
For fixing who shall fill the throne of France.
Already are the seeds of mischief sown:
The Declaration at Vienna, signed
Against Napoleon, is, in my regard,
Abhorrent, and our country's character
Defaced by our subscription to its terms!
If words have any meaning it incites
To sheer assassination; it proclaims
That any meeting Bonaparte may slay him;
And, whatso language the Allies now hold,
In that outburst, at least, was war declared.
The noble lord to-night would second it,
Would seem to urge that we full arm, then wait
For just as long, no longer, than would serve
The preparations of the other Powers,
And then--pounce down on France!
CASTLEREAGH
No, no! Not so.
WHITBREAD
Good God, then, what are we to understand?--
However, this denial is a gain,
And my misapprehension owes its birth
Entirely to that mystery of phrase
Which taints all rhetoric of the noble lord,
Well, what is urged for new aggression now,
To vamp up and replace the Bourbon line?
The wittiest man who ever sat here[21] said
That half our nation's debt had been incurred
In efforts to suppress the Bourbon power,
The other half in efforts to restore it, [laughter]
And I must deprecate a further plunge
For ends so futile! Why, since Ministers
Craved peace with Bonaparte at Chatillon,
Should they refuse him peace and quiet now?
This brief amendment therefore I submit
To limit Ministers' aggressiveness
And make self-safety all their chartering:
“We at the same time earnestly implore
That the Prince Regent graciously induce
Strenuous endeavours in the cause of peace,
So long as it be done consistently
With the due honour of the English crown.” [Cheers.]
CASTLEREAGH
The arguments of Members opposite
Posit conditions which experience proves
But figments of a dream;--that honesty,
Truth, and good faith in this same Bonaparte
May be assumed and can be acted on:
This of one who is loud to violate
Bonds the most sacred, treaties the most grave!...
It follows not that since this realm was won
To treat with Bonaparte at Chatillon,
It can treat now. And as for assassination,
The sentiments outspoken here to-night
Are much more like to urge to desperate deeds
Against the persons of our good Allies,
Than are, against Napoleon, statements signed
By the Vienna plenipotentiaries!
We are, in fine, too fully warranted
On moral grounds to strike at Bonaparte,
If we at any crisis reckon it
Expedient so to do. The Government
Will act throughout in concert with the Allies,
And Ministers are well within their rights
To claim that their responsibility
Be not disturbed by hackneyed forms of speech [“Oh, oh”]
Upon war's horrors, and the bliss of peace,--
Which none denies! [Cheers.]
PONSONBY
I ask the noble lord,
If that his meaning and pronouncement be
Immediate war?
CASTLEREAGH
I have not phrased it so.
OPPOSITION CRIES
The question is unanswered!
[There are excited calls, and the House divides. The result is
announced as thirty-seven for WHITBREAD'S amendment, and against
it two hundred and twenty. The clock strikes twelve as the House
adjourns.]
SCENE VI
WESSEX. DURNOVER GREEN, CASTERBRIDGE
[On a patch of green grass on Durnover Hill, in the purlieus of
Casterbridge, a rough gallows has been erected, and an effigy of
Napoleon hung upon it. Under the effigy are faggots of brushwood.
It is the dusk of a spring evening, and a great crowd has gathered,
comprising male and female inhabitants of the Durnover suburb
and villagers from distances of many miles. Also are present
some of the county yeomanry in white leather breeches and scarlet,
volunteers in scarlet with green facings, and the REVEREND MR.
PALMER, vicar of the parish, leaning against the post of his
garden door, and smoking a clay pipe of preternatural length.
Also PRIVATE CANTLE from Egdon Heath, and SOLOMON LONGWAYS of
Casterbridge. The Durnover band, which includes a clarionet,
{serpent,} oboe, tambourine, cymbals, and drum, is playing “Lord
Wellington's Hornpipe.”]
RUSTIC [wiping his face]
Says I, please God I'll lose a quarter to zee he burned! And I left
Stourcastle at dree o'clock to a minute. And if I'd known that I
should be too late to zee the beginning on't, I'd have lost a half
to be a bit sooner.
YEOMAN
Oh, you be soon enough good-now. He's just going to be lighted.
RUSTIC
But shall I zee en die? I wanted to zee if he'd die hard,
YEOMAN
Why, you don't suppose that Boney himself is to be burned here?
RUSTIC
What--not Boney that's to be burned?
A WOMAN
Why, bless the poor man, no! This is only a mommet they've made of
him, that's got neither chine nor chitlings. His innerds be only a
lock of straw from Bridle's barton.
LONGWAYS
He's made, neighbour, of a' old cast jacket and breeches from our
barracks here. Likeways Grammer Pawle gave us Cap'n Meggs's old
Zunday shirt that she'd saved for tinder-box linnit; and Keeper
Tricksey of Mellstock emptied his powder-horn into a barm-bladder,
to make his heart wi'.
RUSTIC [vehemently]
Then there's no honesty left in Wessex folk nowadays at all! “Boney's
going to be burned on Durnover Green to-night,”-- that was what I
thought, to be sure I did, that he'd been catched sailing from his
islant and landed at Budmouth and brought to Casterbridge Jail, the
natural retreat of malefactors!--False deceivers--making me lose a
quarter who can ill afford it; and all for nothing!
LONGWAYS
'Tisn't a mo'sel o' good for thee to cry out against Wessex folk, when
'twas all thy own stunpoll ignorance.
[The VICAR OF DURNOVER removes his pipe and spits perpendicularly.]
VICAR
My dear misguided man, you don't imagine that we should be so inhuman
in this Christian country as to burn a fellow creature alive?
RUSTIC
Faith, I won't say I didn't! Durnover folk have never had the
highest of Christian character, come to that. And I didn't know
but that even a pa'son might backslide to such things in these gory
times--I won't say on a Zunday, but on a week-night like this--when
we think what a blasphemious rascal he is, and that there's not a
more charnel-minded villain towards womenfolk in the whole world.
[The effigy has by this time been kindled, and they watch it burn,
the flames making the faces of the crowd brass-bright, and lighting
the grey tower of Durnover Church hard by.]
WOMAN [singing]
Bayonets and firelocks!
I wouldn't my mammy should know't
But I've been kissed in a sentry-box,
Wrapped up in a soldier's coat!
PRIVATE CANTLE
Talk of backsliding to burn Boney, I can backslide to anything
when my blood is up, or rise to anything, thank God for't! Why,
I shouldn't mind fighting Boney single-handed, if so be I had
the choice o' weapons, and fresh Rainbarrow flints in my flint-box,
and could get at him downhill. Yes, I'm a dangerous hand with a
pistol now and then!... Hark, what's that? [A horn is heard
eastward on the London Road.] Ah, here comes the mail. Now we may
learn something. Nothing boldens my nerves like news of slaughter!
[Enter mail-coach and steaming horses. It halts for a minute while
the wheel is skidded and the horses stale.]
SEVERAL
What was the latest news from abroad, guard, when you left
Piccadilly White-Horse-Cellar!
GUARD
You have heard, I suppose, that he's given up to public vengeance,
by Gover'ment orders? Anybody may take his life in any way, fair
or foul, and no questions asked. But Marshal Ney, who was sent to
fight him, flung his arms round his neck and joined him with all
his men. Next, the telegraph from Plymouth sends news landed there
by _The Sparrow_, that he has reached Paris, and King Louis has
fled. But the air got hazy before the telegraph had finished, and
the name of the place he had fled to couldn't be made out.
[The VICAR OF DURNOVER blows a cloud of smoke, and again spits
perpendicularly.]
VICAR
Well, I'm d--- Dear me--dear me! The Lord's will be done.
GUARD
And there are to be four armies sent against him--English, Proosian,
Austrian, and Roosian: the first two under Wellington and Blücher.
And just as we left London a show was opened of Boney on horseback
as large as life, hung up with his head downwards. Admission one
shilling; children half-price. A truly patriot spectacle!--Not that
yours here is bad for a simple country-place.
[The coach drives on down the hill, and the crowd reflectively
watches the burning.]
WOMAN [singing]
I
My Love's gone a-fighting
Where war-trumpets call,
The wrongs o' men righting
Wi' carbine and ball,
And sabre for smiting,
And charger, and all
II
Of whom does he think there
Where war-trumpets call?
To whom does he drink there,
Wi' carbine and ball
On battle's red brink there,
And charger, and all?
III
Her, whose voice he hears humming
Where war-trumpets call,
“I wait, Love, thy coming
Wi' carbine and ball,
And bandsmen a-drumming
Thee, charger and all!”
[The flames reach the powder in the effigy, which is blown to
rags. The band marches off playing “When War's Alarms,” the
crowd disperses, the vicar stands musing and smoking at his
garden door till the fire goes out and darkness curtains the
scene.]
ACT SIXTH
SCENE I
THE BELGIAN FRONTIER
[The village of Beaumont stands in the centre foreground of a
birds'-eye prospect across the Belgian frontier from the French
side, being close to the Sambre further back in the scene, which
pursues a crinkled course between high banks from Maubeuge on the
left to Charleroi on the right.
In the shadows that muffle all objects, innumerable bodies of
infantry and cavalry are discerned bivouacking in and around the
village. This mass of men forms the central column of NAPOLEONS'S
army.
The right column is seen at a distance on that hand, also near
the frontier, on the road leading towards Charleroi; and the
left column by Solre-sur-Sambre, where the frontier and the river
nearly coincide
The obscurity thins and the June dawn appears.]
DUMB SHOW
The bivouacs of the central column become broken up, and a movement
ensues rightwards on Charleroi. The twelve regiments of cavalry
which are in advance move off first; in half an hour more bodies
move, and more in the next half-hour, till by eight o'clock the
whole central army is gliding on. It defiles in strands by narrow
tracks through the forest. Riding impatiently on the outskirts of
the columns is MARSHAL NEY, who has as yet received no command.
As the day develops, sight and sounds to the left and right reveal
that the two outside columns have also started, and are creeping
towards the frontier abreast with the centre. That the whole forms
one great movement, co-ordinated by one mind, now becomes apparent.
Preceded by scouts the three columns converge.
The advance through dense woods by narrow paths takes time. The
head of the middles and main column forces back some outposts, and
reaches Charleroi, driving out the Prussian general ZIETEN. It
seizes the bridge over the Sambre and blows up the gates of the
town.
The point of observation now descends close to the scene.
In the midst comes the EMPEROR with the Sappers of the Guard,
the Marines, and the Young Guard. The clatter brings the scared
inhabitants to their doors and windows. Cheers arise from some
of them as NAPOLEON passes up the steep street. Just beyond the
town, in front of the Bellevue Inn, he dismounts. A chair is
brought out, in which he sits and surveys the whole valley of the
Sambre. The troops march past cheering him, and drums roll and
bugles blow. Soon the EMPEROR is found to be asleep.
When the rattle of their passing ceases the silence wakes him. His
listless eye falls upon a half-defaced poster on a wall opposite--
the Declaration of the Allies.
NAPOLEON [reading]
“... Bonaparte destroys the only legal title on which his existence
depended.... He has deprived himself of the protection of the law,
and has manifested to the Universe that there can be neither peace
nor truce with him. The Powers consequently declare that Napoleon
Bonaparte has placed himself without the pale of civil and social
relations, and that as an enemy and disturber of the tranquillity
of the world he has rendered himself liable to public vengeance.”
His flesh quivers, and he turns with a start, as if fancying that
some one may be about to stab him in the back. Then he rises,
mounts, and rides on.
Meanwhile the right column crosses the Sambre without difficulty
at Chatelet, a little lower down; the left column at Marchienne a
little higher up; and the three limbs combine into one vast army.
As the curtain of the mist is falling, the point of vision soars
again, and there is afforded a brief glimpse of what is doing far
away on the other side. From all parts of Europe long and sinister
black files are crawling hitherward in serpentine lines, like
slowworms through grass. They are the advancing armies of the
Allies. The Dumb Show ends.
SCENE II
A BALLROOM IN BRUSSELS[22]
[It is a June midnight at the DUKE AND DUCHESS OF RICHMOND'S. A
band of stringed instruments shows in the background. The room
is crowded with a brilliant assemblage of more than two hundred
of the distinguished people sojourning in the city on account of
the war and other reasons, and of local personages of State and
fashion. The ball has opened with “The White Cockade.”
Among those discovered present either dancing or looking on are
the DUKE and DUCHESS as host and hostess, their son and eldest
daughter, the Duchess's brother, the DUKE OF WELLINGTON, the
PRINCE OF ORANGE, the DUKE OF BRUNSWICK, BARON VAN CAPELLEN the
Belgian Secretary of State, the DUKE OF ARENBERG, the MAYOR OF
BRUSSELS, the DUKE AND DUCHESS OF BEAUFORT, GENERAL ALAVA, GENERAL
OUDENARDE, LORD HILL, LORD AND LADY CONYNGHAM, SIR HENRY AND LADY
SUSAN CLINTON, SIR H. AND LADY HAMILTON DALRYMPLE, SIR WILLIAM AND
LADY DE LANCEY, LORD UXBRIDGE, SIR JOHN BYNG, LORD PORTARLINGTON,
LORD EDWARD SOMERSET, LORD HAY, COLONEL ABERCROMBY, SIR HUSSEY
VIVIAN, SIR A. GORDON, SIR W. PONSONBY, SIR DENIS PACK, SIR JAMES
KEMPT, SIR THOMAS PICTON, GENERAL MAITLAND, COLONEL CAMERON, many
other officers, English, Hanoverian, Dutch and Belgian ladies
English and foreign, and Scotch reel-dancers from Highland
regiments.
The “Hungarian Waltz” having also been danced, the hostess calls
up the Highland soldiers to show the foreign guests what a Scotch
reel is like. The men put their hands on their hips and tread it
out briskly. While they stand aside and rest “The Hanoverian
Dance” is called.
Enter LIEUTENANT WEBSTER, A.D.C. to the PRINCE OF ORANGE. The
Prince goes apart with him and receives a dispatch. After reading
it he speaks to WELLINGTON, and the two, accompanied by the DUKE
OF RICHMOND, retire into an alcove with serious faces. WEBSTER,
in passing back across the ballroom, exchanges a hasty word with
two of three of the guests known to him, a young officer among
them, and goes out.
YOUNG OFFICER [to partner]
The French have passed the Sambre at Charleroi!
PARTNER
What--does it mean the Bonaparte indeed
Is bearing down upon us?
YOUNG OFFICER
That is so.
The one who spoke to me in passing out
Is Aide to the Prince of Orange, bringing him
Dispatches from Rebecque, his chief of Staff,
Now at the front, not far from Braine le Comte;
He says that Ney, leading the French van-guard,
Has burst on Quatre-Bras.
PARTNER
O horrid time!
Will you, then, have to go and face him there?
YOUNG OFFICER
I shall, of course, sweet. Promptly too, no doubt.
[He gazes about the room.]
See--the news spreads; the dance is paralyzed.
They are all whispering round. [The band stops.] Here comes
one more,
He's the attache from the Prussian force
At our headquarters.
[Enter GENERAL MUFFLING. He looks prepossessed, and goes straight
to WELLINGTON and RICHMOND in the alcove, who by this time have
been joined by the DUKE OF BRUNSWICK.]
SEVERAL GUESTS [at back of room]
Yes, you see, it's true!
The army will prepare to march at once.
PICTON [to another general]
I am damn glad we are to be off. Pottering about her pinned to
petticoat tails--it does one no good, but blasted harm!
ANOTHER GUEST
The ball cannot go on, can it? Didn't the Duke know the French
were so near? If he did, how could he let us run risks so coolly?
LADY HAMILTON DALRYMPLE [to partner]
A deep concern weights those responsible
Who gather in the alcove. Wellington
Affects a cheerfulness in outward port,
But cannot rout his real anxiety!
[The DUCHESS OF RICHMOND goes to her husband.]
DUCHESS
Ought I to stop the ball? It hardly seems right to let it continue
if all be true.
RICHMOND
I have put that very question to Wellington, my dear. He says that
we need not hurry off the guests. The men have to assemble some
time before the officers, who can stay on here a little longer
without inconvenience; and he would prefer that they should, not to
create a panic in the city, where the friends and spies of Napoleon
are all agog for some such thing, which they would instantly
communicate to him to take advantage of.
DUCHESS
Is it safe to stay on? Should we not be thinking about getting the
children away?
RICHMOND
There's no hurry at all, even if Bonaparte were really sure to
enter. But he's never going to set foot in Brussels--don't you
imagine it for a moment.
DUCHESS [anxiously]
I hope not. But I wish we had never brought them here!
RICHMOND
It is too late, my dear, to wish that now. Don't be flurried; make
the people go on dancing.
[The DUCHESS returns to her guests. The DUKE rejoins WELLINGTON,
BRUNSWICK, MUFFLING, and the PRINCE OF ORANGE in the alcove.]
WELLINGTON
We need not be astride till five o'clock
If all the men are marshalled well ahead.
The Brussels citizens must not suppose
They stand in serious peril... He, I think,
Directs his main attack mistakenly;
It should gave been through Mons, not Charleroi.
MUFFLING
The Austrian armies, and the Russian too,
Will show nowhere in this. The thing that's done,
Be it a historied feat or nine days' fizz,
Will be done long before they join us here.
WELLINGTON
Yes, faith; and 'tis pity. But, by God,
Blücher, I think, and I can make a shift
To do the business without troubling 'em!
Though I've an infamous army, that's the truth,--
Weak, and but ill-equipped,--and what's as bad,
A damned unpractised staff!
MUFFLING
We'll hope for luck.
Blücher concentrates certainly by now
Near Ligny, as he says in his dispatch.
Your Grace, I glean, will mass at Quatre-Bras?
WELLINGTON
Ay, now we are sure this move on Charleroi
Is no mere feint. Though I had meant Nivelles.
Have ye a good map, Richmond, near at hand?
RICHMOND
In the next room there's one. [Exit RICHMOND.]
[WELLINGTON calls up various general officers and aides from
other parts of the room. PICTON, UXBRIDGE, HILL, CLINTON, VIVIAN,
MAITLAND, PONSONBY, SOMERSET, and others join him in succession,
receive orders, and go out severally.]
PRINCE OF ORANGE
As my divisions seem to lie around
The probable point of impact, it behoves me
To start at once, Duke, for Genappe, I deem?
Being in Brussels, all for this damned ball,
The dispositions out there have, so far,
Been made by young Saxe Weimar and Perponcher,
On their own judgment quite. I go, your Grace?
WELLINGTON
Yes, certainly. 'Tis now desirable.
Farewell! Good luck, until we meet again,
The battle won!
[Exit PRINCE OF ORANGE, and shortly after, MUFFLING. RICHMOND
returns with a map, which he spreads out on the table. WELLINGTON
scans it closely.]
Napoleon has befooled me,
By God he has,--gained four-and-twenty hours'
Good march upon me!
RICHMOND
What do you mean to do?
WELLINGTON
I have bidden the army concentrate in strength
At Quatre-Bras. But we shan't stop him there;
So I must fight him HERE. [He marks Waterloo with his thumbnail.]
Well, now I have sped,
All necessary orders I may sup,
And then must say good-bye. [To Brunswick.] This very day
There will be fighting, Duke. You are fit to start?
BRUNSWICK [coming forward]
I leave almost this moment.--Yes, your Grace--
And I sheath not my sword till I have avenged
My father's death. I have sworn it!
WELLINGTON
My good friend,
Something too solemn knells beneath your words.
Take cheerful views of the affair in hand,
And fall to't with _sang froid_!
BRUNSWICK
But I have sworn!
Adieu. The rendezvous is Quatre-Bras?
WELLINGTON
Just so. The order is unchanged. Adieu;
But only till a later hour to-day;
I see it is one o'clock.
[WELLINGTON and RICHMOND go out of the alcove and join the
hostess, BRUNSWICK'S black figure being left there alone. He
bends over the map for a few seconds.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
O Brunswick, Duke of Deathwounds! Even as he
For whom thou wear'st that filial weedery
Was waylaid by my tipstaff nine years since,
So thou this day shalt feel his fendless tap,
And join thy sire!
BRUNSWICK [starting up]
I am stirred by inner words,
As 'twere my father's angel calling me,--
That prelude to our death my lineage know!
[He stands in a reverie for a moment; then, bidding adieu to the
DUCHESS OF RICHMOND and her daughter, goes slowly out of the
ballroom by a side-door.]
DUCHESS
The Duke of Brunswick bore him gravely here.
His sable shape has stuck me all the eve
As one of those romantic presences
We hear of--seldom see.
WELLINGTON [phlegmatically]
Romantic,--well,
It may be so. Times often, ever since
The Late Duke's death, his mood has tinged him thus.
He is of those brave men who danger see,
And seeing front it,--not of those, less brave
But counted more, who face it sightlessly.
YOUNG OFFICER [to partner]
The Generals slip away! I, Love, must take
The cobbled highway soon. Some hours ago
The French seized Charleroi; so they loom nigh.
PARTNER [uneasily]
Which tells me that the hour you draw your sword
Looms nigh us likewise!
YOUNG OFFICER
Some are saying here
We fight this very day. Rumours all-shaped
Fly round like cockchafers!
[Suddenly there echoes in the ballroom a long-drawn metallic purl
of sound, making all the company start.]
Transcriber's Note: There follows in musical notation five measures
for side-drum.
Ah--there it is,
Just as I thought! They are beating the Generale.
[The loud roll of side-drums is taken up by other drums further
and further away, till the hollow noise spreads all over the city.
Dismay is written on the faces of the women. The Highland non-
commissioned officers and privates march smartly down the ballroom
and disappear.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Discerned you stepping out in front of them
That figure--of a pale drum-major kind,
Or fugleman--who wore a cold grimace?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
He was my old fiend Death, in rarest trim,
The occasion favouring his husbandry!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Are those who marched behind him, then, to fall?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Ay, all well-nigh, ere Time have houred three-score.
PARTNER
Surely this cruel call to instant war
Spares space for one dance more, that memory
May store when you are gone, while I--sad me!--
Wait, wait and weep.... Yes--one there is to be!
SPIRIT IRONIC
Methinks flirtation grows too tender here!
[Country Dance, “The Prime of Life,” a favourite figure at this
period. The sense of looming tragedy carries emotion to its
climax. All the younger officers stand up with their partners,
forming several figures of fifteen or twenty couples each. The
air is ecstasizing, and both sexes abandon themselves to the
movement.
Nearly half an hour passes before the figure is danced down.
Smothered kisses follow the conclusion. The silence is broken
from without by more long hollow rolling notes, so near that
they thrill the window-panes.]
SEVERAL
'Tis the Assemble. Now, then, we must go!
[The officers bid farewell to their partners and begin leaving
in twos and threes. When they are gone the women mope and murmur
to each other by the wall, and listen to the tramp of men and
slamming of doors in the streets without.]
LADY HAMILTON DALRYMPLE
The Duke has borne him gaily here to-night.
The youngest spirits scarcely capped his own.
DALRYMPLE
Maybe that, finding himself blade to blade
With Bonaparte at last, his blood gets quick.
French lancers of the Guard were seen at Frasnes
Last midnight; so the clash is not far off.
[They leave.]
DE LANCEY [to his wife]
I take you to our door, and say good-bye,
And go thence to the Duke's and wait for him.
In a few hours we shall be all in motion
Towards the scene of--what we cannot tell!
You, dear, will haste to Antwerp till it's past,
As we have arranged.
[They leave.]
WELLINGTON [to Richmond]
Now I must also go,
And snatch a little snooze ere harnessing.
The Prince and Brunswick have been gone some while.
[RICHMOND walks to the door with him. Exit WELLINGTON, RICHMOND
returns.]
DUCHESS [to Richmond]
Some of these left renew the dance, you see.
I cannot stop them; but with memory hot
Of those late gone, of where they are gone, and why,
It smacks of heartlessness!
RICHMOND
Let be; let be;
Youth comes not twice to fleet mortality!
[The dancing, however, is fitful and spiritless, few but civilian
partners being left for the ladies. Many of the latter prefer to
sit in reverie while waiting for their carriages.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
When those stout men-at-arms drew forward there,
I saw a like grimacing shadow march
And pirouette before no few of them.
Some of themselves beheld it; some did not.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Which were so ushered?
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Brunswick, who saw and knew;
One also moved before Sir Thomas Picton,
Who coolly conned and drily spoke to it;
Another danced in front of Ponsonby,
Who failed of heeding his.--De Lancey, Hay,
Gordon, and Cameron, and many more
Were footmanned by like phantoms from the ball.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Multiplied shimmerings of my Protean friend,
Who means to couch them shortly. Thou wilt eye
Many fantastic moulds of him ere long,
Such as, bethink thee, oft hast eyed before.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
I have--too often!
[The attenuated dance dies out, the remaining guests depart, the
musicians leave the gallery and depart also. RICHMOND goes to
a window and pulls back one of the curtains. Dawn is barely
visible in the sky, and the lamps indistinctly reveal that long
lines of British infantry have assembled in the street. In the
irksomeness of waiting for their officers with marching-orders,
they have lain down on the pavements, where many are soundly
sleeping, their heads on their knapsacks and their arms by their
side.]
DUCHESS
Poor men. Sleep waylays them. How tired they seem!
RICHMOND
They'll be more tired before the day is done.
A march of eighteen miles beneath the heat,
And then to fight a battle ere they rest,
Is what foreshades.--Well, it is more than bed-time;
But little sleep for us or any one
To-night in Brussels!
[He draws the window-curtain and goes out with the DUCHESS.
Servants enter and extinguish candles. The scene closes in
darkness.]
SCENE III
CHARLEROI. NAPOLEON'S QUARTERS
[The same midnight. NAPOLEON is lying on a bed in his clothes.
In consultation with SOULT, his Chief of Staff, who is sitting
near, he dictates to his Secretary orders for the morrow. They
are addressed to KELLERMANN, DROUOT, LOBAU, GERARD, and other
of his marshals. SOULT goes out to dispatch them.
The Secretary resumes the reading of reports. Presently MARSHAL
NEY is announced He is heard stumbling up the stairs, and enters.]
NAPOLEON
Ah, Ney; why come you back? Have you secured
The all-important Crossways?--safely sconced
Yourself at Quatre-Bras?
NEY
Not, sire, as yet.
For, marching forwards, I heard gunnery boom,
And, fearing that the Prussians had engaged you,
I stood at pause. Just then---
NAPOLEON
My charge was this:
Make it impossible at any cost
That Wellington and Blücher should unite.
As it's from Brussels that the English come,
And from Namur the Prussians, Quatre-Bras
Lends it alone for their forgathering:
So, why exists it not in your hands/
NEY
My reason, sire, was rolling from my tongue.--
Hard on the boom of guns, dim files of foot
Which read to me like massing Englishry--
The vanguard of all Wellington's array--
I half-discerned. So, in pure wariness,
I left the Bachelu columns there at Frasnes,
And hastened back to tell you.
NAPOLEON
Ney; O Ney!
I fear you are not the man that once you were;
Of your so daring, such a faint-heart now!
I have ground to know the foot that flustered you
Were but a few stray groups of Netherlanders;
For my good spies in Brussels send me cue
That up to now the English have not stirred,
But cloy themselves with nightly revel there.
NEY [bitterly]
Give me another opportunity
Before you speak like that!
NAPOLEON
You soon will have one!...
But now--no more of this. I have other glooms
Upon my soul--the much-disquieting news
That Bourmont has deserted to our foes
With his whole staff.
NEY
We can afford to let him.
NAPOLEON
It is what such betokens, not their worth,
That whets it!... Love, respect for me, have waned;
But I will right that. We've good chances still.
You must return foot-hot to Quatre-Bras;
There Kellermann's cuirassiers will promptly join you
To bear the English backward Brussels way.
I go on towards Fleurus and Ligny now.--
If Blücher's force retreat, and Wellington's
Lie somnolent in Brussels one day more,
I gain that city sans a single shot!...
Now, friend, downstairs you'll find some supper ready,
Which you must tuck in sharply, and then off.
The past day has not ill-advantaged us;
We have stolen upon the two chiefs unawares,
And in such sites that they must fight apart.
Now for a two hours' rest.--Comrade, adieu
Until to-morrow!
NEY
Till to-morrow, sire!
[Exit NEY. NAPOLEON falls asleep, and the Secretary waits till
dictation shall be resumed. BUSSY, the orderly officer, comes
to the door.
BUSSY
Letters--arrived from Paris. [Hands letters.]
SECRETARY
He shall have them
The moment he awakes. These eighteen hours
He's been astride; and is not what he was.--
Much news from Paris?
BUSSY
I can only say
What's not the news. The courier has just told me
He'd nothing from the Empress at Vienna
To bring his Majesty. She writes no more.
SECRETARY
And never will again! In my regard
That bird's forsook the nest for good and all.
BUSSY
All that they hear in Paris from her court
Is through our spies there. One of them reports
This rumour of her: that the Archduke John,
In taking leave to join our enemies here,
Said, “Oh, my poor Louise; I am grieved for you
And what I hope is, that he'll be run through,
Or shot, or break his neck, for your own good
No less than ours.
NAPOLEON [waking]
By “he” denoting me?
BUSSY [starting]
Just so, your Majesty.
NAPOLEON [peremptorily]
What said the Empress?
BUSSY
She gave no answer, sire, that rumour bears.
NAPOLEON
Count Neipperg, whom they have made her chamberlain,
Interred his wife last spring--is it not so?
BUSSY
He did, your Majesty.
NAPOLEON
H'm....You may go.
[Exit BUSSY. The Secretary reads letters aloud in succession.
He comes to the last; begins it; reaches a phrase, and stops
abruptly.]
Mind not! Read on. No doubt the usual threat,
Or prophecy, from some mad scribe? Who signs it?
SECRETARY
The subscript is “The Duke of Enghien!”
NAPOLEON [starting up]
Bah, man! A treacherous trick! A hoax--no more!
Is that the last?
SECRETARY
The last, your Majesty.
NAPOLEON
Then now I'll sleep. In two hours have me called.
SECRETARY
I'll give the order, sire.
[The Secretary goes. The candles are removed, except one, and
NAPOLEON endeavours to compose himself.]
SPIRIT IRONIC
A little moral panorama would do him no harm, after that reminder of
the Duke of Enghien. Shall it be, young Compassion?
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
What good--if that old Years tells us be true?
But I say naught. To ordain is not for me!
[Thereupon a vision passes before NAPOLEON as he lies, comprising
hundreds of thousands of skeletons and corpses in various stages
of decay. They rise from his various battlefields, the flesh
dropping from them, and gaze reproachfully at him. His intimate
officers who have been slain he recognizes among the crowd. In
front is the DUKE OF ENGHIEN as showman.]
NAPOLEON [in his sleep]
Why, why should this reproach be dealt me now?
Why hold me my own master, if I be
Ruled by the pitiless Planet of Destiny?
[He jumps up in a sweat and puts out the last candle; and the
scene is curtained by darkness.]
SCENE IV
A CHAMBER OVERLOOKING A MAIN STREET IN BRUSSELS
[A June sunrise; the beams struggling through the window-curtains.
A canopied bed in a recess on the left. The quick notes of
“Brighton Camp, or the “Girl I've left behind me,” strike sharply
into the room from fifes and drums without. A young lady in a
dressing-gown, who has evidently been awaiting the sound, springs
from the bed like a hare from its form, undraws window-curtains
and opens the window.
Columns of British soldiery are marching past from the Parc
southward out of the city by the Namur Gate. The windows of
other houses in the street rattle open, and become full of
gazers.
A tap at the door. An older lady enters, and comes up to the
first.]
YOUNGER LADY [turning]
O mamma--I didn't hear you!
ELDER LADY
I was sound asleep till the thumping of the drums set me fantastically
dreaming, and when I awoke I found they were real. Did they wake you
too, my dear?
Younger Lady [reluctantly]
I didn't require waking. I hadn't slept since we came home.
ELDER LADY
That was from the excitement of the ball. There are dark rings round
your eye. [The fifes and drums are now opposite, and thrill the air
in the room.] Ah--that “Girl I've left behind me!”--which so many
thousands of women have throbbed an accompaniment to, and will again
to-day if ever they did!
YOUNGER LADY [her voice faltering]
It is rather cruel to say that just now, mamma. There, I can't look
at them after it! [She turns and wipes her eyes.]
ELDER LADY
I wasn't thinking of ourselves--certainly not of you.--How they
press on--with those great knapsacks and firelocks and, I am told,
fifty-six rounds of ball-cartridge, and four days' provisions in
those haversacks. How can they carry it all near twenty miles and
fight with it on their shoulders!... Don't cry, dear. I thought
you would get sentimental last night over somebody. I ought to
have brought you home sooner. How many dances did you have? It
was impossible for me to look after you in the excitement of the
war-tidings.
YOUNGER LADY
Only three--four.
ELDER LADY
Which were they?
YOUNGER LADY
“Enrico,” the “Copenhagen Waltz” and the “Hanoverian,” and the
“Prime of Life.”
ELDER LADY
It was very foolish to fall in love on the strength of four dances.
YOUNGER LADY [evasively]
Fall in love? Who said I had fallen in love? What a funny idea!
ELDER LADY
Is it?... Now here come the Highland Brigade with their pipes
and their “Hieland Laddie.” How the sweethearts cling to the men's
arms. [Reaching forward.] There are more regiments following.
But look, that gentleman opposite knows us. I cannot remember his
name. [She bows and calls across.] Sir, which are these?
GENTLEMAN OPPOSITE
The Ninety-second. Next come the Forty-ninth, and next the Forty-
second--Sir Denis Pack's brigade.
ELDER LADY
Thank you.--I think it is that gentleman we talked to at the
Duchess's, but I am not sure. [A pause: another band.]
GENTLEMAN OPPOSITE
That's the Twenty-eighth. [They pass, with their band and colours.]
Now the Thirty-second are coming up--part of Kempt's brigade. Endless,
are they not?
ELDER LADY
Yes, Sir. Has the Duke passed out yet?
GENTLEMAN OPPOSITE
Not yet. Some cavalry will go by first, I think. The foot coming
up now are the Seventy-ninth. [They pass.]... These next are
the Ninety-fifth. [They pass.]... These are the First Foot-
guards now. [They pass, playing “British Grenadiers.”]... The
Fusileer-guards now. [They pass.] Now the Coldstreamers. [They
pass. He looks up towards the Parc.] Several Hanoverian regiments
under Colonel Best are coming next. [They pass, with their bands
and colours. An interval.]
ELDER LADY [to daughter]
Here are the hussars. How much more they carry to battle than at
reviews. The hay in those great nets must encumber them. [She
turns and sees that her daughter has become pale.] Ah, now I know!
HE has just gone by. You exchanged signals with him, you wicked
girl! How do you know what his character is, or if he'll ever come
back?
[The younger lady goes and flings herself on her face upon the
bed, sobbing silently. Her mother glances at her, but leaves
her alone. An interval. The prancing of a group of horsemen
is heard on the cobble-stones without.]
GENTLEMAN OPPOSITE [calling]
Here comes the Duke!
ELDER LADY [to younger]
You have left the window at the most important time! The Duke of
Wellington and his staff-officers are passing out.
YOUNGER LADY
I don't want to see him. I don't want to see anything any more!
[Riding down the street comes WELLINGTON in a grey frock-coat and
small cocked hat, frigid and undemonstrative; accompanied by four
or five Generals of his suite, the Deputy Quartermaster-general
De LANCEY, LORD FITZROY SOMERSET, Aide-de-camp, and GENERAL
MUFFLING.]
GENTLEMAN OPPOSITE
He is the Prussian officer attached to our headquarters, through whom
Wellington communicates with Blücher, who, they say, is threatened by
the French at Ligny at this moment.
[The elder lady turns to her daughter, and going to the bed bends
over her, while the horses' tramp of WELLINGTON and his staff
clatters more faintly in the street, and the music of the last
retreating band dies away towards the Forest of Soignes.
Finding her daughter is hysterical with grief she quickly draws
the window-curtains to screen the room from the houses opposite.
Scene ends.]
SCENE V
THE FIELD OF LIGNY
[The same day later. A prospect of the battlefield of Ligny
southward from the roof of the windmill of Bussy, which stands at
the centre and highest point of the Prussian position, about six
miles south-east of Quatre-Bras.
The ground slopes downward along the whole front of the scene to
a valley through which wanders the Ligne, a muddy stream bordered
by sallows. On both sides of the stream, in the middle plane of
the picture, stands the village of Ligny, composed of thatched
cottages, gardens, and farm-houses with stone walls; the main
features, such as the church, church-yard, and village-green
being on the further side of the Ligne.
On that side the land reascends in green wheatfields to an
elevation somewhat greater than that of the foreground, reaching
away to Fleurus in the right-hand distance.
In front, on the slopes between the spectator and the village,
is the First Corps of the Prussian army commanded by Zieten, its
First Brigade under STEINMETZ occupying the most salient point.
The Corps under THIELMANN is ranged to the left, and that of
PIRCH to the rear, in reserve to ZIETEN. In the centre-front,
just under the mill, BLÜCHER on a fine grey charger is intently
watching, with his staff.
Something dark is seen to be advancing over the horizon by
Fleurus, about three miles off. It is the van of NAPOLEON'S
army, approaching to give battle.
At this moment hoofs are heard clattering along a road that
passes behind the mill; and there come round to the front the
DUKE OF WELLINGTON, his staff-officers, and a small escort of
cavalry.
WELLINGTON and BLÜCHER greet each other at the foot of the
windmill. They disappear inside, and can be heard ascending
the ladders.