by Thomas Hardy
SECOND CITIZEN
I'll see if he succeed.
[He re-enters the inn and soon appears at an upper window.]
FIRST CITIZEN [from below]
You see him?
SECOND CITIZEN [gazing]
He is already at the garden-end;
Now he has passed out to the river-brim,
And plods along it toward the Ranstadt Gate....
He finds no horses for him!... And the crowd
Thrusts him about, none recognizing him.
Ah—now the horses do arrive. He mounts,
And hurries through the arch.... Again I see him—
Now he's upon the causeway in the marsh;
Now rides across the bridge of Lindenau...
And now, among the troops that choke the road
I lose all sight of him.
[A third citizen enters from the direction NAPOLEON has taken.]
THIRD CITIZEN [breathlessly]
I have seen him go!
And while he passed the gate I stood i' the crowd
So close I could have touched him! Few discerned
In one so soiled the erst Arch-Emperor!—
In the lax mood of him who has lost all
He stood inert there, idly singing thin:
"Malbrough s'en va-t-en guerre!"—until his suite
Came up with horses.
SECOND CITIZEN [still gazing afar]
Poniatowski's Poles
Wearily walk the level causeway now;
Also, meseems, Macdonald's corps and Reynier's.
The frail-framed, new-built bridge has broken down:
They've but the old to cross by.
FIRST CITIZEN
Feeble foresight!
They should have had a dozen.
SECOND CITIZEN
All the corps—
Macdonald's, Poniatowski's, Reynier's—all—
Confusedly block the entrance to the bridge.
And—verily Blucher's troops are through the town,
And are debouching from the Ranstadt Gate
Upon the Frenchmen's rear!
[A thunderous report stops his words, echoing through the city from
the direction in which he is gazing, and rattling all the windows.
A hoarse chorus of cries becomes audible immediately after.]
FIRST, THIRD, ETC., CITIZENS
Ach, Heaven!—what's that?
SECOND CITIZEN
The bridge of Lindenau has been upblown!
SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]
There leaps to the sky and earthen wave,
And stones, and men, as though
Some rebel churchyard crew updrave
Their sepulchres from below.
SEMICHORUS II
To Heaven is blown Bridge Lindenau;
Wrecked regiments reel therefrom;
And rank and file in masses plough
The sullen Elster-Strom.
SEMICHORUS I
A gulf is Lindenau; and dead
Are fifties, hundreds, tens;
And every current ripples red
With marshals' blood and men's.
SEMICHORUS II
The smart Macdonald swims therein,
And barely wins the verge;
Bold Poniatowski plunges in
Never to re-emerge!
FIRST CITIZEN
Are not the French across as yet, God save them?
SECOND CITIZEN [still gazing above]
Nor Reynier's corps, Macdonald's, Lauriston's,
Nor yet the Poles.... And Blucher's troops approach,
And all the French this side are prisoners.
—Now for our handling by the Prussian host;
Scant courtesy for our king!
[Other citizens appear beside him at the window, and further
conversation continues entirely above.]
CHORUS OF IRONIC SPIRITS
The Battle of the Nations now is closing,
And all is lost to One, to many gained;
The old dynastic routine reimposing,
The new dynastic structure unsustained.
Now every neighbouring realm is France's warder,
And smirking satisfaction will be feigned:
The which is seemlier?—so-called ancient order,
Or that the hot-breath'd war-horse ramp unreined?
[The October night thickens and curtains the scene.]
SCENE VI
THE PYRENEES. NEAR THE RIVER NIVELLE
[Evening. The dining-room of WELLINGTON'S quarters. The table is
laid for dinner. The battle of the Nivelle has just been fought.
Enter WELLINGTON, HILL, BERESFORD, STEWART, HOPE, CLINTON, COLBORNE,
COLE, KEMPT [with a bound-up wound], and other officers.
WELLINGTON
It is strange that they did not hold their grand position more
tenaciously against us to-day. By God, I don't quite see why we
should have beaten them!
COLBORNE
My impression is that they had the stiffness taken out of them by
something they had just heard of. Anyhow, startling news of some
kind was received by those of the Eighty-eighth we took in the
signal-redoubt after I summoned the Commandant.
WELLINGTON
Oh, what news?
COLBORNE
I cannot say, my lord, I only know that the latest number of the
Imperial Gazette was seen in the hands of some of them before the
capture. They had been reading the contents, and were cast down.
WELLINGTON
That's interesting. I wonder what the news could have been?
HILL
Something about Boney's army in Saxony would be most probable.
Though I question if there's time yet for much to have been
decided there.
BERESFORD
Well, I wouldn't say that. A hell of a lot of things may have
happened there by this time.
COLBORNE
It was tantalizing, but they were just able to destroy the paper
before we could prevent them.
WELLINGTON
Did you question them?
COLBORNE
Oh yes. But they stayed sulking at being taken, and would tell us
nothing, pretending that they knew nothing. Whether much were going
on, they said, or little, between the army of the Emperor and the
army of the Allies, it was none of their business to relate it; so
they kept a gloomy silence for the most part.
WELLINGTON
They will cheer up a bit and be more communicative when they have had
some dinner.
COLE
They are dining here, my lord?
WELLINGTON
I sent them an invitation an hour ago, which they have accepted.
I could do no less, poor devils. They'll be here in a few minutes.
See that they have plenty of Madeira to whet their whistles with.
It well screw them up into a better key, and they'll not be so
reserved.
[The conversation on the day's battle becomes general. Enter as
guests French officers of the Eighty-eighth regiment now prisoners
on parole. They are welcomed by WELLINGTON and the staff, and all
sit down to dinner.
For some time the meal proceeds almost in silence; but wine is
passed freely, and both French and English officers become
talkative and merry.
WELLINGTON [to the French Commandant]
More cozy this, sir, than—I'll warrant me—
You found it in that damned redoubt to-day?
COMMANDANT
The devil if 'tis not, monseigneur, sure!
WELLINGTON
So 'tis for us who were outside, by God!
COMMANDANT [gloomily]
No; we were not at ease! Alas, my lord,
'Twas more than flesh and blood could do, to fight
After such paralyzing tidings came.
More life may trickle out of men through thought
Than through a gaping wound.
WELLINGTON
Your reference
Bears on the news from Saxony, I infer?
SECOND FRENCH OFFICER
Yes: on the Emperor's ruinous defeat
At Leipzig city—brought to our startled heed
By one of the Gazettes just now arrived.
[All the English officers stop speaking, and listen eagerly.]
WELLINGTON
Where are the Emperor's headquarters now?
COMMANDANT
My lord, there are no headquarters.
WELLINGTON
No headquarters?
COMMANDANT
There are no French headquarters now, my lord,
For there is no French army! France's fame
Is fouled. And how, then, could we fight to-day
With our hearts in our shoes!
WELLINGTON
Why, that bears out
What I but lately said; it was not like
The brave men who have faced and foiled me here
So many a long year past, to give away
A stubborn station quite so readily.
BERESFORD
And what, messieurs, ensued at Leipzig then?
SEVERAL FRENCH OFFICERS
Why, sirs, should we conceal it? Thereupon
Part of our army took the Lutzen road;
Behind a blown-up bridge. Those in advance
Arrived at Lutzen with the Emperor—
The scene of our once famous victory!
In such sad sort retreat was hurried on,
Erfurt was gained with Blucher hot at heel.
To cross the Rhine seemed then our only hope;
Alas, the Austrians and the Bavarians
Faced us in Hanau Forest, led by Wrede,
And dead-blocked our escape.
WELLINGTON
Ha. Did they though?
SECOND FRENCH OFFICER
But if brave hearts were ever desperate,
Sir, we were desperate then! We pierced them through,
Our loss unrecking. So by Frankfurt's walls
We fared to Mainz, and there recrossed the Rhine.
A funeral procession, so we seemed,
Upon the long bridge that had rung so oft
To our victorious feet!... What since has coursed
We know not, gentlemen. But this we know,
That Germany echoes no French footfall!
AN ENGLISH OFFICER
One sees not why it should.
SECOND FRENCH OFFICER
We'll leave it so.
[Conversation on the Leipzig disaster continues till the dinner
ends The French prisoners courteously take their leave and go
out.]
WELLINGTON
Very good set of fellows. I could wish
They all were mine!...Well, well; there was no crime
In trying to ascertain these fat events:
They would have sounded soon from other tongues.
HILL
It looks like the first scene of act the last
For our and all men's foe!
WELLINGTON
I count to meet
The Allies upon the cobble-stones of Paris
Before another half-year's suns have shone.
—But there's some work for us to do here yet:
The dawn must find us fording the Nivelle!
[Exeunt WELLINGTON and officers. The room darkens.]
ACT FOURTH
SCENE I
THE UPPER RHINE
[The view is from a vague altitude over the beautiful country
traversed by the Upper Rhine, which stretches through it in
birds-eye perspective. At this date in Europe's history the
stream forms the frontier between France and Germany.
It is the morning of New Year's Day, and the shine of the tardy
sun reaches the fronts of the beetling castles, but scarcely
descends far enough to touch the wavelets of the river winding
leftwards across the many-leagued picture from Schaffhausen to
Coblenz.]
DUMB SHOW
At first nothing—not even the river itself—seems to move in the
panorama. But anon certain strange dark patches in the landscape,
flexuous and riband-shaped, are discerned to be moving slowly.
Only one movable object on earth is large enough to be conspicuous
herefrom, and that is an army. The moving shapes are armies.
The nearest, almost beneath us, is defiling across the river by a
bridge of boats, near the junction of the Rhine and the Neckar,
where the oval town of Mannheim, standing in the fork between the
two rivers, has from here the look of a human head in a cleft
stick. Martial music from many bands strikes up as the crossing
is effected, and the undulating columns twinkle as if they were
scaly serpents.
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
It is the Russian host, invading France!
Many miles to the left, down-stream, near the little town of Caube,
another army is seen to be simultaneously crossing the pale current,
its arms and accoutrements twinkling in like manner.
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
Thither the Prussian levies, too, advance!
Turning now to the right, far away by Basel [beyond which the
Swiss mountains close the scene], a still larger train of war-
geared humanity, two hundred thousand strong, is discernible.
It has already crossed the water, which is much narrower here,
and has advanced several miles westward, where its ductile mass
of greyness and glitter is beheld parting into six columns, that
march on in flexuous courses of varying direction.
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
There glides carked Austria's invading force!—
Panting, too, Paris-wards with foot and horse,
Of one intention with the other twain,
And Wellington, from the south, in upper Spain.
All these dark and grey columns, converging westward by sure
degrees, advance without opposition. They glide on as if by
gravitation, in fluid figures, dictated by the conformation of
the country, like water from a burst reservoir; mostly snake-
shaped, but occasionally with batrachian and saurian outlines.
In spite of the immensity of this human mechanism on its surface,
the winter landscape wears an impassive look, as if nothing were
happening.
Evening closes in, and the Dumb Show is obscured.
SCENE II
PARIS. THE TUILERIES
[It is Sunday just after mass, and the principal officers of the
National Guard are assembled in the Salle des Marechaux. They
stand in an attitude of suspense, some with the print of sadness
on their faces, some with that of perplexity.
The door leading from the Hall to the adjoining chapel is thrown
open. There enter from the chapel with the last notes of the
service the EMPEROR NAPOLEON and the EMPRESS; and simultaneously
from a door opposite MADAME DE MONTESQUIOU, the governess, who
carries in her arms the KING OF ROME, now a fair child between
two and three. He is clothed in a miniature uniform of the
Guards themselves.
MADAM DE MONTESQUIOU brings forward the child and sets him on his
feet near his mother. NAPOLEON, with a mournful smile, giv
ing one
hand to the boy and the other to MARIE LOUISE, en famille, leads
them forward. The Guard bursts into cheers.]
NAPOLEON
Gentlemen of the National Guard and friends,
I have to leave you; and before I fare
To Heaven know what of personal destiny,
I give into your loyal guardianship
Those dearest in the world to me; my wife,
The Empress, and my son the King of Rome.—
I go to shield your roofs and kin from foes
Who have dared to pierce the fences of our land;
And knowing that you house those dears of mine,
I start afar in all tranquillity,
Stayed by my trust in your proved faithfulness.
[Enthusiastic cheers for the Guard.]
OFFICERS [with emotion]
We proudly swear to justify the trust!
And never will we see another sit
Than you, or yours, on the great throne of France.
NAPOLEON
I ratify the Empress' regency,
And re-confirm it on last year's lines,
My bother Joseph stoutening her rule
As the Lieutenant-General of the State.—
Vex her with no divisions; let regard
For property, for order, and for France
Be chief with all. Know, gentlemen, the Allies
Are drunken with success. Their late advantage
They have handled wholly for their own gross gain,
And made a pastime of my agony.
That I go clogged with cares I sadly own;
Yet I go primed with hope; ay, in despite
Of a last sorrow that has sunk upon me,—
The grief of hearing, good and constant friends,
That my own sister's consort, Naples' king,
Blazons himself a backer of the Allies,
And marches with a Neapolitan force
Against our puissance under Prince Eugene.
The varied operations to ensue
May bring the enemy largely Paris-wards;
But suffer no alarm; before long days
I will annihilate by flank and rear
Those who have risen to trample on our soil;
And as I have done so many and proud a time,
Come back to you with ringing victory!—
Now, see: I personally present to you
My son and my successor ere I go.
[He takes the child in his arms and carries him round to the
officers severally. They are much affected and raise loud
cheers.]
You stand by him and her? You swear as much?
OFFICERS
We do!
NAPOLEON
This you repeat—you promise it?
OFFICERS
We promise. May the dynasty live for ever!