Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1075 page)

Yes, sir; with her son.  She must never go back to France.  Metternich

and her father will know better than let her do that.  Poor young

thing, I am sorry for her all the same.  She would have joined

Napoleon if she had been left to herself.—And I was sorry for the

other wife, too.  I called at Malmaison a few days before she died.

A charming woman!  SHE would have gone to Elba or to the devil with

him.  Twenty thousand people crowded down from Paris to see her lying

in state last week.

PRINCE REGENT

Pity she didn't have a child by him, by God.

KING OF PRUSSIA

I don't think the other one's child is going to trouble us much.

But I wish Bonaparte himself had been sent farther away.

PRINCE REGENT

Some of our Government wanted to pack him off to St. Helena—an

island somewhere in the Atlantic, or Pacific, or Great South Sea.

But they were over-ruled.  'Twould have been a surer game.

EMPEROR OF RUSSIA

One hears strange stories of his saying and doings.  Some of my

people were telling me to-day that he says it is to Austria that

he really owes his fall, and that he ought to have destroyed her

when he had her in his power.

PRINCE REGENT

Dammy, sire, don't ye think he owes his fall to his ambition to

humble England by rupture of the Peace of Amiens, and trying to

invade us, and wasting his strength against us in the Peninsula?

EMPEROR OF RUSSIA

I incline to think, with the greatest deference, that it was Moscow

that broke him.

KING OF PRUSSIA

The rejection of my conditions in the terms of peace at Prague, sires,

was the turning-point towards his downfall.

[Enter a box on the opposite side of the house the PRINCESS OF

WALES, attended by LADY CHARLOTTE CAMPBELL, SIR W. GELL, and

others.  Louder applause now rings through the theatre, drowning

the sweet voice of the GRASSINI in "Aristodemo."]

LADY CHARLOTTE CAMPBELL

It is meant for your Royal Highness!

PRINCESS OF WALES

I don't think so, my dear.  Punch's wife is nobody when Punch himself

is present.

LADY CHARLOTTE CAMPBELL

I feel convinced that it is by their looking this way.

SIR W. GELL

Surely ma'am you will acknowledge their affection?  Otherwise we may

be hissed.

PRINCESS OF WALES

I know my business better than to take that morsel out of my husband's

mouth.  There—you see he enjoys it!  I cannot assume that it is

meant for me unless they call my name.

[The PRINCE REGENT rises and bows, the TSAR and the KING OF PRUSSIA

doing the same.]

LADY CHARLOTTE CAMPBELL

He and the others are bowing for you, ma'am!

PRINCESS OF WALES

Mine God, then; I will bow too! 
[She rises and bends to them.]

PRINCE REGENT

She thinks we rose on her account.—A damn fool. 
[Aside.]

EMPEROR OF RUSSIA

What—didn't we?  I certainly rose in homage to her.

PRINCE REGENT

No, sire.  We were supposed to rise to the repeated applause of the

people.

EMPEROR OF RUSSIA

H'm.  Your customs sir, are a little puzzling....
[To the King of

Prussia.]
  A fine-looking woman!  I must call upon the Princess of

Wales to-morrow.

KING OF PRUSSIA

I shall, at any rate, send her my respects by my chamberlain.

PRINCE REGENT
[stepping back to Lord Liverpool]

By God, Liverpool, we must do something to stop 'em!  They don't

know what a laughing-stock they'll make of me if they go to her.

Tell 'em they had better not.

LIVERPOOL

I can hardly tell them now, sir, while we are celebrating the Peace

and Wellington's victories.

PRINCE REGENT

Oh, damn the peace, and damn the war, and damn Boney, and damn

Wellington's victories!—the question is, how am I to get over this

infernal woman!—Well, well,—I must write, or send Tyrwhitt to-

morrow morning, begging them to abandon the idea of visiting her

for politic reasons.

[The Opera proceeds to the end, and is followed by a hymn and

chorus laudatory to peace.  Next a new ballet by MONSIEUR VESTRIS,

in which M. ROZIER and MADAME ANGIOLINI dance a pas-de-deux.  Then

the Sovereigns leave the theatre amid more applause.

The pit and gallery now call for the PRINCESS OF WALES unmistakably.

She stand up and is warmly acclaimed, returning three stately

curtseys.]

A VOICE

Shall we burn down Carlton House, my dear, and him in it?

PRINCESS OF WALES

No, my good folks!  Be quiet.  Go home to your beds, and let me do

the same.

[After some difficulty she gets out of the house.  The people thin

away.  As the candle-snuffers extinguish the lights a shouting is

heard without.]

VOICES OF CROWD

Long life to the Princess of Wales!  Three cheers for a woman wronged!

[The Opera-house becomes lost in darkness.]

ACT FIFTH

SCENE I

ELBA.  THE QUAY, PORTO FERRAJO

[Night descends upon a beautiful blue cove, enclosed on three sides

by mountains.  The port lies towards the western [right-hand]
horn

of the concave, behind it being the buildings of the town; their

long white walls and rows of windows rise tier above tier on the

steep incline at the back, and are intersected by narrow alleys

and flights of steps that lead up to forts on the summit.

Upon a rock between two of these forts stands the Palace of the

Mulini, NAPOLEONS'S residence in Ferrajo.  Its windows command

the whole town and the port.]

CHORUS OF IRONIC SPIRITS
[aerial music]

The Congress of Vienna sits,

And war becomes a war of wits,

Where every Power perpends withal

Its dues as large, its friends' as small;

Till Priests of Peace prepare once more

To fight as they have fought before!

In Paris there is discontent;

Medals are wrought that represent

One now unnamed.  Men whisper, "He

Who once has been, again will be!"

DUMB SHOW

Under cover of the dusk there assembles in the bay a small flotilla

comprising a brig called
l'Inconstant
and several lesser vessels.

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

The guardian on behalf of the Allies

Absents himself from Elba.  Slow surmise

Too vague to pen, too actual to ignore,

Have strained him hour by hour, and more and more.

He takes the sea to Florence, to declare

His doubts to Austria's ministrator there.

SPIRIT IRONIC

When he returns, Napoleon will be—where?

Boats put off from these ships to the quay, where are now discovered

to have silently gathered a body of grenadiers of the Old Guard.  The

faces of DROUOT and CAMBRONNE are revealed by the occasional fleck of

a lantern to be in command of them.  They are quietly taken aboard

the brig, and a number of men of different arms to the other vessels.

CHORUS OF RUMOURS
[aerial music]

Napoleon is going,

And nought will prevent him;

He snatches the moment

Occasion has lent him!

And what is he going for,

Worn with war's labours?

—To reconquer Europe

With seven hundred sabres.

About eight o'clock we observe that the windows of the Palace of

the Mulini are lighted and open, and that two women sit at them:

the EMPEROR'S mother and the PRINCESS PAULINE.  They wave adieux

to some one below, and in a short time a little open low-wheeled

carriage, drawn by the PRINCESS PAULINE'S two ponies, descends

from the house to the port.  The crowd exclaims "The Emperor!"

NAPOLEON appears in his grey great-coat, and is much fatter than

when he left France.  BERTRAND sits beside him.

He quickly alights and enters the waiting boat.  It is a tense

moment.  As the boat rows off the sailors sing the Marseillaise,

and the gathered inhabitants join in.  When the boat reaches the

brig its sailors join in also, and shout "Paris or death!"  Yet

the singing has a melancholy cadence.  A gun fires as a signal

of departure.  The night is warm and balmy for the season.  Not

a breeze is there to stir a sail, and the ships are motionless.

CHORUS OF RUMOURS

Haste is salvation;

And still he stays waiting:

The calm plays the tyrant,

His venture belating!

Should the corvette return

With the anxious Scotch colonel,

Escape would be frustrate,

Retention eternal.

Four aching hours are spent thus.  NAPOLEON remains silent on the

deck, looking at the town lights, whose reflections bore like augers

into the water of the bay.  The sails hang flaccidly.  Then a feeble

breeze, then a strong south wind, begins to belly the sails; and the

vessels move.

CHORUS OF RUMOURS

The south wind, the south wind,

The south wind will save him,

Embaying the frigate

Whose speed would enslave him;

Restoring the Empire

That fortune once gave him!

The moon rises and the ships silently disappear over the horizon

as it mounts higher into the sky.

SCENE II

VIENNA.  THE IMPERIAL PALACE

[The fore-part of the scene is the interior of a dimly lit gallery

with an openwork screen or grille on one side of it that commands

a bird's-eye view of the grand saloon below.  At present the screen

is curtained.  Sounds of music and applause in the saloon ascend

into the gallery, and an irradiation from the same quarter shines

up through chinks in the curtains of the grille.

Enter the gallery MARIE LOUISE and the COUNTESS OF BRIGNOLE,

followed by the COUNT NEIPPERG, a handsome man of forty two with

a bandage over one eye.]

COUNTESS OF BRIGNOLE

Listen, your Majesty.  You gather all

As well as if you moved amid them there,

And are advantaged with free scope to flit

The moment the scene palls.

MARIE LOUISE

     Ah, my dear friend,

To put it so is flower-sweet of you;

But a fallen Empress, doomed to furtive peeps

At scenes her open presence would unhinge,

Reads not much interest in them!  Yet, in truth,

'Twas gracious of my father to arrange

This glimpse-hole for my curiosity.

—But I must write a letter ere I look;

You can amuse yourself with watching them.—

Count, bring me pen and paper.  I am told

Madame de Montesquiou has been distressed

By some alarm; I write to ask its shape.

[NEIPPERG spreads writing materials on a table, and MARIE LOUISE

sits.  While she writes he stays near her.  MADAME DE BRIGNOLE

goes to the screen and parts the curtains.

The light of a thousand candles blazes up into her eyes from

below.  The great hall is decorated in white and silver, enriched

by evergreens and flowers.  At the end a stage is arranged, and

Tableaux Vivants are in progress thereon, representing the history

of the House of Austria, in which figure the most charming women

of the Court.

There are present as spectators nearly all the notables who have

assembled for the Congress, including the EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA

himself, has gay wife, who quite eclipses him, the EMPEROR

ALEXANDER, the KING OF PRUSSIA—still in the mourning he has

never abandoned since the death of QUEEN LUISA,—the KING

OF BAVARIA and his son, METTERNICH, TALLEYRAND, WELLINGTON,

NESSELRODE, HARDENBERG; and minor princes, ministers, and

officials of all nations.]

COUNTESS OF BRIGNOLE
[suddenly from he grille]

Something has happened—so it seems, madame!

The Tableau gains no heed from them, and all

Turn murmuring together.

MARIE LOUISE

What may be?

[She rises with languid curiosity, and COUNT NEIPPERG adroitly

takes her hand and leads her forward.  All three look down through

the grille.]

NEIPPERG

some strange news, certainly, your Majesty,

Is being discussed.—I'll run down and inquire.

MARIE LOUISE
[playfully]

Nay—stay here.  We shall learn soon enough.

NEIPPERG

Look at their faces now.  Count Metternich

Stares at Prince Talleyrand—no muscle moving.

The King of Prussia blinks bewilderedly

Upon Lord Wellington.

MARIE LOUISE
[concerned]