Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1077 page)

Do as I say!

KING OF ROME

     Yes, Mamma 'Quiou, I will!—

But why have I no pages now?  And why

Does my mamma the Empress weep so much?

COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU

We'll talk elsewhere.

[MONTESQUIOU and the KING OF ROME withdraw to back.]

FRANCIS

     At least, then, you agree

Not to attempt to follow Paris-ward

Your conscience-lacking husband, and create

More troubles in the State?—Remember this,

I sacrifice my every man and horse

Ere he Rule France again.

MARIE LOUISE

     I am pledged already

To hold by the Allies; let that suffice!

METTERNICH

For the clear good of all, your Majesty,

And for your safety and the King of Rome's,

It most befits that your Imperial father

Should have sole charge of the young king henceforth,

While these convulsions rage.  That this is so

You will see, I think, in view of being installed

As Parma's Duchess, and take steps therefor.

MARIE LOUISE
[coldly]

I understand the terms to be as follows:

Parma is mine—my very own possession,—

And as a counterquit, the guardianship

Is ceded to my father of my son,

And I keep out of France.

METTERNICH

     And likewise this:

All missives that your Majesty receives

Under Napoleon's hand, you tender straight

The Austrian Cabinet, the seals unbroke;

With those received already.

FRANCIS

     You discern

How vastly to the welfare of your son

This course must tend?  Duchess of Parma throned

You shine a wealthy woman, to endow

Your son with fortune and large landed fee.

MARIE LOUISE
[bitterly]

I must have Parma: and those being the terms

Perforce accept!  I weary of the strain

Of statecraft and political embroil:

I long for private quiet!... And now wish

To say no more at all.

[MENEVAL, who has heard her latter remarks, turns sadly away.]

FRANCIS

     There's nought to say;

All is in train to work straightforwardly.

[FRANCIS and METTERNICH depart.  MARIE LOUISE retires towards the

child and the COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU at the back of the parterre,

where they are joined by NEIPPERG.

Enter in front DE MONTROND, a secret emissary of NAPOLEON, disguised

as a florist examining the gardens.  MENEVAL recognizes him and

comes forward.]

MENEVAL

Why are you here, de Montrond?  All is hopeless!

DE MONTROND

Wherefore?  The offer of the Regency

I come empowered to make, and will conduct her

Safely to Strassburg with her little son,

If she shrink not to breech her as a man,

And tiptoe from a postern unperceived?

MENEVAL

Though such quaint gear would mould her to a youth

Fair as Adonis on a hunting morn,

Yet she'll refuse!  A German prudery

Sits on her still; more, kneaded by her arts

There's no will left to her.  I conjured her

To hold aloof, sign nothing.  But in vain.

DE MONTROND
[looking towards Marie Louise]

I fain would put it to her privately!

MENEVAL

A thing impossible.  No word to her

Without a word to him you see with her,

Neipperg to wit.  She grows indifferent

To dreams as Regent; visioning a future

Wherein her son and self are two of three

But where the third is not Napoleon.

DE MONTROND
[In sad surprise]

I may as well go hence then as I came,

And kneel to Heaven for one thing—that success

Attend Napoleon in the coming throes!

MENEVAL

I'll walk with you for safety to the gate,

Though I am as the Emperor's man suspect,

And any day may be dismissed.  If so

I go to Paris.

[Exeunt MENEVAL and DE MONTROND.]

SPIRIT IRONIC

Had he but persevered, and biassed her

To slip the breeches on, and hie away,

Who knows but that the map of France had shaped

And it will never now!

[There enters from the other side of the gardens MARIA CAROLINA,

ex-Queen of Naples, and grandmother of Marie Louise.  The latter,

dismissing MONTESQUIOU and the child, comes forward.]

MARIA CAROLINA

I have crossed from Hetzendorf to kill an hour;

Why art so pensive, dear?

MARIE LOUISE

     Ah, why!  My lines

Rule ruggedly.  You doubtless have perused

This vicious cry against the Emperor?

He's outlawed—to be caught alive or dead,

Like any noisome beast!

MARIA CAROLINA

     Nought have I heard,

My child.  But these vile tricks, to pluck you from

Your nuptial plightage and your rightful glory

Make me belch oaths!—You shall not join your husband

Do they assert?  My God, I know one thing,

Outlawed or no, I'd knot my sheets forthwith,

Were I but you, and steal to him in disguise,

Let come what would come!  Marriage is for life.

MARIE LOUISE

Mostly; not always: not with Josephine;

And, maybe, not with me.  But, that apart,

I could do nothing so outrageous.

Too many things, dear grand-dame, you forget.

A puppet I, by force inflexible,

Was bid to wed Napoleon at a nod,—

The man acclaimed to me from cradle-days

As the incarnate of all evil things,

The Antichrist himself.—I kissed the cup,

Gulped down the inevitable, and married him;

But none the less I saw myself therein

The lamb whose innocent flesh was dressed to grace

The altar of dynastic ritual!—

Hence Elba flung no duty-call to me,

Neither does Paris now.

MARIA CAROLINA

     I do perceive

They have worked on you to much effect already!

Go, join your Count; he waits you, dear.—Well, well;

The way the wind blows needs no cock to tell!

[Exeunt severally QUEEN MARIA CAROLINA and MARIE LOUISE with

NEIPPERG.  The sun sets over the gardens and the scene fades.]

SCENE V

LONDON. THE OLD HOUSE OF COMMONS

[The interior of the Chamber appears as in Scene III., Act I.,

Part I., except that the windows are not open and the trees

without are not yet green.

Among the Members discovered in their places are, of ministers

and their supporters, LORD CASTLEREAGH the Foreign Secretary,

VANSITTART Chancellor of the Exchequer, BATHURST, PALMERSTON

the War Secretary, ROSE, PONSONBY, ARBUTHNOT, LUSHINGTON, GARROW

the Attorney General, SHEPHERD, LONG, PLUNKETT, BANKES; and among

those of the Opposition SIR FRANCIS BURDETT, WHITBREAD, TIERNEY,

ABERCROMBY, DUNDAS, BRAND, DUNCANNON, LAMBTON, HEATHCOTE, SIR

SAMUEL ROMILLY, G. WALPOLE, RIDLEY, OSBORNE, and HORNER.

Much interest in the debate is apparent, and the galleries are

full.  LORD CASTLEREAGH rises.]

CASTLEREAGH

At never a moment in my stressed career,

Amid no memory-moving urgencies,

Have I, sir, felt so gravely set on me

The sudden, vast responsibility

That I feel now.  Few things conceivable

Could more momentous to the future be

Than what may spring from counsel here to-night

On means to meet the plot unparalleled

In full fierce play elsewhere.  Sir, this being so,

And seeing how the events of these last days

Menace the toil of twenty anxious years,

And peril all that period's patient aim,

No auguring mind can doubt that deeds which root

In steadiest purpose only, will effect

Deliverance from a world-calamity

As dark as any in the vaults of Time.

Now, what we notice front and foremost is

That this convulsion speaks not, pictures not

The heart of France.  It comes of artifice—

From the unique and sinister influence

Of a smart army-gamester—upon men

Who have shared his own excitements, spoils, and crimes.—

This man, who calls himself most impiously

The Emperor of France by Grace of God,

Has, in the scale of human character,

Dropt down so low, that he has set at nought

All pledges, stipulations, guarantees,

And stepped upon the only pedestal

On which he cares to stand—his lawless will.

Indeed, it is a fact scarce credible

That so mysteriously in his own breast

Did this adventurer lock the scheme he planned,

That his companion Bertrand, chief in trust,

Was unapprised thereof until the hour

In which the order to embark was given!

I think the House will readily discern

That the wise, wary trackway to be trod

By our own country in the crisis reached,

Must lie 'twixt two alternatives,—of war

In concert with the Continental Powers,

Or of an armed and cautionary course

Sufficing for the present phase of things.

Whatever differences of view prevail

On the so serious and impending question—

Whether in point of prudent reckoning

'Twere better let the power set up exist,

Or promptly at the outset deal with it—

Still, to all eyes it is imperative

That some mode of safeguardance be devised;

And if I cannot range before the House,

At this stage, all the reachings of the case,

I will, if needful, on some future day

Poise these nice matters on their merits here.

Meanwhile I have to move:

That an address unto His Royal Highness

Be humbly offered for his gracious message,

And to assure him that his faithful Commons

Are fully roused to the dark hazardries

To which the life and equanimity

Of Europe are exposed by deeds in France,

In contravention of the plighted pacts

At Paris in the course of yester-year.

That, in a cause of such wide-waked concern,

It doth afford us real relief to know

That concert with His Majesty's Allies

Is being effected with no loss of time—

Such concert as will thoroughly provide

For Europe's full and long security. 
[Cheers.]

That we, with zeal, will speed such help to him

So to augment his force by sea and land

As shall empower him to set afoot

Swift measures meet for its accomplishing. 
[Cheers.]

BURDETT

It seems to me almost impossible,

Weighing the language of the noble lord,

To catch its counsel,—whether peace of war. 
[Hear, hear.]

If I translate his words to signify

The high expediency of watch and ward,

That we may not be taken unawares,

I own concurrence; but if he propose

Too plunge this realm into a sea of blood

To reinstate the Bourbon line in France,

I should but poorly do my duty here

Did I not lift my voice protestingly

Against so ruinous an enterprise!

Sir, I am old enough to call to mind

The first fierce frenzies for the selfsame end,

The fruit of which was to endow this man,

The object of your apprehension now,

With such a might as could not be withstood

By all of banded Europe, till he roamed

And wrecked it wantonly on Russian plains.

Shall, then, another score of scourging years

Distract this land to make a Bourbon king?

Wrongly has Bonaparte's late course been called

A rude incursion on the soil of France.—

Who ever knew a sole and single man

Invade a nation thirty million strong,

And gain in some few days full sovereignty

Against the nation's will!—The truth is this:

The nation longed for him, and has obtained him....

I have beheld the agonies of war

Through many a weary season; seen enough

To make me hold that scarcely any goal

Is worth the reaching by so red a road.

No man can doubt that this Napoleon stands

As Emperor of France by Frenchmen's wills.

Let the French settle, then, their own affairs;

I say we shall have nought to apprehend!—

Much as I might advance in proof of this,

I'll dwell not thereon now.  I am satisfied

To give the general reasons which, in brief,

Balk my concurrence in the Address proposed. 
[Cheers.]

PONSONBY

My words will be but few, for the Address

Constrains me to support it as it stands.

So far from being the primary step to war,

Its sense and substance is, in my regard,

To leave the House to guidance by events

On the grave question of hostilities.

The statements of the noble lord, I hold,

Have not been candidly interpreted

By grafting on to them a headstrong will,

As does the honourable baronet,

To rob the French of Buonaparte's rule,

And force them back to Bourbon monarchism.

That our free land, at this abnormal time,

Should put her in a pose of wariness,

No unwarped mind can doubt.  Must war revive,