Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1076 page)

     Yes; so it seems....

They are thunderstruck.  See, though the music beats,

The ladies of the Tableau leave their place,

And mingle with the rest, and quite forget

That they are in masquerade.  The sovereigns show

By far the gravest mien.... I wonder, now,

If it has aught to do with me or mine?

Disasters mostly have to do with me!

COUNTESS OF BRIGNOLE

Those rude diplomists from England there,

At your Imperial father's consternation,

And Russia's, and the King of Prussia's gloom,

Shake shoulders with hid laughter!  That they call

The English sense of humour, I infer,—

To see a jest in other people's troubles!

MARIE LOUISE
[hiding her presages]

They ever take things thus phlegmatically:

The safe sea minimizes Continental scare

In their regard.  I wish it did in mine!

But Wellington laughs not, as I discern.

NEIPPERG

Perhaps, though fun for the other English here,

It means new work for him.  Ah—notice now

The music makes no more pretence to play!

Sovereigns and ministers have moved apart,

And talk, and leave the ladies quite aloof—

Even the Grand Duchesses and Empress, all—

Such mighty cogitations trance their minds!

MARIE LOUISE
[with more anxiety]

Poor ladies; yea, they draw into the rear,

And whisper ominous words among themselves!

Count Neipperg—I must ask you now—go glean

What evil lowers.  I am riddled through

With strange surmises and more strange alarms!

[The COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU enters.]

Ah—we shall learn it now.  Well—what, madame?

COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU
[breathlessly]

Your Majesty, the Emperor Napoleon

Has vanished from Elba!  Wither flown,

And how, and why, nobody says or knows.

MARIE LOUISE
[sinking into a chair]

My divination pencilled on my brain

Something not unlike that!  The rigid mien

That mastered Wellington suggested it....

Complicity will be ascribed to me,

Unwitting though I stand!...
[A pause.]

     He'll not succeed!

And my fair plans for Parma will be marred,

And my son's future fouled!—I must go hence,

And instantly declare to Metternich

That I know nought of this; and in his hands

Place me unquestioningly, with dumb assent

To serve the Allies.... Methinks that I was born

Under an evil-coloured star, whose ray

Darts death at joys!—Take me away, Count.—You
[to the ladies]

Can stay and see the end.

[Exeunt MARIE LOUISE and NEIPPERG.  MESDAMES DE MONTESQUIOU and

DE BRIGNOLE go to the grille and watch and listen.]

VOICE OF ALEXANDER
[below]

I told you, Prince, that it would never last!

VOICE OF TALLEYRAND

Well, sire, you should have sent him to the Azores,

Or the Antilles, or best, Saint-Helena.

VOICE OF THE KING OF PRUSSIA

Instead, we send him but two days from France,

Give him an island as his own domain,

A military guard of large resource,

And millions for his purse!

ANOTHER VOICE

     The immediate cause

Must be a negligence in watching him.

The British Colonel Campbell should have seen

That apertures for flight were wired and barred

To such a cunning bird!

ANOTHER VOICE

     By all report

He took the course direct to Naples Bay.

VOICES
[of new arrivals]

He has made his way to France—so all tongues tell—

And landed there, at Cannes! 
[Excitement.]

COUNTESS OF BRIGNOLE

     Do now but note

How cordial intercourse resolves itself

To sparks of sharp debate!  The lesser guests

Are fain to steal unnoticed from a scene

Wherein they feel themselves as surplusage

Beside the official minds.—I catch a sign

The King of Prussia makes the English Duke;

They leave the room together.

COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU

     Yes; wit wanes,

And all are going—Prince Talleyrand,

The Emperor Alexander, Metternich,

The Emperor Francis.... So much for the Congress!

Only a few blank nobodies remain,

And they seem terror-stricken.... Blackly ends

Such fair festivities.  The red god War

Stalks Europe's plains anew!

[The curtain of the grille is dropped.  MESDAMES DE MONTESQUIOU

and DE BRIGNOLE leave the gallery.  The light is extinguished

there and the scene disappears.]

SCENE III

LA MURE, NEAR GRENOBLE

[A lonely road between a lake and some hills, two or three miles

outside the village of la Mure, is discovered.  A battalion of

the Fifth French royalist regiment of the line under COMMANDANT

LESSARD, is drawn up in the middle of the road with a company of

sappers and miners, comprising altogether about eight hundred men.

Enter to them from the south a small detachment of lancers with

an aide-de-camp at their head.  They ride up to within speaking

distance.]

LESSARD

They are from Bonaparte.  Present your arms!

AIDE
[calling]

We'd parley on Napoleon's behalf,

And fain would ask you join him.

LESSARD

     Al parole

With rebel bands the Government forbids.

Come five steps further and we fire!

AIDE

     To France,

And to posterity through fineless time,

Must you then answer for so foul a blow

Against the common weal!

[NAPOLEON'S aide-de-camp and the lancers turn about and ride

back out of sight.  The royalist troops wait.  Presently there

reappears from the same direction a small column of soldiery,

representing the whole of NAPOLEON'S little army shipped from

Elba.  It is divided into an advance-guard under COLONEL MALLET,

and two bodies behind, a troop of Polish lancers under COLONEL

JERMANWSKI on the right side of the road, and some officers

without troops on the left, under MAJOR PACCONI.

NAPOLEON rides in the midst of the advance-guard, in the old

familiar "redingote grise," cocked hat, and tricolor cockade,

his well-known profile keen against the hills.  He is attended

by GENERALS BERTRAND, DROUOT, and CAMBRONNE.  When they get within

gun-shot of the royalists the men are halted.  NAPOLEON dismounts

and steps forward.]

NAPOLEON

     Direct the men

To lodge their weapons underneath the arm,

Points downward.  I shall not require them here.

COLONEL MALLET

Sire, is it not a needless jeopardy

To meet them thus?  The sentiments of these

We do not know, and the first trigger pressed

May end you.

NAPOLEON

     I have thought it out, my friend,

And value not my life as in itself,

But as to France, severed from whose embrace]

I am dead already.

[He repeats the order, which is carried out.  There is a breathless

silence, and people from the village gather round with tragic

expectations.  NAPOLEON walks on alone towards the Fifth battalion,

Throwing open his great-coat and revealing his uniform and the

ribbon of the Legion of Honour.  Raising his hand to his hat he

salutes.]

LESSARD

Present arms!

[The firelocks of the royalist battalion are levelled at NAPOLEON.]

NAPOLEON
[still advancing]

     Men of the Fifth,

See—here I am!... Old friends, do you not know me?

If there be one among you who would slay

His Chief of proud past years, let him come on

And do it now! 
[A pause.]

LESSARD
[to his next officer]

     They are death-white at his words!

They'll fire not on this man.  And I am helpless.

SOLDIERS
[suddenly]

Why yes!  We know you, father.  Glad to see ye!

The Emperor for ever!  Ha!  Huzza!

[They throw their arms upon the ground, and, rushing forward,

sink down and seize NAPOLEON'S knees and kiss his hands.  Those

who cannot get near him wave their shakos and acclaim him

passionately.  BERTRAND, DROUOT, and CAMBRONNE come up.]

NAPOLEON
[privately]

All is accomplished, Bertrand!  Ten days more,

And we are snug within the Tuileries.

[The soldiers tear out their white cockades and trample on them,

and disinter from the bottom of their knapsacks tricolors, which

they set up.

NAPOLEON'S own men now arrive, and fraternize with and embrace

the soldiers of the Fifth.  When the emotion has subsided,

NAPOLEON forms the whole body into a square and addresses them.]

Soldiers, I came with these few faithful ones

To save you from the Bourbons,—treasons, tricks,

Ancient abuses, feudal tyranny—

From which I once of old delivered you.

The Bourbon throne is illegitimate

Because not founded on the nation's will,

But propped up for the profit of a few.

Comrades, is this not so?

A GRENADIER

     Yes, verily, sire.

You are the Angel of the Lord to us;

We'll march with you to death or victory! 
[Shouts.]

[At this moment a howling dog crosses in front of them with a

cockade tied to its tail.  The soldiery of both sides laugh

loudly.

NAPOLEON forms both bodies of troops into one column.  Peasantry

run up with buckets of sour wine and a single glass; NAPOLEON

takes his turn with the rank and file in drinking from it.  He

bids the whole column follow him to Grenoble and Paris.  Exeunt

soldiers headed by NAPOLEON.   The scene shuts.]

SCENE IV

SCHONBRUNN

[The gardens of the Palace.  Fountains and statuary are seen

around, and the Gloriette colonnade rising against the sky on

a hill behind.

The ex-EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE is discovered walking up and down.

Accompanying her is the KING OF ROME—now a blue-eye, fair-haired

child—in the charge of the COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU.  Close by is

COUNT NEIPPERG, and at a little distance MENEVAL, her attendant

and Napoleon's adherent.

The EMPEROR FRANCIS and METTERNICH enter at the other end of the

parterre.]

MARIE LOUISE
[with a start]

Here are the Emperor and Prince Metternich.

Wrote you as I directed?

NEIPPERG

     Promptly so.

I said your Majesty had not part

In this mad move of your Imperial spouse,

And made yourself a ward of the Allies;

Adding, that you had vowed irrevocably

To enter France no more.

MARIE LOUISE

     Your worthy zeal

Has been a trifle swift.  My meaning stretched

Not quite so far as that.... And yet—and yet

It matters little.  Nothing matters much!

[The EMPEROR and METTERNICH come forward.  NEIPPERG retires.]

FRANCIS

My daughter, you did not a whit too soon

Voice your repudiation.  Have you seen

What the allies have papered Europe with?

MARIE LOUISE

I have seen nothing.

FRANCIS

Please you read it, Prince.

METTERNICH
[taking out a paper]

"The Powers assembled at the Congress here

Owe it to their own troths and dignities,

And to the furtherance of social order,

To make a solemn Declaration, thus:

By breaking the convention as to Elba,

Napoleon Bonaparte forthwith destroys

His only legal title to exist,

And as a consequence has hurled himself

Beyond the pale of civil intercourse.

Disturber of the tranquillity of the world,

There can be neither peace nor truce with him,

And public vengeance is his self-sought doom.—

Signed by the Plenipotentiaries."

MARIE LOUISE
[pale]

     O God,

How terrible!... What shall—-
[she begins weeping.]

KING OF ROME

     Is it papa

They want to hurt like that, dear Mamma 'Quiou?

Then 'twas no good my praying for him so;

And I can see that I am not going to be

A King much longer!

COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU 
[retiring with the child]

     Pray for him, Monseigneur,

Morning and evening just the same!  They plan

To take you off from me.  But don't forget—