Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)

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!