Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1048 page)

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: