Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1069 page)

PONIATOWSKI, near the Pleisse River at the bottom of the D.  Near

him are the cavalry of KELLERMANN and MILHAUD, and in the same

direction MURAT with his, covering the great avenues of approach

on the south.

Outside all these stands SCHWARZENBERG'S army, of which, opposed

to MACDONALD and LAURISTON, are KLEINAU'S Austrians and ZIETEN'S

Prussians, covered on the flank by Cossacks under PLATOFF.

Opposed to VICTOR and PONIATOWSKI are MEERFELDT and Hesse-Homburg's

Austrians, WITTGENSTEIN'S Russians, KLEIST'S Prussians, GUILAY'S

Austrians, with LICHTENSTEIN'S and THIELMANN'S light troops: thus

reaching round across the Elster into the morass on our near left—

the lower point of the D.]

SEMICHORUS I OF RUMOURS
[aerial music]

This is the combat of Napoleon's hope,

But not of his assurance!  Shrunk in power

He broods beneath October's clammy cope,

While hemming hordes wax denser every hour.

SEMICHORUS II

He knows, he knows that though in equal fight

He stand s heretofore the matched of none,

A feeble skill is propped by numbers' might,

And now three hosts close round to crush out one!

DUMB SHOW

The Leipzig clocks imperturbably strike nine, and the battle which

is to decide the fate of Europe, and perhaps the world, begins with

three booms from the line of the allies.  They are the signal for

a general cannonade of devastating intensity.

So massive is the contest that we soon fail to individualize the

combatants as beings, and can only observe them as amorphous drifts,

clouds, and waves of conscious atoms, surging and rolling together;

can only particularize them by race, tribe, and language.

Nationalities from the uttermost parts of Asia here meet those from

the Atlantic edge of Europe for the first and last time.  By noon

the sound becomes a loud droning, uninterrupted and breve-like, as

from the pedal of an organ kept continuously down.

CHORUS OF RUMOURS

Now triple battle beats about the town,

And now contracts the huge elastic ring

Of fighting flesh, as those within go down,

Or spreads, as those without show faltering!

It becomes apparent that the French have a particular intention,

the Allies only a general one.  That of the French is to break

through the enemy's centre and surround his right.  To this end

NAPOLEON launches fresh columns, and simultaneously OUDINOT supports

VICTOR against EUGENE OF WURTEMBERG'S right, while on the other

side of him the cavalry of MILHAUD and KELLERMAN prepares to charge.

NAPOLEON'S combination is successful, and drives back EUGENE.

Meanwhile SCHWARZENBERG is stuck fast, useless in the marshes

between the Pleisse and the Elster.

By three o'clock the Allied centre, which has held out against the

assaults of the French right and left, is broken through by cavalry

under MURAT, LATOUR-MAUBOURG, and KELLERMANN.

The bells of Leipzig ring.

CHORUS OF THE PITIES

Those chimings, ill-advised and premature!

Who knows if such vast valour will endure?

The Austro-Russians are withdrawn from the marshes by SCHWARZENBERG.

But the French cavalry also get entangled in the swamps, and

simultaneously MARMONT is beaten at Mockern.

Meanwhile NEY, to the north of Leipzig, having heard the battle

raging southward, leaves his position to assist it.  He has nearly

arrived when he hears BLUCHER attacking at the point he came from,

and sends back some of his divisions.

BERTRAND has kept open the west road to Lindenau and the Rhine, the

only French line of retreat.

Evening finds the battle a drawn one.  With the nightfall three blank

shots reverberate hollowly.

SEMICHORUS I OF RUMOURS

They sound to say that, for this moaning night,

As Nature sleeps, so too shall sleep the fight;

Neither the victor.

SEMICHORUS II

          But, for France and him,

Half-won is losing!

CHORUS

          Yea, his hopes drop dim,

Since nothing less than victory to-day

Had saved a cause whose ruin is delay!

The night gets thicker and no more is seen.

SCENE III

THE SAME, FROM THE TOWER OF THE PLEISSENBURG

[The tower commands a view of a great part of the battlefield.

Day has just dawned, and citizens, saucer-eyed from anxiety and

sleeplessness, are discover watching.]

FIRST CITIZEN

The wind increased at midnight while I watched,

With flapping showers, and clouds that combed the moon,

Till dawn began outheaving this huge day,

Pallidly—as if scared by its own issue;

This day that the Allies with bonded might

Have vowed to deal their felling finite blow.

SECOND CITIZEN

So must it be!  They have welded close the coop

Wherein our luckless Frenchmen are enjailed

With such compression that their front has shrunk

From five miles' farness to but half as far.—

Men say Napoleon made resolve last night

To marshal a retreat.  If so, his way

Is by the Bridge of Lindenau.

[They look across in the cold east light at the long straight

causeway from the Ranstadt Gate at the north-west corner of the

town, and the Lindenau bridge over the Elster beyond.]

FIRST CITIZEN

Last night I saw, like wolf-packs, hosts appear

Upon the Dresden road; and then, anon,

The already stout arrays of Schwarzenberg

Grew stoutened more.  I witnessed clearly, too,

Just before dark, the bands of Bernadotte

Come, hemming in the north more thoroughly.

The horizon glowered with a thousand fires

As the unyielding circle shut around.

[As it grows light they scan and define the armies.]

THIRD CITIZEN

Those lying there, 'twixt Connewitz and Dolitz,

Are the right wing of horse Murat commands.

Next, Poniatowski, Victor, and the rest.

Out here, Napoleon's centre at Probstheida,

Where he has bivouacked.  Those round this way

Are his left wing with Ney, that face the north

Between Paunsdorf and Gohlis.—Thus, you see

They are skilfully sconced within the villages,

With cannon ranged in front.  And every copse,

Dingle, and grove is packed with riflemen.

[The heavy sky begins to clear with the full arrival of the

morning.  The sun bursts out, and the previously dark and gloomy

masses glitter in the rays.  It is now seven o'clock, and with the

shining of the sun, the battle is resumed.

The army of Bohemia to the south and east, in three great columns,

marches concentrically upon NAPOLEON'S new and much-contracted line

—the first column of thirty-five thousand under BENNIGSEN; the

second, the central, forty-five thousand under BARCLAY DE TOLLY;

the third, twenty-five thousand under the PRINCE OF HESSE-HOMBURG.

An interval of suspense.]

FIRST CITIZEN

Ah, see!  The French bend, falter, and fall back.

[Another interval.  Then a huge rumble of artillery resounds from

the north.]

SEMICHORUS OF RUMOURS
[aerial music]

Now Blucher has arrived; and now falls to!

Marmont withdraws before him.  Bernadotte

Touching Bennigsen, joins attack with him,

And Ney must needs recede.  This serves as sign

To Schwarzenberg to bear upon Probstheida—

Napoleon's keystone and dependence here.

But for long whiles he fails to win his will,

The chief being nigh—outmatching might with skill.

SEMICHORUS II

Ney meanwhile, stung still sharplier, still withdraws

Nearer the town, and met by new mischance,

Finds him forsaken by his Saxon wing—

Fair files of thrice twelve thousand footmanry.

But rallying those still true with signs and calls,

He warely closes up his remnant to the walls.

SEMICHORUS I

Around Probstheida still the conflict rolls

Under Napoleon's eye surpassingly.

Like sedge before the scythe the sections fall

And bayonets slant and reek.  Each cannon-blaze

Makes the air thick with human limbs; while keen

Contests rage hand to hand.  Throats shout "advance,"

And forms walm, wallow, and slack suddenly.

Hot ordnance split and shiver and rebound,

And firelocks fouled and flintless overstrew the ground.

SEMICHORUS II

At length the Allies, daring tumultuously,

Find them inside Probstheida.  There is fixed

Napoleon's cardinal and centre hold.

But need to loose it grows his gloomy fear

As night begins to brown and treacherous mists appear.

CHORUS

Then, on the three fronts of this reaching field,

A furious, far, and final cannonade

Burns from two thousand mouths and shakes the plain,

And hastens the sure end!  Towards the west

Bertrand keeps open the retreating-way,

Along which wambling waggons since the noon

Have crept in closening file.  Dusk draws around;

The marching remnants drowse amid their talk,

And worn and harrowed horses slumber as the walk.

[In the darkness of the distance spread cries from the maimed

animals and the wounded men.  Multitudes of the latter contrive to

crawl into the city, until the streets are full of them.  Their

voices are heard calling.]

SECOND CITIZEN

They cry for water!  Let us go down,

And do what mercy may.

[Exeunt citizens from the tower.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

          A fire is lit

Near to the Thonberg wind-wheel.  Can it be

Napoleon tarries yet?  Let us go see.

[The distant firelight becomes clearer and closer.]

SCENE IV

THE SAME.  AT THE THONBERG WINDMILL

[By the newly lighted fire NAPOLEON is seen walking up and down,

much agitated and worn.  With him are MURAT, BERTHIER, AUGEREAU,

VICTOR, and other marshals of corps that have been engaged in this

part of the field—all perspiring, muddy, and fatigued.]

NAPOLEON

Baseness so gross I had not guessed of them!—

The thirty thousand false Bavarians

I looked on losing not unplacidly;

But these troth-swearing sober Saxonry

I reckoned staunch by virtue of their king!

Thirty-five thousand and gone!  It magnifies

A failure into a catastrophe....

Murat, we must retreat precipitately,

And not as hope had dreamed!  Begin it then

This very hour.—Berthier, write out the orders.—

Let me sit down.

[A chair is brought out from the mill.  NAPOLEON sinks into it, and

BERTHIER, stooping over the fire, begins writing to the Emperor's

dictation, the marshals looking with gloomy faces at the flaming

logs.

NAPOLEON has hardly dictated a line when he stops short.  BERTHIER

turns round and finds that he has dropt asleep.]

MURAT
[sullenly]

     Far better not disturb him;

He'll soon enough awake!

[They wait, muttering to one another in tones expressing weary

indifference to issues.  NAPOLEON sleeps heavily for a quarter of

and hour, during which the moon rises over the field.  At the end

he starts up stares around him with astonishment.]

NAPOLEON

     Am I awake?

Or is this all a dream?—Ah, no.  Too real!...

And yet I have seen ere now a time like this.

[The dictation is resumed.  While it is in progress there can be

heard between the words of NAPOLEON the persistent cries from the

plain, rising and falling like those of a vast rookery far away,

intermingled with the trampling of hoofs and the rumble of wheels.

The bivouac fires of the engirdling enemy glow all around except

for a small segment to the west—the track of retreat, still kept

open by BERTRAND, and already taken by the baggage-waggons.

The orders for its adoption by the entire army being completed,

NAPOLEON bids adieu to his marshals, and rides with BERTHIER and

CAULAINCOURT into Leipzig.  Exeunt also the others.]

SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES

Now, as in the dream of one sick to death,

  There comes a narrowing room

That pens him, body and limbs and breath,

  To wait a hideous doom,

SEMICHORUS II

So to Napoleon in the hush

  That holds the town and towers

Through this dire night, a creeping crush

  Seems inborne with the hours.

[The scene closes under a rimy mist, which makes a lurid cloud of

the firelights.]