Chapter VIII: Part 8

NAPOLEON rides along the front of his forces, which now spread out
upon the plain, and are ranged in order of battle.

Dumb Show ends, and the point of view changes.

SCENE III

THE FIELD OF WAGRAM

[The battlefield is now viewed reversely, from the windows of a
mansion at Wolkersdorf, to the rear of the Austrian position.
The aspect of the windows is nearly south, and the prospect includes
the plain of the Marchfeld, with the isled Danube and Lobau in the
extreme distance. Ten miles to the south-west, rightwards, the
faint summit of the tower of St. Stephen's, Vienna, appears. On
the middle-left stands the compact plateau of Wagram, so regularly
shaped as to seem as if constructed by art. On the extreme left
the July sun has lately risen.

Inside the room are discovered the EMPEROR FRANCIS and some house-
hold officers in attendance; with the War-Minister and Secretaries
at a table at the back. Through open doors can be seen in an outer
apartment adjutants, equerries, aides, and other military men. An
officer in waiting enters.]

OFFICER

During the night the French have shifted, sire,
And much revised their stations of the eve
By thwart and wheeling moves upon our left,
And on our centre--projects unforeseen
Till near accomplished.

FRANCIS

But I am advised
By oral message that the Archduke Charles,
Since the sharp strife last night, has mended, too,
His earlier dispositions, and has sped
Strong orders to the Archduke John, to bring
In swiftest marches all the force he holds,
And fall with heavy impact on the French
From nigh their rear?

OFFICER

'Tis good, sire; such a swoop
Will raise an obstacle to their retreat
And refuge in the fastness of the isle;
And show this victory-gorged adventurer
That striking with a river in his rear
Is not the safest tactic to be played
Against an Austrian front equipt like ours!

[The EMPEROR FRANCIS and others scrutinize through their glasses
the positions and movements of the Austrian divisions, which appear
on the plain as pale masses, emitting flashes from arms and helmets
under the July rays, and reaching from the Tower of Neusiedel on
the left, past Wagram, into the village of Stammersdorf on the
right. Beyond their lines are spread out the darker-hued French,
almost parallel to the Austrians.]

FRANCIS

Those moving masses toward the right I deem
The forces of Klenau and Kollowrath,
Sent to support Prince John of Lichtenstein
I his attack that way?

[An interval.]

Now that they've gained
The right there, why is not the attack begun?

OFFICER

They are beginning on the left wing, sire.

[The EMPEROR resumes his glass and beholds bodies of men descending
from the hills by Neusiedel, and crossing the Russbach river towards
the French--a movement which has been going on for some time.]

FRANCIS [turning thither]

Where we are weakest! It surpasses me
To understand why was our centre thinned
To pillar up our right already strong,
Where nought is doing, while our left assault
Stands ill-supported?

[Time passes in silence.]

Yes, it is so. See,
The enemy strikes Rossenberg in flank,
Compelling him to fall behind the Russbach!

[The EMPEROR gets excited, and his face perspires. At length he
cannot watch through his glass, and walks up and down.]

Penned useless here my nerves annoy my sight!
Inform me what you note.--I should opine
The Wagram height behind impregnable?

[Another silence, broken by the distant roar of the guns.]

OFFICER

Klenau and Kollowrath are pounding on!
To turn the enemy's left with our strong right
Is, after all, a plan that works out well.
Hiller and Lichtenstein conjoin therein.

FRANCIS

I hear from thence appalling cannonades.

OFFICER

'Tis their, your Majesty. Now we shall see
If the French read that there the danger lies.

FRANCIS

I only pray that Bonaparte refrain
From spying danger there till all too late!

OFFICER [involuntarily, after a pause]

Ah, Heaven!

FRANCIS [turning sharply]

Well, well? What changes figure now?

OFFICER

They pierce our centre, sire! We are, despite,
Not centrally so weak as I supposed.
Well done, Bellegarde!

FRANCIS [glancing to the centre]

And what has he well done?

OFFICER

The French in fierce fume broke through Aderklaa;
But Bellegarde, pricking along the plain behind,
Has charged and driven them back disorderly.
The Archduke Charles bounds thither, as I shape,
In person to support him!

[The EMPEROR returns to his spyglass; and they and others watch in
silence, sometimes the right of their front, sometimes the centre.]

FRANCIS

It is so!
That the right attack of ours spells victory,
And Austria's grand salvation!... [Times passes.] Turn your glass,
And closely scan Napoleon and his aides
Hand-galloping towards his centre-left
To strengthen it against the brave Bellegarde.
Does your eye reach him?--That white horse, alone
In front of those that move so rapidly.

OFFICER

It does, sire; though my glass can conjure not
So cunningly as yours.... that horse must be
The famed Euphrates--him the Persian king
Sent Bonaparte as gift.

[A silence. NAPOLEON reaches a carriage that is moving across.
It bears MASSENA, who, having received a recent wound, in unable
to ride.]

FRANCIS

See, the white horse and horseman pause beside
A coach for some strange reason rolling there....
That white-horsed rider--yes!--is Bonaparte,
By the aides hovering round....
New war-wiles have been worded; we shall spell
Their purport soon enough! [An interval.]
The French take heart
To stand to our battalions steadfastly,
And hold their ground, having the Emperor near!

[Time passes. An aide-de-camp enters.]

AIDE

The Archduke Charles is pierced in the shoulder, sire;
He strove too far in beating back the French
At Aderklaa, and was nearly ta'en.
The wound's not serious.--On our right we win,
And deem the battle ours.

[Enter another aide-de-camp.]

SECOND AIDE

Your Majesty,
We have borne them back through Aspern village-street
And Essling is recovered. What counts more,
Their bridges to the rear we have nearly grasped,
And panic-struck they crowd the few left free,
Choking the track, with cries of “All is lost!”

FRANCIS

Then is the land delivered. God be praised!

[Exeunt aides. An interval, during which the EMPEROR and his
companions again remain anxiously at their glasses.]

There is a curious feature I discern
To have come upon the battle. On our right
We gain ground rapidly; towards the left
We lose it; and the unjudged consequence
Is that the armies; whole commingling mass
Moves like a monstrous wheel. I like it not!

[Enter another aide-de-camp.]

THIRD AIDE

Our left wing, sire, recedes before Davout,
Whom nothing can withstand! Two corps he threw
Across the Russbach up to Neusiedel,
While he himself assailed the place in front.
Of the divisions one pressed on and on,
Till lodged atop. They would have been hurled back---

FRANCIS

But how goes it with us in sum? pray say!

THIRD AIDE

We have been battered off the eastern side
Of Wagram plateau.

FRANCIS

Where's the Archduke John?
Why comes he not? One man of his here now
Were worth a host anon. And yet he tarries!

[Exit third aide. Time passes, while they reconnoitre the field
with strained eyes.]

Our centre-right, it seems, round Neusiedel,
Is being repulsed! May the kind Heaven forbid
That Hesse Homberg should be yielding there!

[The Minister in attendance comes forward, and the EMPEROR consults
him; then walking up and down in silence. Another aide-de-camp
enters.]

FOURTH AIDE

Sire, Neusiedel has just been wrenched from us,
And the French right is on the Wagram crest;
Nordmann has fallen, and Veczay: Hesse Homberg,
Warteachben, Muger--almost all our best--
Bleed more or less profusely!

[A gloomy silence. Exit fourth side. Ten minutes pass. Enter an
officer in waiting.]

FRANCIS

What guns are those that groan from Wagram height?

OFFICER

Alas, Davout's! I have climbed the roof-top, sire,
And there discerned the truth.

[Cannonade continues. A long interval of suspense. The EMPEROR
returns to his glass.]

FRANCIS

A part of it!
There seems to be a grim, concerted lunge
By the whole strength of France upon our right,
Centre, and left wing simultaneously!

OFFICER

Most viciously upon the centre, sire,
If I mistook not, hard by Sussenbrunn;
The assault is led by Bonaparte in person,
Who shows himself with marvellous recklessness,
Yet like a phantom-fiend receives no hurt.

FRANCIS [still gazing]

Ha! Now the Archduke Charles has seen the intent,
And taken steps against it. Sussenbrunn
Must be the threatened thing. [Silence.] What an advance!--
Straight hitherward. Our centre girdles them.--
Surely they'll not persist? Who heads that charge?

OFFICER

They say Macdonald, sire.

FRANCIS

Meagrest remains
Will there be soon of those in that advance!
We are burning them to bones by our hot fire.
They are almost circumscribed: if fully so
The battle's ours! What's that behind them, eh?

OFFICER

Their last reserves, that they may feed the front,
And sterilize our hope!

FRANCIS

Yes, their reserve--
Dragoons and cuirassiers--charge in support.
You see their metal gleaming as they come.
Well, it is neck or nothing for them now!

OFFICER

It's nothing, sire. Their charge of cavalry
Has desperately failed.

FRANCIS

Their foot press on,
However, with a battery in front
Which deals the foulest damage done us yet. [Time passes.]
They ARE effecting lodgment, after all.
Who would have reckoned on't--our men so firm!

[Re-enter first aide-de-camp.]

FIRST AIDE

The Archduke Charles retreats, your majesty;
And the issue wears a dirty look just now.

FRANCIS [gloomily]

Yes: I have seen the signs for some good while.
But he retreats with blows, and orderly.

[Time passes, till the sun has rounded far towards the west. The
features of the battle now materially change. The French have
regained Aspern and Essling; the Austrian army is doubled back
from the Danube and from the heights of Wagram, which, as
viewed from Wolkersdorf, face the afternoon shine, the French
established thereon glittering in the rays.

FRANCIS [choking a sigh]

The turn has passed. We are worsted, but not overwhelmed!...
The French advance is laboured, and but slow.
--This might have been another-coloured day
If but the Archduke John had joined up promptly;
Yet still he lags!

ANOTHER OFFICER [lately entered]

He's just now coming, sire.
His columns glimmer in the Frenchmen's rear.
Past Siebenbrunn's and Loebensdorf's smoked hills.

FRANCIS [impatiently]

Ay--coming NOW! Why could he not be COME!

[They watch intently.]

We can see nothing of that side from here.

[Enter a general officer, who speaks to the Minister at the back
of the room.]

MINISTER [coming forward]

Your Majesty, I now have to suggest,
Pursuant to conclusions reached this morn,
That since the front and flower of all our force
Is seen receding to the Bisamberg,
These walls no longer yield safe shade for you,
Or facile outlook. Scouts returning say
Either Davout, or Bonaparte himself,
With the mid-columns of his forward corps,
Will bear up hitherward in fierce pursuit,
And may intrude beneath this very roof.
Not yet, I think; it may not be to-night;
But we should stand prepared.

FRANCIS

If we must go
We'll go with a good grace, unfeignedly!
Who knows to-morrow may not see regained
What we have lost to-day?

[Re-enter fourth aide-de-camp.]

FOURTH AIDE [breathlessly]

The Archduke John,
Discerning our main musters in retreat,
Abandons an advance that throws on him
The enemy's whole brunt if he bear on.

FRANCIS

Alas for his devotion! Let us go.
Such weight of sadness as we shoulder now
Will wring us down to sleep in stall or stye,
If even that be found!... Think! Bonaparte,
By reckless riskings of his life and limb,
Has turned the steelyard of our strength to-day
Whilst I have idled here!... May brighter times
Attend the cause of Europe far in Spain,
And British blood flow not, as ours, in vain!

[Exeunt the EMPEROR FRANCIS, minister, officers, and attendants.
The night comes, and the scene is obscured.]

SCENE IV

THE FIELD OF TALAVERA

[It is the same month and weather as in the preceding scene.

Talavera town, on the river Tagus, is at the extreme right of the
foreground; a mountain range on the extreme left.

The allied army under SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY stretches between--the
English on the left, the Spanish on the right--part holding a hill
to the left-centre of the scene, divided from the mountains by a
valley, and part holding a redoubt to the right-centre. This army
of more than fifty thousand all told, of which twenty-two thousand
only are English, has its back to the spectator.

Beyond, in a wood of olive, oak, and cork, are the fifty to sixty
thousand French, facing the spectator and the allies. Their right
includes a strong battery upon a hill which fronts the one on the
English left.

Behind all, the heights of Salinas close the prospect, the small
river Alberche flowing at their foot from left to right into the
Tagus, which advances in foreshortened perspective to the town at
the right front corner of the scene as aforesaid.]

DUMB SHOW

The hot and dusty July afternoon having turned to twilight, shady
masses of men start into motion from the French position, come towards
the foreground, silently ascend the hill on the left of the English,
and assail the latter in a violent outburst of fire and lead. They
nearly gain possession of the hill ascended.

CHORUS OF RUMOURS [aerial music]

Talavera tongues it as ten o' the night-time:
Now come Ruffin's slaughterers surging upward,
Backed by bold Vilatte's! From the vale Lapisse, too,
Darkly outswells there!

Down the vague veiled incline the English fling them,
Bended bayonets prodding opponents backward:
So the first fierce charge of the ardent Frenchmen
England repels there!

Having fallen back into the darkness the French presently reascend
in yet larger masses. The high square knapsack which every English
foot-soldier carries, and his shako, and its tuft, outline themselves
against the dim light as the ranks stand awaiting the shock.

CHORUS OF RUMOURS

Pushing spread they!--shout as they reach the summit!--
Strength and stir new-primed in their plump battalions:
Puffs of barbed flame blown on the lines opposing
Higher and higher.

There those hold them mute, though at speaking distance--
Mute, while clicking flints, and the crash of volleys
Whelm the weighted gloom with immense distraction
Pending their fire.

Fronting heads, helms, brows can each ranksman read there,
Epaulettes, hot cheeks, and the shining eyeball,
[Called a trice from gloom by the fleeting pan-flash]
Pressing them nigher!

The French again fall back in disorder into the hollow, and LAPISSE
draws off on the right. As the sinking sound of the muskets tells
what has happened the English raise a shout.

CHORUS OF PITIES

Thus the dim nocturnal embroil of conflict
Closes with the roar of receding gun-fire.
Harness loosened then, and their day-long strenuous
Temper unbending,

Worn-out lines lie down where they late stood staunchly--
Cloaks around them rolled--by the bivouac embers:
There at dawn to stake in the dynasts' death-game
All, till the ending!

SCENE V

THE SAME

DUMB SHOW [continued]

The morning breaks. There is another murderous attempt to dislodge the
English from the hill, the assault being pressed with a determination
that excites the admiration of the English themselves.

The French are seen descending into the valley, crossing it, and
climbing it on the English side under the fire of HILL'S whole
division, all to no purpose. In their retreat they leave behind
them on the slopes nearly two thousand lying.

The day advances to noon, and the air trembles in the intense heat.
The combat flags, and is suspended.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

What do I see but thirsty, throbbing bands
From these inimic hosts defiling down
In homely need towards the little stream
That parts their enmities, and drinking there!
They get to grasping hands across the rill,
Sealing their sameness as earth's sojourners.--
What more could plead the wryness of the time
Than such unstudied piteous pantomimes!

SPIRIT IRONIC

It is only that Life's queer mechanics chance to work out in this
grotesque shape just now. The groping tentativeness of an Immanent
Will [as grey old Years describes it] cannot be asked to learn logic
at this time of day! The spectacle of Its instruments, set to riddle
one another through, and then to drink together in peace and concord,
is where the humour comes in, and makes the play worth seeing!

SPIRIT SINISTER

Come, Sprite, don't carry your ironies too far, or you may wake up
the Unconscious Itself, and tempt It to let all the gory clock-work
of the show run down to spite me!

DUMB SHOW [continuing]

The drums roll, and the men of the two nations part from their
comradeship at the Alberche brook, the dark masses of the French
army assembling anew. SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY has seated himself on
a mound that commands a full view of the contested hill, and
remains there motionless a long time. When the French form for
battle he is seen to have come to a conclusion. He mounts, gives
his orders, and the aides ride off.

The French advance steadily through the sultry atmosphere, the
skirmishers in front, and the columns after, moving, yet seemingly
motionless. Their eighty cannon peal out and their shots mow every
space in the line of them. Up the great valley and the terraces of
the hill whose fame is at that moment being woven, comes VILLATE,
boring his way with foot and horse, and RUFFIN'S men following
behind.

According to the order given, the Twenty-third Light Dragoons and
the German Hussars advance at a chosen moment against the head of
these columns. On the way they disappear.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Why this bedevilment? What can have chanced?

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

It so befalls that as their chargers near
The inimical wall of flesh with its iron frise,
A treacherous chasm uptrips them: zealous men
And docile horses roll to dismal death
And horrid mutilation.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Those who live
Even now advance! I'll see no more. Relate.

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

Yes, those pant on. Then further Frenchmen cross,
And Polish Lancers, and Westphalian Horse,
Who ring around these luckless Islanders,
And sweep them down like reeds by the river-bank
In scouring floods; till scarce a man remains.

Meanwhile on the British right SEBASTIANI'S corps has precipitated
itself in column against GENERAL CAMPBELL'S division, the division
of LAPISSE against the centre, and at the same time the hill on the
English left is again assaulted. The English and their allies are
pressed sorely here, the bellowing battery tearing lanes through
their masses.

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR [continuing]

The French reserves of foot and horse now on,
Smiting the Islanders in breast and brain
Till their mid-lines are shattered.... Now there ticks
The moment of the crisis; now the next,
Which brings the turning stroke.

SIR ARTHUR WELLESLEY sends down the Forty-eighth regiment under
COLONEL DONELLAN to support the wasting troops. It advances amid
those retreating, opening to let them pass.

SPIRIT OF THE RUMOUR [continuing]

The pales, enerved,
The hitherto unflinching enemy!
Lapisse is pierced to death; the flagging French
Decline into the hollows whence they came.
The too exhausted English and reduced
Lack strength to follow.--Now the western sun,
Conning with unmoved visage quick and dead,
Gilds horsemen slackening, and footmen stilled,
Till all around breathes drowsed hostility.

Last, the swealed herbage lifts a leering light,
And flames traverse the field; and hurt and slain
Opposed, opposers, in a common plight
Are scorched together on the dusk champaign.

The fire dies down, and darkness enwraps the scene.

SCENE VI

BRIGHTON. THE ROYAL PAVILION

[It is the birthday dinner-party of the PRINCE OF WALES. In the
floridly decorated banqueting-room stretch tables spread with gold
and silver plate, and having artificial fountains in their midst.

Seated at the tables are the PRINCE himself as host--rosy, well
curled, and affable--the DUKES OF YORK, CLARENCE, KENT, SUSSEX,
CUMBERLAND, and CAMBRIDGE, with many noblemen, including LORDS
HEADFORT, BERKELEY, EGREMONT, CHICHESTER, DUDLEY, SAY AND SELE,
SOUTHAMPTON, HEATHFIELD, ERSKINE, KEITH, C. SOMERSET, G. CAVENDISH,
R. SEYMOUR, and others; SIR C. POLE, SIR E.G. DE CRESPIGNY, MR.
SHERIDAN; Generals, Colonels, and Admirals, and the REV. MR. SCOTT.

The PRINCE'S band plays in the adjoining room. The banquet is
drawing to its close, and a boisterous conversation is in progress.

Enter COLONEL BLOOMFIELD with a dispatch for the PRINCE, who looks
it over amid great excitement in the company. In a few moments
silence is called.]

PRINCE OF WALES

I have the joy, my lords and gentlemen,
To rouse you with the just imported tidings
From General Wellesley through Lord Castlereagh
Of a vast victory [noisy cheers] over the French in Spain.
The place--called Talavera de la Reyna
[If I pronounce it rightly]--long unknown,
Wears not the crest and blazonry of fame! [Cheers.]
The heads and chief contents of the dispatch
I read you as succinctly as I can. [Cheers.]

SHERIDAN [singing sotto voce]

“Now foreign foemen die and fly,
Dammy, we'll drink little England dry!”

[The PRINCE reads the parts of the dispatch that describe the
battle, amid intermittent cheers.]

PRINCE OF WALES [continuing]

Such is the substance of the news received,
Which, after Wagram, strikes us genially
As sudden sunrise through befogged night shades!

SHERIDAN [privately]

By God, that's good, sir! You are a poet born, while the rest of us
are but made, and bad at that.

[The health of the army in Spain is drunk with acclamations.]

PRINCE OF WALES [continuing]

In this achievement we, alas! have lost
Too many! Yet suck blanks must ever be.--
Mackenzie, Langworth, Beckett of the Guards,
Have fallen of ours; while of the enemy
Generals Lapisse and Morlot are laid low.--
Drink to their memories!

[They drink in silence.]

Other news, my friends,
Received to-day is of like hopeful kind.
The Great War-Expedition to the Scheldt [Cheers.]
Which lately sailed, has found a favouring wind,
And by this hour has touched its destined shores.
The enterprise will soon be hot aglow,
The invaders making first the Cadsand coast,
And then descending on Walcheren Isle.
But items of the next step are withheld
Till later days, from obvious policy. [Cheers.]

[Faint throbbing sounds, like the notes of violincellos and
contrabassos, reach the ear from some building without as the
speaker pauses.

In worthy emulation of us here
The county holds to-night a birthday ball,
Which flames with all the fashion of the town.
I have been asked to patronize their revel,
And sup with them, and likewise you, my guests.
We have good reason, with such news to bear!
Thither we haste and join our loyal friends,
And stir them with this live intelligence
Of our staunch regiments on the Spanish plains. [Applause.]
With them we'll now knit hands and beat the ground,
And bring in dawn as we whirl round and round!
There are some fair ones in their set to-night,
And such we need here in our bachelor-plight. [Applause.]

[The PRINCE, his brothers, and a large proportion of the other
Pavilion guests, swagger out in the direction of the Castle
assembly-rooms adjoining, and the deserted banqueting-hall grows
dark. In a few moments the back of the scene opens, revealing
the assembly-rooms behind.]

SCENE VII

THE SAME. THE ASSEMBLY ROOMS

[The rooms are lighted with candles in brass chandeliers, and a
dance is in full movement to the strains of a string-band. A
signal is given, shortly after the clock has struck eleven, by
MR. FORTH, Master of Ceremonies.]

FORTH

His Royal Highness comes, though somewhat late,
But never too late for welcome! [Applause.] Dancers, stand,
That we may do fit homage to the Prince
Who soon may shine our country's gracious king.

[After a brief stillness a commotion is heard at the door, the band
strikes up the National air, and the PRINCE enters, accompanied by
the rest of the visitors from the Pavilion. The guests who have
been temporarily absent now crowd in, till there is hardly space
to stand.]

PRINCE OF WALES [wiping his face and whispering to Sheridan]

What shall I say to fit their feeling here?
Damn me, that other speech has stumped me quite!

SHERIDAN [whispering]

If heat be evidence of loy---

PRINCE OF WALES

If what?

SHERIDAN

If heat be evidence of loyalty,
Et caetera--something quaint like that might please 'em.

PRINCE OF WALES [to the company]

If heat be evidence of loyalty,
This room affords it truly without question;
If heat be not, then its accompaniment
Most surely 'tis to-night. The news I bring,
Good ladies, friends, and gentlemen, perchance
You have divined already? That our arms--
Engaged to thwart Napoleon's tyranny
Over the jaunty, jocund land of Spain
Even to the highest apex of our strength--
Are rayed with victory! [Cheers.] Lengthy was the strife
And fierce, and hot; and sore the suffering;
But proudly we endured it; and shall hear,
No doubt, of its far consequence
Ere many days. I'll read the details sent. [Cheers.]

[He reads again from the dispatch amid more cheering, the ball-
room guests crowding round. When he has done he answers questions;
then continuing:

Meanwhile our interest is, if possible,
As keenly waked elsewhere. Into the Scheldt
Some forty thousand bayonets and swords,
And twoscore ships o' the line, with frigates, sloops,
And gunboats sixty more, make headway now,
Bleaching the waters with their bellying sails;
Or maybe they already anchor there,
And that level ooze of Walcheren shore
Ring with the voices of that landing host
In every twang of British dialect,
Clamorous to loosen fettered Europe's chain! [Cheers.]

A NOBLE LORD [aside to Sheridan]

Prinny's outpouring tastes suspiciously like your brew, Sheridan.
I'll be damned if it is his own concoction. How d'ye sell it a
gallon?

SHERIDAN

I don't deal that way nowadays. I give the recipe, and charge a
duty on the gauging. It is more artistic, and saves trouble.

[The company proceed to the supper-rooms, and the ball-room sinks
into solitude.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

So they pass on. Let be!--But what is this--
A moan?--all frailly floating from the east
To usward, even from the forenamed isle?...
Would I had not broke nescience, to inspect
A world so ill-contrived!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

But since thou hast
We'll hasten to the isle; and thou'lt behold--
Such as it is--the scene its coasts enfold.

SCENE VIII

WALCHEREN

[A marshy island at the mouth of the Scheldt, lit by the low
sunshine of an evening in late summer. The horizontal rays from
the west lie in yellow sheaves across the vapours that the day's
heat has drawn from the sweating soil. Sour grasses grow in
places, and strange fishy smells, now warm, now cold, pass along.
Brass-hued and opalescent bubbles, compounded of many gases, rise
where passing feet have trodden the damper spots. At night the
place is the haunt of the Jack-lantern.]

DUMB SHOW

A vast army is encamped here, and in the open spaces are infantry on
parade--skeletoned men, some flushed, some shivering, who are kept
moving because it is dangerous to stay still. Every now and then
one falls down, and is carried away to a hospital with no roof, where
he is laid, bedless, on the ground.

In the distance soldiers are digging graves for the funerals which
are to take place after dark, delayed till then that the sight of
so many may not drive the living melancholy-mad. Faint noises are
heard in the air.

SHADE OF THE EARTH

What storm is this of souls dissolved in sighs,
And what the dingy doom it signifies?

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

We catch a lamentation shaped thuswise:

CHORUS OF THE PITIES [aerial music]

“We who withstood the blasting blaze of war
When marshalled by the gallant Moore awhile,
Beheld the grazing death-bolt with a smile,
Closed combat edge to edge and bore to bore,
Now rot upon this Isle!

“The ever wan morass, the dune, the blear
Sandweed, and tepid pool, and putrid smell,
Emaciate purpose to a fractious fear,
Beckon the body to its last low cell--
A chink no chart will tell.

“O ancient Delta, where the fen-lights flit!
Ignoble sediment of loftier lands,
Thy humour clings about our hearts and hands
And solves us to its softness, till we sit
As we were part of it.

“Such force as fever leaves maddened now,
With tidings trickling in from day to day
Of others' differing fortunes, wording how
They yield their lives to baulk a tyrant's sway--
Yield them not vainly, they!

“In champaigns green and purple, far and near,
In town and thorpe where quiet spire-cocks turn,
Through vales, by rocks, beside the brooding burn
Echoes the aggressor's arrogant career;
And we pent pithless here!

“Here, where each creeping day the creeping file
Draws past with shouldered comrades score on score,
Bearing them to their lightless last asile,
Where weary wave-wails from the clammy shore
Will reach their ears no more.

“We might have fought, and had we died, died well,
Even if in dynasts' discords not our own;
Our death-spot some sad haunter might have shown,
Some tongue have asked our sires or sons to tell
The tale of how we fell;

“But such be chanced not. Like the mist we fade,
No lustrous lines engrave in story we,
Our country's chiefs, for their own fames afraid,
Will leave our names and fates by this pale sea,
To perish silently!”

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Why must ye echo as mechanic mimes
These mortal minion's bootless cadences,
Played on the stops of their anatomy
As is the mewling music on the strings
Of yonder ship-masts by the unweeting wind,
Or the frail tune upon this withering sedge
That holds its papery blades against the gale?
--Men pass to dark corruption, at the best,
Ere I can count five score: these why not now?--
The Immanent Shaper builds Its beings so
Whether ye sigh their sighs with them or no!

The night fog enwraps the isle and the dying English army.

ACT FIFTH

SCENE I

PARIS. A BALLROOM IN THE HOUSE OF CAMBACERES

[The many-candled saloon at the ARCH-CHANCELLOR'S is visible
through a draped opening, and a crowd of masked dancers in
fantastic costumes revolve, sway, and intermingle to the music
that proceeds from an alcove at the further end of the same
apartment. The front of the scene is a withdrawing-room of
smaller size, now vacant, save for the presence of one sombre
figure, that of NAPOLEON, seated and apparently watching the
moving masquerade.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Napoleon even now embraces not
From stress of state affairs, which hold him grave
Through revels that might win the King of Spleen
To toe a measure! I would speak with him.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Speak if thou wilt whose speech nor mars nor mends!

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES [into Napoleon's ear]

Why thus and thus Napoleon? Can it be
That Wagram with its glories, shocks, and shames,
Still leaves athirst the palate of thy pride?

NAPOLEON [answering as in soliloquy]

The trustless, timorous lease of human life
Warns me to hedge in my diplomacy.
The sooner, then, the safer! Ay, this eve,
This very night, will I take steps to rid
My morrows of the weird contingencies
That vision round and make one hollow-eyed....
The unexpected, lurid death of Lannes--
Rigid as iron, reaped down like a straw--
Tiptoed Assassination haunting round
In unthought thoroughfares, the near success
Of Staps the madman, argue to forbid
The riskful blood of my previsioned line
And potence for dynastic empery
To linger vialled in my veins alone.
Perhaps within this very house and hour,
Under an innocent mask of Love or Hope,
Some enemy queues my ways to coffin me....
When at the first clash of the late campaign,
A bold belief in Austria's star prevailed,
There pulsed quick pants of expectation round
Among the cowering kings, that too well told
What would have fared had I been overthrown!
So; I must send down shoots to future time
Who'll plant my standard and my story there;
And a way opens.--Better I had not
Bespoke a wife from Alexander's house.
Not there now lies my look. But done is done!

[The dance ends and masks enter, BERTHIER among them. NAPOLEON
beckons to him, and he comes forward.]

God send you find amid this motley crew
Frivolities enough, friend Berthier--eh?
My thoughts have worn oppressive shades despite such!
What scandals of me do they bandy here?
These close disguises render women bold--
Their shames being of the light, not of the thing--
And your sagacity has garnered much,
I make no doubt, of ill and good report,
That marked our absence from the capital?

BERTHIER

Methinks, your Majesty, the enormous tale
Of your campaign, like Aaron's serpent-rod,
Has swallowed up the smaller of its kind.
Some speak, 'tis true, in counterpoise thereto,
Of English deeds by Talavera town,
Though blurred by their exploit at Walcheren,
And all its crazy, crass futilities.

NAPOLEON

Yet was the exploit well featured in design,
Large in idea, and imaginative;
I had not deemed the blinkered English folk
So capable of view. Their fate contrived
To place an idiot at the helm of it,
Who marred its working, else it had been hard
If things had not gone seriously for us.
--But see, a lady saunters hitherward
Whose gait proclaims her Madame Metternich,
One that I fain would speak with.

[NAPOLEON rises and crosses the room toward a lady-masker who has
just appeared in the opening. BERTHIER draws off, and the EMPEROR,
unceremoniously taking the lady's arm, brings her forward to a
chair, and sits down beside her as dancing is resumed.]

MADAME METTERNICH

In a flash
I recognized you, sire; as who would not
The bearer of such deep-delved charactery?

NAPOLEON

The devil, madame, take your piercing eyes!
It's hard I cannot prosper in a game
That every coxcomb plays successfully.
--So here you are still, though your loving lord
Disports him at Vienna?

MADAME METTERNICH

Paris, true,
Still holds me; though in quiet, save to-night,
When I have been expressly prayed come hither,
Or I had not left home.

NAPOLEON

I sped that Prayer!--
I have a wish to put a case to you,
Wherein a woman's judgment, such as yours,
May be of signal service. [He lapses into reverie.]

MADAME METTERNICH

Well? The case--

NAPOLEON

Is marriage--mine.

MADAME METTERNICH

It is beyond me, sire!

NAPOLEON

You glean that I have decided to dissolve
[Pursuant to monitions murmured long]
My union with the present Empress--formed
Without the Church's due authority?

MADAME METTERNICH

Vaguely. And that light tentatives have winged
Betwixt your Majesty and Russia's court,
To moot that one of their Grand Duchesses
Should be your Empress-wife. Nought else I know.

NAPOLEON

There have been such approachings; more, worse luck.
Last week Champagny wrote to Alexander
Asking him for his sister--yes or no.

MADAME METTERNICH

What “worse luck” lies in that, your Majesty,
If severance from the Empress Josephine
Be fixed unalterably?

NAPOLEON

This worse luck lies there:
If your Archduchess, Marie Louise the fair,
Would straight accept my hand, I'd offer it,
And throw the other over. Faith, the Tsar
Has shown such backwardness in answering me,
Time meanwhile trotting, that I have ample ground
For such withdrawal.--Madame, now, again,
Will your Archduchess marry me of no?

MADAME METTERNICH

Your sudden questions quite confound my sense!
It is impossible to answer them.

NAPOLEON

Well, madame, now I'll put it to you thus:
Were you in the Archduchess Marie's place
Would you accept my hand--and heart therewith?

MADAME METTERNICH

I should refuse you--most assuredly![17]

NAPOLEON [laughing roughly]

Ha-ha! That's frank. And devilish cruel too!
--Well, write to your husband. Ask him what he thinks,
And let me know.

MADAME METTERNICH

Indeed, sire, why should I?
There goes the Ambassador, Prince Schwarzenberg,
Successor to my spouse. He's now the groove
And proper conduit of diplomacy
Through whom to broach this matter to his Court.

NAPOLEON

Do you, then, broach it through him, madame, pray;
Now, here, to-night.

MADAME METTERNICH

I will, informally,
To humour you, on this recognizance,
That you leave not the business in my hands,
But clothe your project in official guise
Through him to-morrow; so safeguarding me
From foolish seeming, as the babbler forth
Of a fantastic and unheard of dream.

NAPOLEON

I'll send Eugene to him, as you suggest.
Meanwhile prepare him. Make your stand-point this:
Children are needful to my dynasty,
And if one woman cannot mould them for me,
Why, then, another must.

[Exit NAPOLEON abruptly. Dancing continues. MADAME METTERNICH
sits on, musing. Enter SCHWARZENBERG.]

MADAME METTERNICH

The Emperor has just left me. We have tapped
This theme and that; his empress and--his next.
Ay, so! Now, guess you anything?

SCHWARZENBERG

Of her?
No more than that the stock of Romanoff
Will not supply the spruce commodity.

MADAME METTERNICH

And that the would-be customer turns toe
To our shop in Vienna.

SCHWARZENBERG

Marvellous;
And comprehensible but as the dream
Of Delaborde, of which I have lately heard.
It will not work!--What think you, madame, on't?

MADAME METTERNICH

That it will work, and is as good as wrought!--
I break it to you thus, at his request.
In brief time Prince Eugene will wait on you,
And make the formal offer in his name.

SCHWARZENBERG

Which I can but receive _ad referendum_,
And shall initially make clear as much,
Disclosing not a glimpse of my own mind!
Meanwhile you make good Metternich aware?

MADAME METTERNICH

I write this midnight, that amaze may pitch
To coolness ere your messenger arrives.

SCHWARZENBERG

This radiant revelation flicks a gleam
On many circling things!--the courtesies
Which graced his bearing toward our officer
Amid the tumults of the late campaign,
His wish for peace with England, his affront
At Alexander's tedious-timed reply...
Well, it will thrust a thorn in Russia's side,
If I err not, whatever else betide!

[Exeunt. The maskers surge into the foreground of the scene, and
their motions become more and more fantastic. A strange gloom
begins and intensifies, until only the high lights of their
grinning figures are visible. These also, with the whole ball-
room, gradually darken, and the music softens to silence.]

SCENE II

PARIS. THE TUILERIES

[The evening of the next day. A saloon of the Palace, with
folding-doors communicating with a dining-room. The doors are
flung open, revealing on the dining-table an untouched dinner,
NAPOLEON and JOSEPHINE rising from it, and DE BAUSSET, chamberlain-
in-waiting, pacing up and down. The EMPEROR and EMPRESS come
forward into the saloon, the latter pale and distressed, and
patting her eyes with her handkerchief.

The doors are closed behind them; a page brings in coffee; NAPOLEON
signals to him to leave. JOSEPHINE goes to pour out the coffee,
but NAPOLEON pushes her aside and pours it out himself, looking at
her in a way which causes her to sink cowering into a chair like a
frightened animal.]

JOSEPHINE

I see my doom, my friend, upon your face!

NAPOLEON

You see me bored by Cambaceres' ball.

JOSEPHINE

It means divorce!--a thing more terrible
Than carrying elsewhere the dalliances
That formerly were mine. I kicked at that;
But now agree, as I for long have done,
To any infidelities of act
May I be yours in name!

NAPOLEON

My mind must bend
To other things than our domestic petting:
The Empire orbs above our happiness,
And 'tis the Empire dictates this divorce.
I reckon on your courage and calm sense
To breast with me the law's formalities,
And get it through before the year has flown.

JOSEPHINE

But are you REALLY going to part from me?
O no, no, my dear husband; no, in truth,
It cannot be my Love will serve me so!

NAPOLEON

I mean but mere divorcement, as I said,
On simple grounds of sapient sovereignty.

JOSEPHINE

But nothing have I done save good to you:--
Since the fond day we wedded into one
I never even have THOUGHT you jot of harm!
Many the happy junctures when you have said
I stood as guardian-angel over you,
As your Dame Fortune, too, and endless things
Of such-like pretty tenour--yes, you have!
Then how can you so gird against me now?
You had not pricked upon it much of late,
And so I hoped and hoped the ugly spectre
Had been laid dead and still.

NAPOLEON [impatiently]

I tell you, dear,
The thing's decreed, and even the princess chosen.

JOSEPHINE

Ah--so--the princess chosen!... I surmise
It is none else than the Grand-Duchess Anne:
Gossip was right--though I would not believe.
She's young; but no great beauty!--Yes, I see
Her silly, soulless eyes and horrid hair;
In which new gauderies you'll forget sad me!

NAPOLEON

Upon my soul you are childish, Josephine:
A woman of your years to pout it so!--
I say it's not the Tsar's Grand-Duchess Anne.

JOSEPHINE

Some other Fair, then. You whose name can nod
The flower of all the world's virginity
Into your bed, will well take care of that!
[Spitefully.] She may not have a child, friend, after all.

NAPOLEON [drily]

You hope she won't, I know!--But don't forget
Madame Walewska did, and had she shown
Such cleverness as yours, poor little fool,
Her withered husband might have been displaced,
And her boy made my heir.--Well, let that be.
The severing parchments will be signed by us
Upon the fifteenth, prompt.

JOSEPHINE

What--I have to sign
My putting away upon the fifteenth next?

NAPOLEON

Ay--both of us.

JOSEPHINE [falling on her knees]

So far advanced--so far!
Fixed?--for the fifteenth? O I do implore you,
My very dear one, by our old, old love,
By my devotion, don't cast me off
Now, after these long years!

NAPOLEON

Heavens, how you jade me!
Must I repeat that I don't cast you off;
We merely formally arrange divorce--
We live and love, but call ourselves divided.

[A silence.]

JOSEPHINE [with sudden calm]

Very well. Let it be. I must submit! [Rises.]

NAPOLEON

And this much likewise you must promise me,
To act in the formalities thereof
As if you shaped them of your own free will.

JOSEPHINE

How can I--when no freewill's left in me?

NAPOLEON

You are a willing party--do you hear?

JOSEPHINE [quivering]

I hardly--can--bear this!--It is--too much
For a poor weak and broken woman's strength!
But--but I yield!--I am so helpless now:
I give up all--ay, kill me if you will,
I won't cry out!

NAPOLEON

And one thing further still,
You'll help me in my marriage overtures
To win the Duchess--Austrian Marie she,--
Concentrating all your force to forward them.

JOSEPHINE

It is the--last humiliating blow!--
I cannot--O, I will not!

NAPOLEON [fiercely]

But you SHALL!
And from your past experience you may know
That what I say I mean!

JOSEPHINE [breaking into sobs]

O my dear husband--do not make me--don't!
If you but cared for me--the hundredth part
Of how--I care for you, you could not be
So cruel as to lay this torture on me.
It hurts me so!--it cuts me like a sword.
Don't make me, dear! Don't, will you! O,O,O!
[She sinks down in a hysterical fit.]

NAPOLEON [calling]

Bausset!

[Enter DE BAUSSET, Chamberlain-in-waiting.]

Bausset, come in and shut the door.
Assist me here. The Empress has fallen ill.
Don't call for help. We two can carry her
By the small private staircase to her rooms.
Here--I will take her feet.

[They lift JOSEPHINE between them and carry her out. Her moans
die away as they recede towards the stairs. Enter two servants,
who remove coffee-service, readjust chairs, etc.]

FIRST SERVANT

So, poor old girl, she's wailed her _Missere Mei_, as Mother Church
says. I knew she was to get the sack ever since he came back.

SECOND SERVANT

Well, there will be a little civil huzzaing, a little crowing and
cackling among the Bonapartes at the downfall of the Beauharnais
family at last, mark me there will! They've had their little hour,
as the poets say, and now 'twill be somebody else's turn. O it is
droll! Well, Father Time is a great philosopher, if you take him
right. Who is to be the new woman?

FIRST SERVANT

She that contains in her own corporation the necessary particular.

SECOND SERVANT

And what may they be?

FIRST SERVANT

She must be young.

SECOND SERVANT

Good. She must. The country must see to that.

FIRST SERVANT

And she must be strong.

SECOND SERVANT

Good again. She must be strong. The doctors will see to that.

FIRST SERVANT
And she must be fruitful as the vine.

SECOND SERVANT

Ay, by God. She must be fruitful as the vine. That, Heaven help
him, he must see to himself, like the meanest multiplying man in
Paris.

[Exeunt servant. Re-enter NAPOLEON with his stepdaughter, Queen
Hortense.]

NAPOLEON
Your mother is too rash and reasonless--
Wailing and fainting over statesmanship
Which is no personal caprice of mine,
But policy most painful--forced on me
By the necessities of this country's charge.
Go to her; see if she be saner now;
Explain it to her once and once again,
And bring me word what impress you may make.

[HORTENSE goes out. CHAMPAGNY is shown in.]

Champagny, I have something clear to say
Now, on our process after the divorce.
The question of the Russian Duchess Anne
Was quite inept for further toying with.
The years rush on, and I grow nothing younger.
So I have made up my mind--committed me
To Austria and the Hapsburgs--good or ill!
It was the best, most practicable plunge,
And I have plunged it.

CHAMPAGNY

Austria say you, sire?
I reckoned that but a scurrying dream!

NAPOLEON

Well, so it was. But such a pretty dream
That its own charm transfixed it to a notion,
That showed itself in time a sanity,
Which hardened in its turn to a resolve
As firm as any built by mortal mind.--
The Emperor's consent must needs be won;
But I foresee no difficulty there.
The young Archduchess is a bright blond thing
By general story; and considering, too,
That her good mother childed seventeen times,
It will be hard if she can not produce
The modest one or two that I require.

[Enter DE BAUSSET with dispatches.]

DE BAUSSET

The courier, sire, from Petersburg is here,
And brings these letters for your Majesty.

[Exit DE BAUSSET.]

NAPOLEON [after silently reading]

Ha-ha! It never rains unless it pours:
Now I can have the other readily.
The proverb hits me aptly: “Well they do
Who doff the old love ere they don the new!”
[He glances again over the letter.]
Yes, Caulaincourt now writes he has every hope
Of quick success in settling the alliance!
The Tsar is willing--even anxious for it,
His sister's youth the single obstacle.
The Empress-mother, hitherto against me,
Ambition-fired, verges on suave consent,
Likewise the whole Imperial family.
What irony is all this to me now!
Time lately was when I had leapt thereat.

CHAMPAGNY

You might, of course, sire, give th' Archduchess up,
Seeing she looms uncertainly as yet,
While this does so no longer.

NAPOLEON

No--not I.
My sense of my own dignity forbids
My watching the slow clocks of Muscovy!
Why have they dallied with my tentatives
In pompous silence since the Erfurt day?
--And Austria, too, affords a safer hope.
The young Archduchess is much less a child
Than is the other, who, Caulaincourt says,
Will be incapable of motherhood
For six months yet or more--a grave delay.

CHAMPAGNY

Your Majesty appears to have trimmed your sail
For Austria; and no more is to be said!

NAPOLEON

Except that there's the house of Saxony
If Austria fail.--then, very well, Champagny,
Write you to Caulaincourt accordingly.

CHAMPAGNY

I will, your Majesty.

[Exit CHAMPAGNY. Re-enter QUEEN HORTENSE.]

NAPOLEON

Ah, dear Hortense,
How is your mother now?

HORTENSE

Calm; quite calm, sire.
I pledge me you need have no further fret
From her entreating tears. She bids me say
That now, as always, she submits herself
With chastened dignity to circumstance,
And will descend, at notice, from your throne--
As in days earlier she ascended it--
In questionless obedience to your will.
It was your hand that crowned her; let it be
Likewise your hand that takes her crown away.
As for her children, we shall be but glad
To follow and withdraw ourselves with her,
The tenderest mother children ever knew,
From grandeurs that have brought no happiness!

NAPOLEON [taking her hand]

But, Hortense, dear, it is not to be so!
You must stay with me, as I said before.
Your mother, too, must keep her royal state,
Since no repudiation stains this need.
Equal magnificence will orb her round
In aftertime as now. A palace here,
A palace in the country, wealth to match,
A rank in order next my future wife's,
And conference with me as my truest friend.
Now we will seek her--Eugene, you, and I--
And make the project clear.

[Exeunt NAPOLEON and HORTENSE. The scene darkens and shuts.]

SCENE III

VIENNA. A PRIVATE APARTMENT IN THE IMPERIAL PALACE

[The EMPEROR FRANCIS discovered, paler than usual, and somewhat
flurried. Enter METTERNICH the Prime Minister--a thin-lipped,
long-nosed man with inquisitive eyes.]

FRANCIS

I have been expecting you some minutes here,
The thing that fronts us brooking brief delay.--
Well, what say you by now on this strange offer?

METTERNICH

My views remain the same, your Majesty:
The policy of peace that I have upheld,
Both while in Paris and of late time here,
Points to this step as heralding sweet balm
And bandaged veins for our late crimsoned realm.

FRANCIS

Agreed. As monarch I perceive therein
A happy doorway for my purposings.
It seems to guarantee the Hapsburg crown
A quittance of distractions such as those
That leave their shade on many a backward year!--
There is, forsooth, a suddenness about it,
And it would aid us had we clearly keyed
The cryptologues of which the world has heard
Between Napoleon and the Russian Court--
Begun there with the selfsame motiving.

METTERNICH

I would not, sire, one second ponder it.
It was an obvious first crude cast-about
In the important reckoning of means
For his great end, a strong monarchic line.
The more advanced the more it profits us;
For sharper, then, the quashing of such views,
And wreck of that conjunction in the aims
Of France and Russia, marked so much of late
As jeopardizing quiet neighbours' thrones.

FRANCIS

If that be so, on the domestic side
There seems no bar. Speaking as father solely,
I see secured to her the proudest fate
That woman can daydream. And I could hope
That private bliss would not be wanting her!

METTERNICH

A hope well seated, sire. The Emperor,
Imperious and determined in his rule,
Is easy-natured in domestic life,
As my long time in Paris amply proved.
Moreover, the accessories of his glory
Have been, and will be, admirably designed
To fire the fancy of a young princess.

FRANCIS

Thus far you satisfy me.... So, to close,
Or not to close with him, is now the thing.

METTERNICH

Your Majesty commands the issue quite:
The father of his people can alone
In such a case give answer--yes or no.
Vagueness and doubt have ruined Russia's chance;
Let not, then, such be ours.

FRANCIS

You mean, if I,
You'd answer straight. What would that answer be?

METTERNICH

In state affairs, sire, as in private life,
Times will arise when even the faithfullest squire
Finds him unfit to jog his chieftain's choice,
On whom responsibility must lastly rest.
And such times are pre-eminently, sire,
Those wherein thought alone is not enough
To serve the head as guide. As Emperor,
As father, both, to you, to you in sole
Must appertain the privilege to pronounce
Which track stern duty bids you tread herein.

FRANCIS

Affection is my duty, heart my guide.--
Without constraint or prompting I shall leave
The big decision in my daughter's hands.
Before my obligations to my people
Must stand her wish. Go, find her, Metternich,
Take her the tidings. She is free with you,
And will speak out. [Looking forth from the terrace.]
She's here at hand, I see:
I'll call her in. Then tell me what's her mind.

[He beckons from the window, and goes out in another direction.]

METTERNICH

So much for form's sake! Can the river-flower
The current drags, direct its face up-stream?
What she must do she will; nought else at all.

[Enter through one of the windows MARIA LOUISA in garden-costume,
fresh-coloured, girlish, and smiling. METTERNICH bends.]

MARIA LOUISA

O how, dear Chancellor, you startled me!
Please pardon my so brusquely bursting in.
I saw you not.--Those five poor little birds
That haunt out there beneath the pediment,
Snugly defended from the north-east wind,
Have lately disappeared. I sought a trace
Of scattered feathers, which I dread to find!

METTERNICH

They are gone, I ween, the way of tender flesh
At the assaults of winter, want, and foes.

MARIA LOUISA

It is too melancholy thinking, that!
Don't say it.--But I saw the Emperor here?
Surely he beckoned me?

METTERNICH

Sure, he did,
Your gracious Highness; and he has left me here
To break vast news that will make good his call.

MARIA LOUISA

Then do. I'll listen. News from near or far?

[She seats herself.]

METTERNICH

From far--though of such distance-dwarfing might
That far may read as near eventually.
But, dear Archduchess, with your kindly leave
I'll speak straight out. The Emperor of the French
Has sent to-day to make, through Schwarzenberg,
A formal offer of his heart and hand,
His honours, dignities, imperial throne,
To you, whom he admires above all those
The world can show elsewhere.

MARIA LOUISA [frightened]

My husband--he?
What, an old man like him!

METTERNICH [cautiously]

He's scarcely old,
Dear lady. True, deeds densely crowd in him;
Turn months to years calendaring his span;
Yet by Time's common clockwork he's but young.

MARIA LOUISA

So wicked, too!

METTERNICH [nettled]