Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1082 page)

And fifty thousand heads; which coils itself

About the buildings there.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

          Thou dost indeed.

It is the Monster Devastation.  Watch.

Round the church they fight without quarter, shooting face to face,

stabbing with unfixed bayonets, and braining with the butts of

muskets.  The village catches fire, and soon becomes a furnace.

The crash of splitting timbers as doors are broken through, the

curses of the fighters, rise into the air, with shouts of "En

avant!" from the further side of the stream, and "Vorwarts!" from

the nearer.

The battle extends to the west by Le Hameau and Saint-Amand la Haye;

and Ligny becomes invisible under a shroud of smoke.

VOICES
[at the base of the mill]

This sun will go down bloodily for us!

The English, sharply sighed for by Prince Blucher,

Cannot appear.  Wellington words across

That hosts have set on him at Quatre-Bras,

And leave him not one bayonet to spare!

The truth of this intelligence is apparent.  A low dull sound heard

lately from the direction of Quatre-Bras has increased to a roaring

cannonade.  The scene abruptly closes.

SCENE VI

THE FIELD AT QUATRE-BRAS

[The same day.  The view is southward, and the straight gaunt

highway from Brussels [behind the spectator]
to Charleroi over

the hills in front, bisects the picture from foreground to

distance.  Near at hand, where it is elevated and open, there

crosses it obliquely, at a point called Les Quatre-Bras, another

road which comes from Nivelle, five miles to the gazer's right

rear, and goes to Namur, twenty miles ahead to the left.  At a

distance of five or six miles in this latter direction it passes

near the previous scene, Ligny, whence the booming of guns can

be continuously heard.

Between the cross-roads in the centre of the scene and the far

horizon the ground dips into a hollow, on the other side of which

the same straight road to Charleroi is seen climbing the crest,

and over it till out of sight.  From a hill on the right hand of

the mid-distance a large wood, the wood of Bossu, reaches up

nearly to the crossways, which give their name to the buildings

thereat, consisting of a few farm-houses and an inn.

About three-quarters of a mile off, nearly hidden by the horizon

towards Charleroi, there is also a farmstead, Gemioncourt; another,

Piraumont, stands on an eminence a mile to the left of it, and

somewhat in front of the Namur road.]

DUMB SHOW

As this scene uncovers the battle is beheld to be raging at its

height, and to have reached a keenly tragic phase.  WELLINGTON has

returned from Ligny, and the main British and Hanoverian position,

held by the men who marched out of Brussels in the morning, under

officers who danced the previous night at the Duchess's, is along

the Namur road to the left of the perspective, and round the cross-

road itself.  That of the French, under Ney, is on the crests further

back, from which they are descending in imposing numbers.  Some

advanced columns are assailing the English left, while through the

smoke-hazes of the middle of the field two lines of skirmishers

are seen firing at each other—the southernmost dark blue, the

northernmost dull red.  Time lapses till it is past four o'clock.

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

The cannonade of the French ordnance-lines

Has now redoubled.  Columns new and dense

Of foot, supported by fleet cavalry,

Straightly impinge upon the Brunswick bands

That border the plantation of Bossu.

Above some regiments of the assaulting French

A flag like midnight swims upon the air,

To say no quarter may be looked for there!

The Brunswick soldiery, much notched and torn by the French grape-

shot, now lie in heaps.  The DUKE OF BRUNSWICK himself, desperate

to keep them steady, lights his pipe, and rides slowly up and down

in front of his lines previous to the charge which follows.

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

The French have heaved them on the Brunswickers,

And borne them back.  Now comes the Duke's told time.

He gallops at the head of his hussars—

Those men of solemn and appalling guise,

Full-clothed in black, with nodding hearsy plumes,

A shining silver skull and cross of bones

Set upon each, to byspeak his slain sire....

Concordantly, the expected bullet starts

And finds the living son.

BRUNSWICK reels to the ground.  His troops, disheartened, lose their

courage and give way.

The French front columns, and the cavalry supporting them, shout

as they advance.  The Allies are forced back upon the English main

position.  WELLINGTON is in personal peril for a time, but he escapes

it by a leap of his horse.

A curtain of smoke drops.  An interval.  The curtain reascends.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Behold again the Dynasts' gory gear!

Since we regarded, what has progressed here?

RECORDING ANGEL
[in recitative]

Musters of English foot and their allies

Came palely panting by the Brussels way,

And, swiftly stationed, checked their counter-braves.

Ney, vexed by lack of like auxiliaries,

Bade then the columned cuirassiers to charge

In all their edged array of weaponcraft.

Yea; thrust replied to thrust, and fire to fire;

The English broke, till Picton prompt to prop them

Sprang with fresh foot-folk from the covering rye.

Next, Pire's cavalry took up the charge....

And so the action sways.  The English left

Is turned at Piraumont; whilst on their right

Perils infest the greenwood of Bossu;

Wellington gazes round with dubious view;

England's long fame in fight seems sepulchered,

And ominous roars swell loudlier Ligny-ward.

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

New rage has wrenched the battle since thou'st writ;

Hot-hasting succours of light cannonry

Lately come up, relieve the English stress;

Kellermann's cuirassiers, both man and horse

All plated over with the brass of war,

Are rolling on the highway.  More brigades

Of British, soiled and sweltering, now are nigh,

Who plunge within the boscage of Bossu;

Where in the hidden shades and sinuous creeps

Life-struggles can be heard, seen but in peeps.

Therewith the foe's accessions harass Ney,

Racked that no needful d'Erlon darks the way!

Inch by inch NEY has to draw off: WELLINGTON promptly advances.  At

dusk NEY'S army finds itself back at Frasnes, where he meets D'ERLON

coming up to his assistance, too late.

The weary English and their allies, who have been on foot ever since

one o'clock the previous morning, prepare to bivouac in front of the

cross-roads.   Their fires flash up for a while; and by and by the

dead silence of heavy sleep hangs over them.  WELLINGTON goes into

his tent, and the night darkens.

A Prussian courier from Ligny enters, who is conducted into the tent

to WELLINGTON.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

What tidings can a courier bring that count

Here, where such mighty things are native born?

RECORDING ANGEL
[in recitative]

The fury of the tumult there begun

Scourged quivering Ligny through the afternoon:

Napoleon's great intent grew substantive,

And on the Prussian pith and pulse he bent

His foretimed blow.  Blucher, to butt the shock,

Called up his last reserves, and heading on,

With blade high brandished by his aged arm,

Spurred forward his white steed.  But they, outspent,

Failed far to follow.  Darkness coped the sky,

And storm, and rain with thunder.  Yet once more

He cheered them on to charge.  His horse, the while,

Pierced by a bullet, fell on him it bore.

He, trampled, bruised, faint, and in disarray

Dragged to another mount, was led away.

His ragged lines withdraw from sight and sound,

And their assailants camp upon the ground.

The scene shuts with midnight.

SCENE VII

BRUSSELS.  THE PLACE ROYALE

[The same night, dark and sultry.  A crowd of citizens throng the

broad Place.  They gaze continually down the Rue de Namur, along

which arrive minute by minute carts and waggons laden with wounded

men.  Other wounded limp into the city on foot.  At much greater

speed enter fugitive soldiers from the miscellaneous contingents

of WELLINGTON'S army at Quatre-Bras, who gesticulate and explain

to the crowd that all is lost and that the French will soon be in

Brussels.

Baggage-carts and carriages, with and without horses, stand before

an hotel, surrounded by a medley of English and other foreign

nobility and gentry with their valets and maids.  Bulletins from

the battlefield are affixed on the corner of the Place, and people

peer at them by the dim oil lights.

A rattle of hoofs reaches the ears, entering the town by the same

Namur gate.  The riders disclose themselves to be Belgian hussars,

also from the field.]

SEVERAL HUSSARS

The French approach!  Wellington is beaten.  Bonaparte is at our heels.

[Consternation reaches a climax.  Horses are hastily put-to at the

hotel: people crowd into the carriages and try to drive off.  They

get jammed together and hemmed in by the throng.  Unable to move

they quarrel and curse despairingly in sundry tongues.]

BARON CAPELLEN

Affix the new bulletin.  It is a more assuring one, and may quiet

them a little.

[A new bulletin is nailed over the old one.]

MAYOR

Good people, calm yourselves.  No victory has been won by Bonaparte.

The noise of guns heard all the afternoon became fainter towards the

end, showing beyond doubt that the retreat was away from the city.

A CITIZEN

The French are said to be forty thousand strong at Les Quatre-Bras,

and no forty thousand British marched out against them this morning!

ANOTHER CITIZEN

And it is whispered that the city archives and the treasure-chest

have been sent to Antwerp!

MAYOR

Only as a precaution.  No good can be gained by panic.  Sixty or

seventy thousand of the Allies, all told, face Napoleon at this

hour.  Meanwhile who is to attend to the wounded that are being

brought in faster and faster?  Fellow-citizens, do your duty by

these unfortunates, and believe me that when engaged in such an

act of mercy no enemy will hurt you.

CITIZENS

What can we do?

MAYOR

I invite all those who have such, to bring mattresses, sheets, and

coverlets to the Hotel de Ville, also old linen and lint from the

houses of the cures.

[Many set out on this errand.  An interval.  Enter a courier, who

speaks to the MAYOR and the BARON CAPELLEN.]

BARON CAPELLEN
[to Mayor]

Better inform them immediately, to prevent a panic.

MAYOR
[to Citizens]

I grieve to tell you that the Duke of Brunswick, whom you saw ride

out this morning, was killed this afternoon at Les Quatre-Bras.  A

musket-ball passed through his bridle-hand and entered his belly.

His body is now arriving.  Carry yourselves gravely.

[A lane is formed in the crowd in the direction of the Rue de

Namur; they wait.  Presently an extemporized funeral procession,

with the body of the DUKE on a gun-carriage, and a small escort

of Brunswickers with carbines reversed, comes slowly up the

street, their silver death's-heads shining in the lamplight.

The agitation of the citizens settles into a silent gloom as

the mournful train passes.]

MAYOR
[to Baron Capellen]

I noticed the strange look of prepossession on his face at the ball

last night, as if he knew what was going to be.

BARON CAPELLEN

The Duchess mentioned it to me.... He hated the French, if any

man ever did, and so did his father before him!  Here comes the

English Colonel Hamilton, straight from the field.  He will give

us trustworthy particulars.

[Enter COLONEL HAMILTON by the Rue de Namur.  He converses with

the MAYOR and the BARON on the issue of the struggle.]

MAYOR

Now I will go the Hotel de Ville, and get it ready for those wounded

who can find no room in private houses.

[Exeunt MAYOR, CAPELLEN, D'URSEL, HAMILTON, etc. severally.  Many

citizens descend in the direction of the Hotel de Ville to assist.

Those who remain silently watch the carts bringing in the wounded

till a late hour.  The doors of houses in the Place and elsewhere