Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1041 page)

His aim's to noose us vassals all to him!

The King will abdicate, and shortly too,

As those will live to see who live not long.—

We have saved our nation from the Favourite,

But who is going to save us from our Friend?

[The mob desists dubiously and goes out; the musical box upon

the floor plays on, the taper burns to its socket, and the room

becomes wrapt in the shades of night.]

SCENE III

LONDON: THE MARCHIONESS OF SALISBURY'S

[A large reception-room is disclosed, arranged for a conversazione.

It is an evening in summer following, and at present the chamber is

empty and in gloom.  At one end is an elaborate device, representing

Britannia offering her assistance to Spain, and at the other a

figure of Time crowning the Spanish Patriots' flag with laurel.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

     O clarionists of human welterings,

     Relate how Europe's madding movement brings

This easeful haunt into the path of palpitating things!

RUMOURS
[chanting]

The Spanish King has bowed unto the Fate

     Which bade him abdicate:

The sensual Queen, whose passionate caprice

Has held her chambering with "the Prince of Peace,"

     And wrought the Bourbon's fall,

     Holds to her Love in all;

And Bonaparte has ruled that his and he

Henceforth displace the Bourbon dynasty.

II

The Spanish people, handled in such sort,

     As chattels of a Court,

Dream dreams of England.  Messengers are sent

In secret to the assembled Parliament,

     In faith that England's hand

     Will stouten them to stand,

And crown a cause which, hold they, bond and free

Must advocate enthusiastically.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

So the Will heaves through Space, and moulds the times,

With mortals for Its fingers!  We shall see

Again men's passions, virtues, visions, crimes,

     Obey resistlessly

The purposive, unmotived, dominant Thing

Which sways in brooding dark their wayfaring!

[The reception room is lighted up, and the hostess comes in.  There

arrive Ambassadors and their wives, the Dukes and Duchesses of

RUTLAND and SOMERSET, the Marquis and Marchioness of STAFFORD,

the Earls of STAIR, WESTMORELAND, GOWER, ESSEX, Viscounts and

Viscountesses CRANLEY and MORPETH, Viscount MELBOURNE, Lord and

Lady KINNAIRD, Baron de ROLLE, Lady CHARLES GRENVILLE, the Ladies

CAVENDISH, Mr. and Mrs. THOMAS HOPE, MR. GUNNING, MRS. FITZHERBERT,

and many other notable personages.  Lastly, she goes to the door

to welcome severally the PRINCE OF WALES, the PRINCES OF FRANCE,

and the PRINCESS CASTELCICALA.]

LADY SALISBURY
[to the Prince of Wales]

I am sorry to say, sir, that the Spanish Patriots are not yet

arrived.  I doubt not but that they have been delayed by their

ignorance of the town, and will soon be here.

PRINCE OF WALES

No hurry whatever, my dear hostess.  Gad, we've enough to talk about!

I understand that the arrangement between our ministers and these

noblemen will include the liberation of Spanish prisoners in this

country, and the providing 'em with arms, to go back and fight for

their independence.

LADY SALISBURY

It will be a blessed event if they do check the career of this

infamous Corsican.  I have just heard that that poor foreigner

Guillet de la Gevrilliere, who proposed to Mr. Fox to assassinate

him, died a miserable death a few days ago the Bicetre—probably

by torture, though nobody knows.  Really one almost wishes Mr. Fox

had—-.  O here they are!

[Enter the Spanish Viscount de MATEROSA, and DON DIEGO de la VEGA.

They are introduced by CAPTAIN HILL and MR. BAGOT, who escort them.

LADY SALISBURY presents them to the PRINCE and others.]

PRINCE OF WALES

By gad, Viscount, we were just talking of 'ee.  You had some

adventures in getting to this country?

MATEROSA
[assisted by Bagot as interpreter]

Sir, it has indeed been a trying experience for us.  But here we

are, impressed by a deep sense of gratitude for the signal marks of

attachment your country has shown us.

PRINCE OF WALES

You represent, practically, the Spanish people?

MATEROSA

We are immediately deputed, sir,

By the Assembly of Asturias,

More sailing soon from other provinces.

We bring official writings, charging us

To clinch and solder Treaties with this realm

That may promote our cause against the foe.

Nextly a letter to your gracious King;

Also a Proclamation, soon to sound

And swell the pulse of the Peninsula,

Declaring that the act by which King Carlos

And his son Prince Fernando cede the throne

To whomsoever Napoleon may appoint,

Being an act of cheatery, not of choice,

Unfetters us from our allegiant oath.

MRS. FITZHERBERT

The usurpation began, I suppose, with the divisions in the Royal

Family?

MATEROSA

Yes, madam, and the protection they foolishly requested from the

Emperor; and their timid intent of flying secretly helped it on.

It was an opportunity he had been awaiting for years.

MRS. FITZHERBERT

All brought about by this man Godoy, Prince of Peace!

PRINCE OF WALES

Dash my wig, mighty much you know about it, Maria!  Why, sure,

Boney thought to himself, "This Spain is a pretty place; 'twill

just suit me as an extra acre or two; so here goes."

DON DIEGO
[aside to Bagot]

This lady is the Princess of Wales?

BAGOT

Hsh! no, Senor.  The Princess lives at large at Kensington and

other places, and has parties of her own, and doesn't keep house

with her husband.  This lady is—well, really his wife, you know,

in the opinion of many; but—-

DON DIEGO

Ah!  Ladies a little mixed, as they were at our Court!  She's the

Pepa Tudo to THIS Prince of Peace?

BAGOT

O no—not exactly that, Senor.

DON DIEGO

Ya, ya.  Good.  I'll be careful, my friend.  You are not saints in

England more than we are in Spain!

BAGOT

We are not.  Only you sin with naked faces, and we with masks on.

DON DIEGO

Virtuous country!

DUCHESS OF RUTLAND

It was understood that Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias, was to marry

a French princess, and so unite the countries peacefully?

MATEROSA

It was.  And our credulous prince was tempted to meet Napoleon at

Bayonne.  Also the poor simple King, and the infatuated Queen, and

Manuel Godoy.

DUCHESS OF RUTLAND

Then Godoy escaped from Aranjuez?

MATEROSA

Yes, by hiding in the garret.  Then they all threw themselves

upon Napoleon's protection.  In his presence the Queen swore

that the King was not Fernando's father!  Altogether they form

a queer little menagerie.  What will happen to them nobody knows.

PRINCE OF WALES

And do you wish us to send an army at once?

MATEROSA

What we most want, sir, are arms and ammunition.  But we leave the

English Ministry to co-operate in its own wise way, anyhow, so as

to sustain us in resenting these insults from the Tyrant of the

Earth.

DUCHESS OF RUTLAND
[to the Prince of Wales]

What sort of aid shall we send, sir?

PRINCE OF WALES

We are going to vote fifty millions, I hear.  We'll whack him,

and preserve your noble country for 'ee, Senor Viscount.  The

debate thereon is to come off to-morrow.  It will be the finest

thing the Commons have had since Pitt's time.  Sheridan, who is

open to it, says he and Canning are to be absolutely unanimous;

and, by God, like the parties in his "Critic," when Government

and Opposition do agree, their unanimity is wonderful!  Viscount

Materosa, you and your friends must be in the Gallery.  O, dammy,

you must!

MATEROSA

Sir, we are already pledged to be there.

PRINCE OF WALES

And hark ye, Senor Viscount.  You will then learn what a mighty

fine thing a debate in the English Parliament is!  No Continental

humbug there.  Not but that the Court has a trouble to keep 'em

in their places sometimes; and I would it had been one in the

Lords instead.  However, Sheridan says he has been learning his

speech these two days, and has hunted his father's dictionary

through for some stunning long words.—Now, Maria
[to Mrs.

Fitzherbert]
, I am going home.

LADY SALISBURY

At last, then, England will take her place in the forefront of

this mortal struggle, and in pure disinterestedness fight with

all her strength for the European deliverance.  God defend the

right!

[The Prince of Wales leaves, and the other guests begin to

depart.]

SEMICHORUS I OF THE YEARS
[aerial music]

  Leave this glib throng to its conjecturing,

And let four burdened weeks uncover what they bring!

SEMICHORUS II

  The said Debate, to wit; its close in deed;

Till England stands enlisted for the Patriots' needs.

SEMICHORUS I

  And transports in the docks gulp down their freight

Of buckled fighting-flesh, and gale-bound, watch and wait.

SEMICHORUS II

  Till gracious zephyrs shoulder on their sails

To where the brine of Biscay moans its tragic tales.

CHORUS

  Bear we, too, south, as we were swallow-vanned,

And mark the game now played there by the Master-hand!

[The reception-chamber is shut over by the night without, and

the point of view rapidly recedes south, London and its streets

and lights diminishing till they are lost in the distance, and

its noises being succeeded by the babble of the Channel and

Biscay waves.]

SCENE IV

MADRID AND ITS ENVIRONS

[The view is from the housetops of the city on a dusty evening

in this July, following a day of suffocating heat.  The sunburnt

roofs, warm ochreous walls, and blue shadows of the capital,

wear their usual aspect except for a few feeble attempts at

decoration.]

DUMB SHOW

Gazers gather in the central streets, and particularly in the

Puerta del Sol.  They show curiosity, but no enthusiasm.  Patrols

of French soldiery move up and down in front of the people, and

seem to awe them into quietude.

There is a discharge of artillery in the outskirts, and the church

bells begin ringing; but the peals dwindle away to a melancholy

jangle, and then to silence.  Simultaneously, on the northern

horizon of the arid, unenclosed, and treeless plain swept by the

eye around the city, a cloud of dust arises, and a Royal procession

is seen nearing.  It means the new king, JOSEPH BONAPARTE.

He comes on, escorted by a clanking guard of four thousand Italian

troops, and the brilliant royal carriage is followed by a hundred

coaches bearing his suite.  As the procession enters the city many

houses reveal themselves to be closed, many citizens leave the

route and walk elsewhere, while may of those who remain turn their

backs upon the spectacle.

KING JOSEPH proceeds thus through the Plaza Oriente to the granite-

walled Royal Palace, where he alights and is received by some of

the nobility, the French generals who are in occupation there, and

some clergy.  Heralds emerge from the Palace, and hasten to divers

points in the city, where trumpets are blown and the Proclamation

of JOSEPH as KING OF SPAIN is read in a loud voice.  It is received

in silence.

The sunsets, and the curtain falls.

SCENE V

THE OPEN SEA BETWEEN THE ENGLISH COASTS AND THE SPANISH PENINSULA

[From high aloft, in the same July weather, and facing east, the

vision swoops over the ocean and its coast-lines, from Cork

Harbour on the extreme left, to Mondego Bay, Portugal, on the

extreme right.  Land's End and the Scilly Isles, Ushant and Cape

Finisterre, are projecting features along the middle distance

of the picture, and the English Channel recedes endwise as a

tapering avenue near the centre.]

DUMB SHOW

Four groups of moth-like transport ships are discovered silently

skimming this wide liquid plain.  The first group, to the right,

is just vanishing behind Cape Mondego to enter Mondego Bay; the

second, in the midst, has come out from Plymouth Sound, and is

preparing to stand down Channel; the third is clearing St. Helen's