Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1053 page)

her: Regnaud had to finish it for her, the ditch that overturned

her being where she was made to say that she no longer preserved

any hope of having children, and that she was pleased to show her

attachment by enabling him to obtain them by another woman.  She

was led off fainting.  A turning of the tables, considering how

madly jealous she used to make him by her flirtations!

[Enter a third member.]

SECOND MEMBER

How is the debate going?  Still braying the Government in a mortar?

THIRD MEMBER

They are.  Though one thing every body admits: young Peel has

made a wonderful first speech in seconding the address.  There

has been nothing like it since Pitt.  He spoke rousingly of

Austria's misfortunes—went on about Spain, of course, showing

that we must still go on supporting her, winding up with a

brilliant peroration about—what were the words—"the fiery eyes

of the British soldier!"—Oh, well: it was all learnt before-hand,

of course.

SECOND MEMBER

I wish I had gone down.  But the wind soon blew the other way.

THIRD MEMBER

Then Gower rapped out his amendment.  That was good, too, by God.

SECOND MEMBER

Well, the war must go on.  And that being the general conviction

this censure and that censure are only so many blank cartridges.

THIRD MEMBER

Blank?  Damn me, were they!  Gower's was a palpable hit when he said

that Parliament had placed unheard-of resources in the hands of the

Ministers last year, to make this year's results to the country

worse than if they had been afforded no resources at all.  Every

single enterprise of theirs had been a beggarly failure.

SECOND MEMBER

Anybody could have said it, come to that.

THIRD MEMBER

Yes, because it is so true.  However, when he began to lay on with

such rhetoric as "the treasures of the nation lavished in wasteful

thoughtlessness,"—"thousands of our troops sacrificed wantonly in

pestilential swamps of Walcheren," and gave the details we know so

well, Ministers wriggled a good one, though 'twas no news to 'em.

Castlereagh kept on starting forward as if he were going to jump up

and interrupt, taking the strictures entirely as a personal affront.

[Enter a fourth member.]

SEVERAL MEMBERS

Who's speaking now?

FOURTH MEMBER

I don't know.  I have heard nobody later than Ward.

SECOND MEMBER

The fact is that, as Whitbread said to me to-day, the materials for

condemnation are so prodigious that we can scarce marshal them into

argument.  We are just able to pour 'em out one upon t'other.

THIRD MEMBER

Ward said, with the blandest air in the world: "Censure?  Do his

Majesty's Ministers expect censure?  Not a bit.  They are going

about asking in tremulous tones if anybody has heard when their

impeachment is going to begin."

SEVERAL MEMBERS

Haw—haw—haw!

THIRD MEMBER

Then he made another point.  After enumerating our frightful

failures—Spain, Walcheren, and the rest—he said:  "But Ministers

have not failed in everything.  No; in one thing they have been

strikingly successful.  They have been successful in their attack

upon Copenhagen—because it was directed against an ally!"  Mighty

fine, wasn't it?

SECOND MEMBER

How did Castlereagh stomach that?

THIRD MEMBER

He replied then.  Donning his air of injured innocence he proved the

honesty of his intentions—no doubt truly enough.  But when he came

to Walcheren nothing could be done.  The case was hopeless, and he

knew it, and foundered.  However, at the division, when he saw what

a majority was going out on his side he was as frisky as a child.

Canning's speech was grave, with bits of shiny ornament stuck on—

like the brass nails on a coffin, Sheridan says.

[Fifth and sixth members stagger in, arm-and-arm.]

FIFTH MEMBER

The 'vision is—-'jority of ninety-six againsht—Gov'ment—I mean—

againsht us.  Which is it—hey? 
[To his companion.]

SIXTH MEMBER

Damn majority of—damn ninety-six—against damn amendment! 
[They

sink down on a sofa.]

SECOND MEMBER

Gad, I didn't expect the figure would have been quite so high!

THIRD MEMBER

The one conviction is that the war in the Peninsula is to go on, and

as we are all agreed upon that, what the hell does it matter what

their majority was?

[Enter SHERIDAN.  They all look inquiringly.]

SHERIDAN

Have ye heard the latest?

SECOND MEMBER

Ninety-six against us.

SHERIDAN

O no-that's ancient history.  I'd forgot it.

THIRD MEMBER

A revolution, because Ministers are not impeached and hanged?

SHERIDAN

That's in contemplation, when we've got their confessions.  But what

I meant was from over the water—it is a deuced sight more serious

to us than a debate and division that are only like the Liturgy on

a Sunday—known beforehand to all the congregation.  Why, Bonaparte

is going to marry Austria forthwith—the Emperor's daughter Maria

Louisa.

THIRD MEMBER

The Lord look down!  Our late respected crony of Austria!  Why, in

this very night's debate they have been talking about the laudable

principles we have been acting upon in affording assistance to the

Emperor Francis in his struggle against the violence and ambition

of France!

SECOND MEMBER

Boney safe on that side, what may not befall!

THIRD MEMBER

We had better make it up with him, and shake hands all round.

SECOND MEMBER

Shake heads seems most natural in the case.  O House of Hapsburg,

how hast thou fallen!

[Enter WHITBREAD, LORD HUTCHINSON, LORD GEORGE CAVENDISH, GEORGE

PONSONBY, WINDHAM, LORD GREY, BARING, ELLIOT, and other members,

some drunk.  The conversation becomes animated and noisy; several

move off to the card-room, and the scene closes.]

SCENE V

THE OLD WEST HIGHWAY OUT OF VIENNA

[The spot is where the road passes under the slopes of the Wiener

Wald, with its beautiful forest scenery.]

DUMB SHOW

A procession of enormous length, composed of eighty carriages—

many of them drawn by six horses and one by eight—and escorted

by detachments of cuirassiers, yeomanry, and other cavalry, is

quickening its speed along the highway from the city.

The six-horse carriages contain a multitude of Court officials,

ladies of the Court, and other Austrian nobility.  The eight-horse

coach contains a rosy, blue-eyed girl of eighteen, with full red

lips, round figure, and pale auburn hair.  She is MARIA LOUISA, and

her eyes are red from recent weeping.  The COUNTESS DE LAZANSKY,

Grand Mistress of the Household, in the carriage with her, and the

other ladies of the Palace behind, have a pale, proud, yet resigned

look, as if conscious that upon their sex had been laid the burden

of paying for the peace with France.  They have been played out of

Vienna with French marches, and the trifling incident has helped on

their sadness.

The observer's vision being still bent on the train of vehicles and

cavalry, the point of sight is withdrawn high into the air, till the

huge procession on the brown road looks no more than a file of ants

crawling along a strip of garden-matting.  The spacious terrestrial

outlook now gained shows this to be the great road across Europe from

Vienna to Munich, and from Munich westerly to France.

The puny concatenation of specks being exclusively watched, the

surface of the earth seems to move along in an opposite direction,

and in infinite variety of hill, dale, woodland, and champaign.

Bridges are crossed, ascents are climbed, plains are galloped over,

and towns are reached, among them Saint Polten, where night falls.

Morning shines, and the royal crawl is resumed, and continued through

Linz, where the Danube is reapproached, and the girl looks pleased

to see her own dear Donau still.  Presently the tower of Brannau

appears, where the animated dots pause for formalities, this being

the frontier; and MARIA LOUISA becomes MARIE LOUISE and a Frenchwoman,

in the charge of French officials.

After many breaks and halts, during which heavy rains spread their

gauzes over the scene, the roofs and houses of Munich disclose

themselves, suggesting the tesserae of an irregular mosaic.  A long

stop is made here.

The tedious advance continues.  Vine-circled Stuttgart, flat

Carlsruhe, the winding Rhine, storky Strassburg, pass in panorama

beneath us as the procession is followed.  With Nancy and Bar-le-

Duc sliding along, the scenes begin to assume a French character,

and soon we perceive Chalons and ancient Rheims.  The last day of

the journey has dawned.  Our vision flits ahead of the cortege to

Courcelles, a little place which must be passed through before

Soissons is reached.  Here the point of sight descends to earth,

and the Dumb Show ends.

SCENE VI

COURCELLES

[It is now seen to be a quiet roadside village, with a humble

church in its midst, opposite to which stands an inn, the highway

passing between them.  Rain is still falling heavily.  Not a soul

is visible anywhere.

Enter from the west a plain, lonely carriage, traveling in a

direction to meet the file of coaches that we have watched.  It

stops near the inn, and two men muffled in cloaks alight by the

door away from the hostel and towards the church, as if they

wished to avoid observation.  Their faces are those of NAPOLEON

and MURAT, his brother-in-law.  Crossing the road through the mud

and rain they stand in the church porch, and watch the descending

drifts.]

NAPOLEON
[stamping an impatient tattoo]

One gets more chilly in a wet March than in a dry, however cold, the

devil if he don't!  What time do you make it now?  That clock doesn't

go.

MURAT
[drily, looking at his watch]

Yes, it does; and it is right.  If clocks were to go as fast as your

wishes just now it would be awkward for the rest of the world.

NAPOLEON
[chuckling good-humouredly]

How we have dished the Soissons folk, with their pavilions, and

purple and gold hangings for bride and bridegroom to meet in, and

stately ceremonial to match, and their thousands looking on!  Here

we are where there's nobody.  Ha, ha!

MURAT

But why should they be dished, sire?  The pavilions and ceremonies

were by your own orders.

NAPOLEON

Well, as the time got nearer I couldn't stand the idea of dawdling

about there.

MURAT

The Soissons people will be in a deuce of a taking at being made

such fools of!

NAPOLEON

So let 'em.  I'll make it up with them somehow.—She can't be far

off now, if we have timed her rightly. 
[He peers out into the rain

and listens.]

MURAT

I don't quite see how you are going to manage when she does come.

Do we go before her toward Soissons when you have greeted her here,

or follow in her rear?  Or what do we do?

NAPOLEON

Heavens, I know no more than you!  Trust to the moment and see what

happens. 
[A silence.]
  Hark—here she comes!  Good little girl; up

to time!

[The distant squashing in the mud of a multitude of hoofs and

wheels is succeeded by the appearance of outriders and carriages,

horses and horsemen, splashed with sample clays of the districts

traversed.  The vehicles slow down to the inn.  NAPOLEON'S face

fires up, and, followed by MURAT, he rushes into the rain towards

the coach that is drawn by eight horses, containing the blue-eyed

girl.  He holds off his hat at the carriage-window.]

MARIE LOUISE
[shrinking back inside]

Ah, Heaven!  Two highwaymen are upon us!

THE EQUERRY D'AUDENARDE
[simultaneously]

The Emperor!

[The steps of the coach are hastily lowered, NAPOLEON, dripping,

jumps in and embraces her.  The startled ARCHDUCHESS, with much

blushing and confusion recognizes him.]

MARIE LOUISE
[tremulously, as she recovers herself]

You are so much—better looking than your portraits—that I hardly

knew you!  I expected you at Soissons.  We are not at Soissons yet?

NAPOLEON

No, my dearest spouse, but we are together! 
[Calling out to the

equerry.]
  Drive through Soissons—pass the pavilion of reception