by Thomas Hardy
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 h
ouse 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]
&
nbsp; 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]
Well-that's a point of view.
MARIA LOUISA
But, Chancellor, think what things I have said to him!
Can women marry where they have taunted so?
METTERNICH
Things? Nothing inexpungeable, I deem,
By time and true good humour.
MARIA LOUISA
O I have!
Horrible things. Why—ay, a hundred times—
I have said I wished him dead! At that strained hour
When the first voicings of the late war came,
Thrilling out how the French were smitten sore
And Bonaparte retreating, I clapped hands
And answered that I hoped he'd lose his head
As well as lose the battle!
METTERNICH
Words. But words!
Born like the bubbles of a spring that come
Of zest for springing—aimless in their shape.
MARIA LOUISA
It seems indecent, mean, to wed a man
Whom one has held such fierce opinions of!
METTERNICH
My much beloved Archduchess, and revered,
Such things have been! In Spain and Portugal
Like enmities have led to intermarriage.
In England, after warring thirty years
The Red and White Rose wedded.
MARIA LOUISA [after a silence]
Tell me, now,
What does my father wish?
METTERNICH
His wish is yours.
Whatever your Imperial Highness feels
On this grave verdict of your destiny,
Home, title, future sphere, he bids you think
Not of himself, but of your own desire.
MARIA LOUISA [reflecting]
My wish is what my duty bids me wish.
Where a wide Empire's welfare is in poise,
That welfare must be pondered, not my will.
I ask of you, then, Chancellor Metternich,
Straightway to beg the Emperor my father
That he fulfil his duty to the realm,
And quite subordinate thereto all thought
Of how it personally impinge on me.
[A slight noise as of something falling is heard in the room. They
glance momentarily, and see that a small enamel portrait of MARIE
ANTOINETTE, which was standing on a console-table, has slipped down
on its face.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
What mischief's this? The Will must have its way.
SPIRIT SINISTER
Perhaps Earth shivered at the lady's say?
SHADE OF THE EARTH
I own hereto. When France and Austria wed