Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1068 page)

buffets is terrible.

DIPLOMATIST

And the road from here to Marsh Gate is impassable.  Some ladies have

been sitting in their coaches for hours outside the hedge there.  We

shall not get home till noon to-morrow.

A VOICE
[from the back]

Take care of your watches!  Pickpockets!

FIRST ATTACHE

Good.  That relieves the monotony a little.

[Excitement in the throng.  When it has subsided the band strikes

up a country dance, and stewards with white ribbons and laurel

leaves are seen bustling about.]

SECOND ATTACHE

Let us go and look at the dancing.  It is "Voulez-vous danser"—no,

it is not,—it is "Enrico"—two ladies between two gentlemen.

[They go from the alcove.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

From this phantasmagoria let us roam

To the chief wheel and capstan of the show,

Distant afar.  I pray you closely read

What I reveal—wherein each feature bulks

In measure with its value humanly.

[The beholder finds himself, as it were, caught up on high, and

while the Vauxhall scene still dimly twinkles below, he gazes

southward towards Central Europe—the contorted and attenuated

ecorche of the Continent appearing as in an earlier scene, but

now obscure under the summer stars.]

Three cities loom out large: Vienna there,

Dresden, which holds Napoleon, over here,

And Leipzig, whither we shall shortly wing,

Out yonderwards.  'Twixt Dresden and Vienna

What thing do you discern?

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

     Something broad-faced,

Flat-folded, parchment-pale, and in its shape

Rectangular; but moving like a cloud

The Dresden way.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

     Yet gaze more closely on it.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

The object takes a letter's lineaments

Though swollen to mainsail measure,—magically,

I gather from your words; and on its face

Are three vast seals, red—signifying blood

Must I suppose?  It moves on Dresden town,

And dwarfs the city as it passes by.—

You say Napoleon's there?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

          The document,

Sized to its big importance, as I told,

Bears in it formal declaration, signed,

Of war by Francis with his late-linked son,

The Emperor of France.  Now let us go

To Leipzig city, and await the blow.

[A chaotic gloom ensues, accompanied by a rushing like that of a

mighty wind.]

ACT THIRD

SCENE I

LEIPZIG.  NAPOLEON'S QUARTERS IN THE REUDNITZ SUBURB

[The sitting-room of a private mansion.  Evening.  A large stove-

fire and candles burning.  The October wind is heard without, and

the leaded panes of the old windows shake mournfully.]

SEMICHORUS I OF IRONIC SPIRITS
[aerial music]

We come; and learn as Time's disordered dear sands run

That Castlereagh's diplomacy has wiled, waxed, won.

The beacons flash the fevered news to eyes keen bent

That Austria's formal words of war are shaped, sealed, sent.

SEMICHORUS II

So; Poland's three despoilers primed by Bull's gross pay

To stem Napoleon's might, he waits the weird dark day;

His proffered peace declined with scorn, in fell force then

They front him, with yet ten-score thousand more massed men.

[At the back of the room CAULAINCOURT, DUKE OF VICENZA, and

JOUANNE, one of Napoleon's confidential secretaries, are unpacking

and laying out the Emperor's maps and papers.  In the foreground

BERTHIER, MURAT, LAURISTON, and several officers of Napoleon's

suite, are holding a desultory conversation while they await his

entry.  Their countenances are overcast.]

MURAT

At least, the scheme of marching on Berlin

Is now abandoned.

LAURISTON

     Not without high words:

He yielded and gave order prompt for Leipzig

But coldness and reserve have marked his mood

Towards us ever since.

BERTHIER

     The march hereto

He has looked on as a retrogressive one,

And that, he ever holds, is courting woe.

To counsel it was doubtless full of risk,

And heaped us with responsibilities;

—Yet 'twas your missive, sire, that settled it
[to MURAT]
.

How stirred he was!  "To Leipzig, or Berlin?"

He kept repeating, as he drew and drew

Fantastic figures on the foolscap sheet,—

"The one spells ruin—t'other spells success,

And which is which?"

MURAT
[stiffly]

     What better could I do?

So far were the Allies from sheering off

As he supposed, that they had moved in march

Full fanfare hither!  I was duty-bound

To let him know.

LAURISTON

     Assuming victory here,

If he should let the advantage slip him by

As on the Dresden day, he wrecks us all!

'Twas damnable—to ride back from the fight

Inside a coach, as though we had not won!

CAULAINCOURT
[from the back]

The Emperor was ill: I have ground for knowing.

[NAPOLEON enters.]

NAPOLEON
[buoyantly]

Comrades, the outlook promises us well!

MURAT
[dryly]

Right glad are we you tongue such tidings, sire.

To us the stars have visaged differently;

To wit: we muster outside Leipzig here

Levies one hundred and ninety thousand strong.

The enemy has mustered, OUTSIDE US,

Three hundred and fifty thousand—if not more.

NAPOLEON

All that is needful is to conquer them!

We are concentred here: they lie a-spread,

Which shrinks them to two-hundred-thousand power:—

Though that the urgency of victory

Is absolute, I admit.

MURAT

     Yea; otherwise

The issue will be worse than Moscow, sire!

[MARMONT, DUKE OF RAGUSA [Wellington's adversary in Spain]
, is

announced, and enters.]

NAPOLEON

Ah, Marmont; bring you in particulars?

MARMONT

Some sappers I have taken captive, sire,

Say the Allies will be at stroke with us

The morning next to to-morrow's.—I am come,

Now, from the steeple-top of Liebenthal,

Where I beheld the enemy's fires bespot

The horizon round with raging eyes of flame:—

My vanward posts, too, have been driven in,

And I need succours—thrice ten thousand, say.

NAPOLEON
[coldly]

The enemy vexes not your vanward posts;

You are mistaken.—Now, however, go;

Cross Leipzig, and remain as the reserve.—

Well, gentlemen, my hope herein is this:

The first day to annihilate Schwarzenberg,

The second Blucher.  So shall we slip the toils

They are all madding to enmesh us in.

BERTHIER

Few are our infantry to fence with theirs!

NAPOLEON
[cheerfully]

We'll range them in two lines instead of three,

And so we shall look stronger by one-third.

BERTHIER
[incredulously]

Can they be thus deceived, sire?

NAPOLEON

     Can they?  Yes!

With all my practice I can err in numbers

At least one-quarter; why not they one-third?

Anyhow, 'tis worth trying at a pinch....

[AUGEREAU is suddenly announced.]

Good!  I've not seen him yet since he arrived.

[Enter AUGEREAU.

Here you are then at last, old Augereau!

You have been looked for long.—But you are no more

The Augereau of Castiglione days!

AUGEREAU

Nay, sire!  I still should be the Augereau

Of glorious Castiglione, could you give

The boys of Italy back again to me!

NAPOLEON

Well, let it drop.... Only I notice round me

An atmosphere of scopeless apathy

Wherein I do not share.

AUGEREAU

     There are reasons, sire,

Good reasons for despondence!  As I came

I learnt, past question, that Bavaria

Swerves on the very pivot of desertion.

This adds some threescore thousand to our foes.

NAPOLEON [irritated]

That consummation long has threatened us!...

Would that you showed the steeled fidelity

You used to show!  Except me, all are slack!

[To Murat]
Why, even you yourself, my brother-in-law,

Have been inclining to abandon me!

MURAT
[vehemently]

I, sire?  It is not so.  I stand and swear

The grievous imputation is untrue.

You should know better than believe these things,

And well remember I have enemies

Who ever wait to slander me to you!

NAPOLEON
[more calmly]

Ah yes, yes.  That is so.—And yet—and yet

You have deigned to weigh the feasibility

Of treating me as Austria has done!...

But I forgive you.  You are a worthy man;

You feel real friendship for me.  You are brave.

Yet I was wrong to make a king of you.

If I had been content to draw the line

At vice-king, as with young Eugene, no more,

As he has laboured you'd have laboured, too!

But as full monarch, you have foraged rather

For your own pot than mine!

[MURAT and the marshal are silent, and look at each other with

troubled countenances.  NAPOLEON goes to the table at the back, and

bends over the charts with CAULAINCOURT, dictating desultory notes

to the secretaries.]

SPIRIT IRONIC

          A seer might say

This savours of a sad Last-Supper talk

'Twixt his disciples and this Christ of war!

[Enter an attendant.]

ATTENDANT

The Saxon King and Queen and the Princess

Enter the city gates, your Majesty.

They seek the shelter of the civic walls

Against the risk of capture by Allies.

NAPOLEON

Ah, so?  My friend Augustus, is he near?

I will be prompt to meet him when he comes,

And safely quarter him. 
[He returns to the map.]

[An interval.  The clock strikes midnight.  The EMPEROR rises

abruptly, sighs, and comes forward.]

     I now retire,

Comrades.  Good-night, good-night. Remember well

All must prepare to grip with gory death

In the now voidless battle.  It will be

A great one and a critical; one, in brief,

That will seal France's fate, and yours, and mine!

ALL
[fervidly]

We'll do our utmost, by the Holy Heaven!

NAPOLEON

Ah—what was that? 
[He pulls back the window-curtain.]

SEVERAL

     It is our enemies,

Whose southern hosts are signalling to their north.

[A white rocket is beheld high in the air.  It is followed by a

second, and a third.  There is a pause, during which NAPOLEON and

the rest wait motionless.  In a minute or two, from the opposite

side of the city, three coloured rockets are sent up, in evident

answer to the three white ones.  NAPOLEON muses, and lets the

curtain drop.]

NAPOLEON

Yes, Schwarzenberg to Blucher.... It must be

To show that they are ready.  So are we!

[He goes out without saying more.  The marshals and other officers

withdraw.  The room darkens and ends the scene.]

SCENE II

THE SAME.  THE CITY AND THE BATTLEFIELD

[Leipzig is viewed in aerial perspective from a position above the

south suburbs, and reveals itself as standing in a plain, with

rivers and marshes on the west, north, and south of it, and higher

ground to the east and south-east.

At this date it is somewhat in she shape of the letter D, the

straight part of which is the river Pleisse.  Except as to this

side it is surrounded by armies—the inner horseshoe of them

being the French defending the city;  the outer horseshoe being

the Allies about to attack it.

Far over the city—as it were at the top of the D—at Lindenthal,

we see MARMONT stationed to meet BLUCHER when he arrives on that

side.  To the right of him is NEY, and further off to the right,

on heights eastward, MACDONALD.  Then round the curve towards the

south in order, AUGEREAU, LAURISTON [behind whom is NAPOLEON

himself and the reserve of Guards]
, VICTOR
[at Wachau]
, and