II. PERSONS (The names in lower case are mute figures.)
MEN
GEORGE THE THIRD.
THE PRINCE OF WALES, afterwards PRINCE REGENT.
The Royal Dukes.
FOX.
PERCEVAL.
CASTLEREAGH.
AN UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE.
SHERIDAN.
TWO YOUNG LORDS.
Lords Yarmouth and Keith.
ANOTHER LORD.
Other Peers, Ambassadors, Ministers, ex-Ministers, Members of
Parliament, and Persons of Quality and Office.
. . . . . . . . . .
Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterwards Lord Wellington.
SIR JOHN MOORE.
SIR JOHN HOPE.
Sir David Baird.
General Beresford.
COLONEL ANDERSON.
COLONEL GRAHAM.
MAJOR COLBORNE, principal Aide-de-Camp to MOORE.
CAPTAIN HARDINGE.
Paget, Fraser, Hill, Napier.
A CAPTAIN OF HUSSARS AND OTHERS.
Other English Generals, Colonels, Aides, Couriers, and Military
Officers.
TWO SPIES.
TWO ARMY SURGEONS.
AN ARMY CHAPLAIN.
A SERGEANT OF THE FORTY-THIRD.
TWO SOLDIERS OF THE NINTH.
English Forces.
DESERTERS AND STRAGGLERS.
. . . . . . . . . .
DR. WILLIS.
SIR HENRY HALFORD.
DR. HEBERDEN.
DR. BAILLIE.
THE KING'S APOTHECARY.
A GENTLEMAN.
TWO ATTENDANTS ON THE KING.
. . . . . . . . . .
MEMBERS OF A LONDON CLUB.
AN ENGLISHMAN IN VIENNA.
TROTTER, SECRETARY TO FOX.
MR. BAGOT.
MR. FORTH, MASTER OF CEREMONIES.
SERVANTS.
A Beau, A Constable, etc.
. . . . . . . . . .
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.
Joseph Bonaparte.
Louis and Jerome Bonaparte, and other Members of Napoleon's Family.
CAMBACERES, ARCH-CHANCELLOR.
TALLEYRAND.
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE.
Caulaincourt.
Lebrun, Duroc, Prince of Neufchatel, Grand-Duke of Berg.
Eugene de Beauharnais.
CHAMPAGNY, FOREIGN MINISTER
DE BAUSSET, CHAMBERLAIN.
MURAT.
SOULT.
MASSENA.
BERTHIER.
JUNOT.
FOY.
LOISON.
Ney, Lannes, and other French Marshals, general and regimental
Officers, Aides, and Couriers.
TWO FRENCH SUBALTERNS.
ANOTHER FRENCH OFFICER.
French Forces.
. . . . . . . . . .
Grand Marshal, Grand Almoners, Heralds, and other Officials at
Napoleon's marriage.
ABBE DE PRADT, CHAPEL-MASTER.
Corvisart, First Physician to Marie Louis.
BOURDIER, SECOND PHYSICIAN to Marie Louise.
DUBOIS, ACCOUCHEUR to Marie Louise.
Maskers at a Ball.
TWO SERVANTS AT THE TUILERIES.
A PARISIAN CROWD.
GUILLET DE GEVRILLIERE, A CONSPIRATOR.
Louis XVIII. of France.
French Princes in England.
. . . . . . . . . .
THE KING OF PRUSSIA.
Prince Henry of Prussia.
Prince Royal of Bavaria.
PRINCE HOHENLOHE.
Generals Ruchel, Tauenzien, and Attendant Officers.
Prussian Forces.
PRUSSIAN STRAGGLERS.
BERLIN CITIZENS.
. . . . . . . . . .
CARLOS IV., KING OF SPAIN.
FERNANDO, PRINCE OF ASTURIAS, Son to the King.
GODOY, "PRINCE OF PEACE," Lover of the Queen.
COUNT OF MONTIJO.
VISCOUNT MATEROSA, Spanish Deputy.
DON DIEGO DE LA VEGA, Spanish Deputy.
Godoy's Guards and other Soldiery.
SPANISH CITIZENS.
A SERVANT TO GODOY.
Spanish Forces.
Camp-Followers.
. . . . . . . . . .
FRANCIS, EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA.
METTERNICH.
ANOTHER AUSTRIAN MINISTER.
SCHWARZENBERG.
D'AUDENARDE, AN EQUERRY.
AUSTRIAN OFFICERS.
AIDES-DE-CAMP.
Austrian Forces.
Couriers and Secretaries.
VIENNESE CITIZENS.
. . . . . . . . . .
THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER.
The Grand-Duke Constantine.
Prince Labanoff.
Count Lieven.
Generals Bennigsen, Ouwaroff, and others.
Officers in attendance on Alexander.
WOMEN
CAROLINE, PRINCESS OF WALES.
DUCHESS OF YORK.
DUCHESS OF RUTLAND.
MARCHIONESS OF SALISBURY.
MARCHIONESS OF HERTFORD.
Other Peeresses.
MRS. FITZHERBERT.
Ambassadors' Wives, Wives of Minister and Members of Parliament,
and other Ladies of Note.
. . . . . . . . . .
THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE.
HORTENSE, QUEEN OF HOLLAND.
The Mother of Napoleon.
Princess Pauline, and others of Napoleon's Family.
DUCHESS OF MONTEBELLO.
MADAME DE MONTESQUIOU.
MADAME BLAISE, NURSE TO MARIE LOUIS.
Wives of French Ministers, and of other Officials.
Other Ladies of the French Court.
DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME.
. . . . . . . . . .
LOUISA, QUEEN OF PRUSSIA.
The Countess Voss, Lady-in-Waiting.
BERLIN LADIES.
. . . . . . . . . .
MARIA LUISA, QUEEN OF SPAIN.
THEREZA OF BOURBON, WIFE OF GODOY.
DONA JOSEFA TUDO, MISTRESS OF GODOY.
Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen.
A Servant.
. . . . . . . . . .
M. LOUISA BEATRIX, EMPRESS OF AUSTRIA.
THE ARCHDUCHESS MARIE LOUISA, afterwards the EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE.
MADAME METTERNICH.
LADIES OF THE AUSTRIAN COURT.
. . . . . . . . . .
THE EMPRESS-MOTHER OF RUSSIA.
GRAND-DUCHESS ANNE OF RUSSIA.
ACT FIRST
SCENE I
LONDON. FOX'S LODGINGS, ARLINGTON STREET
[FOX, the Foreign Secretary in the new Ministry of All-the-Talents,
sits at a table writing. He is a stout, swarthy man, with shaggy
eyebrows, and his breathing is somewhat obstructed. His clothes
look as though they had been slept in. TROTTER, his private
secretary, is writing at another table near. A servant enters.]
SERVANT
Another stranger presses to see you, sir.
FOX (without raising his eyes)
Oh, another. What's he like?
SERVANT
A foreigner, sir; though not so out-at-elbows as might be thought
from the denomination. He says he's from Gravesend, having lately
left Paris, and that you sent him a passport. He comes with a
police-officer.
FOX
Ah, to be sure. I remember. Bring him in, and tell the officer
to wait outside. (Servant goes out.) Trotter, will you leave us
for a few minutes? But be within hail.
[The secretary retires, and the servant shows in a man who calls
himself GUILLET DE GEVRILLIERE - a tall, thin figure of thirty,
with restless eyes. The door being shut behind him, he is left
alone with the minister. FOX points to a seat, leans back, and
surveys his visitor.]
GEVRILLIERE
Thanks to you, sir, for this high privilege
Of hailing England, and of entering here.
Without a fore-extended confidence
Like this of yours, my plans would not have sped. (A Pause.)
Europe, alas! sir, has her waiting foot
Upon the sill of further slaughter-scenes!
FOX
I fear it is so! - In your lines you wrote,
I think, that you are a true Frenchman born?
GEVRILLIERE
I did, sir.
FOX
How contrived you, then, to cross?
GEVRILLIERE
It was from Embden that I shipped for Gravesend,
In a small sailer called the "Toby," sir,
Masked under Prussian colours. Embden I reached
On foot, on horseback, and by sundry shifts,
From Paris over Holland, secretly.
FOX
And you are stored with tidings of much pith,
Whose tenour would be priceless to the state?
GEVRILLIERE
I am. It is, in brief, no more nor less
Than means to mitigate and even end
These welfare-wasting wars; ay, usher in
A painless spell of peace.
FOX
Prithee speak on.
No statesman can desire it more than I.
GEVRILLIERE (looking to see that the door is shut)
No nation, sir, can live its natural life,
Or think its thoughts in these days unassailed,
No crown-capt head enjoy tranquillity.
The fount of such high spring-tide of disorder,
Fevered disquietude, and forceful death,
Is One, - a single man. He - need I name? -
The ruler is of France.
FOX
Well, in the past
I fear that it has liked so. But we see
Good reason still to hope that broadening views,
Politer wisdom now is helping him
To saner guidance of his arrogant car.
GEVRILLIERE
The generous hope will never be fulfilled!
Ceasing to bluff, then ceases he to be.
None sees that written largelier than himself.
FOX
Then what may be the valued revelation
That you can unlock in such circumstance?
Sir, I incline to spell you as a spy,
And not the honest help for honest men
You gave you out to be!
GEVRILLIERE
I beg, sir,
To spare me that suspicion. Never a thought
Could be more groundless. Solemnly I vow
That notwithstanding what his signals show
The Emperor of France is as I say. -
Yet bring I good assurance, and declare
A medicine for all bruised Europe's sores!
FOX (impatiently)
Well, parley to the point, for I confess
No new negotiation do I note
That you can open up to work such cure.
GEVRILLIERE
The sovereign remedy for an ill effect
Is the extinction of its evil cause.
Safely and surely how to compass this
I have the weighty honour to disclose,
Certain immunities being guaranteed
By those your power can influence, and yourself.
FOX (astonished)
Assassination?
GEVRILLIERE
I care not for names!
A deed's true name is as its purpose is.
The lexicon of Liberty and Peace
Defines not this deed as assassination;
Though maybe it is writ so in the tongue
Of courts and universal tyranny.
FOX
Why brought you this proposal here to me?
GEVRILLIERE
My knowledge of your love of things humane,
Things free, things fair, of truth, of tolerance,
Right, justice, national felicity,
Prompted belief and hope in such a man! -
The matter is by now well forwarded,
A house at Plassy hired as pivot-point
From which the sanct intention can be worked,
And soon made certain. To our good allies
No risk attaches; merely to ourselves.
FOX (touching a private bell)
Sir, your unconscienced hardihood confounds me.
And your mind's measure of my character
Insults it sorely. By your late-sent lines
Of specious import, by your bland address,
I have been led to prattle hopefully
With a cut-throat confessed!
[The head constable and the secretary enter at the same moment.]
Ere worse befall,
Sir, up and get you gone most dexterously!
Conduct this man: lose never sight of him (to the officer)
Till haled aboard some anchor-weighing craft
Bound to remotest coasts from us and France.
GEVRILLIERE (unmoved)
How you may handle me concerns me little.
The project will as roundly ripe itself
Without as with me. Trusty souls remain,
Though my far bones bleach white on austral shores! -
I thank you for the audience. Long ere this
I might have reft your life! Ay, notice here -
(He produces a dagger; which is snatched from him.)
They need not have done that! Even had you risen
To wrestle with, insult, strike, pinion me,
It would have lain unused. In hands like mine
And my allies', the man of peace is safe,
Treat as he may our corporal tenement
In his misreading of a moral code.
[Exeunt GEVRILLIERE and the constable.]
FOX
Trotter, indeed you well may stare at me!
I look warm, eh? - and I am windless, too;
I have sufficient reason to be so.
That dignified and pensive gentleman
Was a bold bravo, waiting for his chance.
He sketched a scheme for murdering Bonaparte,
Either - as in my haste I understood -
By shooting from a window as he passed,
Or by some other wry and stealthy means
That haunt sad brains which brood on despotism,
But lack the tools to justly cope therewith! . . .
On later thoughts I feel not fully sure
If, in my ferment, I did right in this.
No; hail at once the man in charge of him,
And give the word that he is to be detained.
[The secretary goes out. FOX walks to the window in deep
reflection till the secretary returns.]
SECRETARY
I was in time, sir. He has been detained.
FOX
Now what does strict state-honour ask of me? -
No less than that I bare this poppling plot
To the French ruler and our fiercest foe! -
Maybe 'twas but a hoax to pocket pay;
And yet it can mean more . . .
The man's indifference to his own vague doom
Beamed out as one exalted trait in him,
And showed the altitude of his rash dream! -
Well, now I'll get me on to Downing Street,
There to draw up a note to Talleyrand
Retailing him the facts. - What signature
Subscribed this desperate fellow when he wrote?
SECRETARY
"Guillet de la Gevrilliere." Here it stands.
FOX
Doubtless it was a false one. Come along. (Looking out the window.)
Ah - here's Sir Francis Vincent: he'll go with us.
Ugh, what a twinge! Time signals that he draws
Towards the twelfth stroke of my working-day!
I fear old England soon must voice her speech
With Europe through another mouth than mine!
SECRETARY
I trust not, sir. Though you should rest awhile.
The very servants half are invalid
From the unceasing labours of your post,
And these cloaked visitors of every clime
That market on your magnanimity
To gain an audience morning, night, and noon,
Leaving you no respite.
FOX
'Tis true; 'tis true. -
How I shall love my summer holiday
At pleasant Saint-Ann's Hill!
[He leans on the secretary's arm, and they go out.]
SCENE II
THE ROUTE BETWEEN LONDON AND PARIS
[A view now nocturnal, now diurnal, from on high over the Straits
of Dover, and stretching from city to city. By night Paris and
London seem each as a little swarm of lights surrounded by a halo;
by day as a confused glitter of white and grey. The Channel
between them is as a mirror reflecting the sky, brightly or
faintly, as the hour may be.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
What mean these couriers shooting shuttlewise
To Paris and to London, turn and turn?
RUMOURS (chanting in antiphons)
I
The aforesaid tidings fro the minister, spokesman in England's
cause to states afar,
II
Traverse the waters borne by one of such; and thereto Bonaparte's
responses are:
I
"The principles of honour and of truth which ever actuate the
sender's mind
II
"Herein are written largely! Take our thanks: we read that
this conjuncture undesigned
I
"Unfolds felicitous means of showing you that still our eyes
are set, as yours, on peace,
II
"To which great end the Treaty of Amiens must be the ground-
work of our amities."
I
From London then: "The path to amity the King of England
studies to pursue;
II
"With Russia hand in hand he is yours to close the long
convulsions thrilling Europe through."
I
Still fare the shadowy missioners across, by Dover-road and
Calais Channel-track,
II
From Thames-side towers to Paris palace-gates; from Paris
leisurely to London back.
I
Till thus speaks France: "Much grief it gives us that, being
pledged to treat, one Emperor with one King,
II
"You yet have struck a jarring counternote and tone that keys
not with such promising.
I
"In these last word, then, of this pregnant parle; I trust I
may persuade your Excellency
II
"That in no circumstance, on no pretence, a party to our pact can
Russia be."
SPIRIT SINISTER
Fortunately for the manufacture of corpses by machinery Napoleon
sticks to this veto, and so wards off the awkward catastrophe of
a general peace descending upon Europe. Now England.
RUMOURS (continuing)
I
Thereon speeds down through Kent and Picardy, evenly as some
southing sky-bird's shade:
II
"We gather not from your Imperial lines a reason why our words
should be reweighed.
I
"We hold Russia not as our ally that is to be: she stands fully-
plighted so;
II
"Thus trembles peace upon this balance-point: will you that
Russia be let in or no?"
I
Then France rolls out rough words across the strait: "To treat
with you confederate with the Tsar,
II
"Presumes us sunk in sloughs of shamefulness from which we yet
stand gloriously afar!
I
"The English army must be Flanders-fed, and entering Picardy with
pompous prance,
II
"To warrant such! Enough. Our comfort is, the crime of further
strife lies not with France."
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Alas! what prayer will save the struggling lands,
Whose lives are ninepins to these bowling hands?
CHORUS OF RUMOURS
France secretly with - Russia plights her troth!
Britain, that lonely isle, is slurred by both.
SPIRIT SINISTER
It is as neat as an uncovered check at chess! You may now mark
Fox's blank countenance at finding himself thus rewarded for the
good turn done to Bonaparte, and at the extraordinary conduct of
his chilly friend the Muscovite.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
His hand so trembles it can scarce retain
The quill wherewith he lets Lord Yarmouth know
Reserve is no more needed!
SPIRIT IRONIC
Now enters another character of this remarkable little piece - Lord
Lauderdale - and again the messengers fly!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
But what strange figure, pale and noiseless, comes,
By us perceived, unrecognized by those,
Into the very closet and retreat
Of England's Minister?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
The Tipstaff he
Of the Will, the Many-masked, my good friend Death. -
The statesman's feeble form you may perceive
Now hustled into the Invisible,
And the unfinished game of Dynasties
Left to proceed without him!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Here, then, ends
My hope for Europe's reason-wrought repose!
He was the friend of peace - did his great best
To shed her balms upon humanity;
And now he's gone! No substitute remains.
SPIRIT IRONIC
Ay; the remainder of the episode is frankly farcical. Negotiations
are again affected; but finally you discern Lauderdale applying for
passports; and the English Parliament declares to the nation that
peace with France cannot be made.
RUMOURS (concluding)
I
The smouldering dudgeon of the Prussian king, meanwhile, upon the
horizon's rim afar
II
Bursts into running flame, that all his signs of friendliness were
met by moves for war.
I
Attend and hear, for hear ye faintly may, his manifesto made at
Erfurt town,
II
That to arms only dares he now confide the safety and the honour
of his crown!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Draw down the curtain, then, and overscreen
This too-protracted verbal fencing-scene;
And let us turn to clanging foot and horse,
Ordnance, and all the enginry of Force!
[Clouds close over the perspective.]
SCENE III
THE STREETS OF BERLIN
[It is afternoon, and the thoroughfares are crowded with citizens
in an excited and anxious mood. A central path is left open for
some expected arrival.
There enters on horseback a fair woman, whose rich brown curls
stream flutteringly in the breeze, and whose long blue habit
flaps against the flank of her curvetting white mare. She is
the renowned LOUISA, QUEEN OF PRUSSIA, riding at the head of a
regiment of hussars and wearing their uniform. As she prances
along the thronging citizens acclaim her enthusiastically.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Who is this fragile fair, in fighting trim?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
She is the pride of Prussia, whose resolve
Gives ballast to the purpose of her spouse,
And holds him to what men call governing.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Queens have engaged in war; but war's loud trade
Rings with a roar unnatural, fitful, forced,
Practised by woman's hands!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Of her view
The enterprise is that of scores of men,
The strength but half-a-ones.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Would fate had ruled
The valour had been his, hers but the charm!
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
But he has nothing on't, and she has all.
The shameless satires of the bulletins
dispatched to Paris, thence the wide world through,
Disturb the dreams of her by those who love her,
And thus her brave adventurers for the realm
Have blurred her picture, soiled her gentleness,
And wrought her credit harm.
FIRST CITIZEN (vociferously)
Yes, by God: send and ultimatum to Paris, by God; that's what we'll
do, by God. The Confederation of the Rhine was the evil thought of
an evil man bent on ruining us!
SECOND CITIZEN
This country double-faced and double-tongued,
This France, or rather say, indeed, this Man -
(Peoples are honest dealers in the mass) -
This man, to sign a stealthy scroll with Russia
That shuts us off from all indemnities,
While swearing faithful friendship with our King,
And, still professing our safe wardenry,
To fatten other kingdoms at our cost,
Insults us grossly, and makes Europe clang
With echoes of our wrongs. The little states
Of this antique and homely German land
Are severed from their blood-allies and kin -
Hereto of one tradition, interest, hope -
In calling lord this rank adventurer,
Who'll thrust them as a sword against ourselves. -
Surely Great Frederick sweats within his tomb!
THIRD CITIZEN
Well, we awake, though we have slumbered long,
And She is sent by Heaven to kindle us.
[The QUEEN approaches to pass back again with her suite. The
vociferous applause is repeated. They regard her as she nears.]
To cry her Amazon, a blusterer,
A brazen comrade of the bold dragoons
Whose uniform she dons! Her, whose each act
Shows but a mettled modest woman's zeal,
Without a hazard of her dignity
Or moment's sacrifice of seemliness,
To fend off ill from home!
FOURTH CITIZEN (entering)
The tidings fly that Russian Alexander
Declines with emphasis to ratify
The pact of his ambassador with France,
And that the offer made the English King
To compensate the latter at our cost
Has not been taken.
THIRD CITIZEN
And it never will be!
Thus evil does not always flourish, faith.
Throw down the gage while god is fair to us;
He may be foul anon!
(A pause.)
FIFTH CITIZEN (entering)
Our ambassador Lucchesini is already leaving Paris. He could stand
the Emperor no longer, so the Emperor takes his place, has decided
to order his snuff by the ounce and his candles by the pound, lest
he should not be there long enough to use more.
[The QUEEN goes by, and they gaze at here and at the escort of
soldiers.]
Haven't we soldiers? Haven't we the Duke of Brunswick to command
'em? Haven't we provisions, hey? Haven't we fortresses and an
Elbe, to bar the bounce of an invader?
[The cavalcade passes out of sight and the crowd draws off.]
FIRST CITIZEN
By God, I must to beer and 'bacco, to soften my rage!
[Exeunt citizens.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
So doth the Will objectify Itself
In likeness of a sturdy people's wrath,
Which takes no count of the new trends of time,
Trusting ebbed glory in a present need. -
What if their strength should equal not their fire,
And their devotion dull their vigilance? -
Uncertainly, by fits, the Will doth work
In Brunswick's blood, their chief, as in themselves;
It ramifies in streams that intermit
And make their movement vague, old-fashioned, slow
To foil the modern methods counterposed!
[Evening descends on the city, and it grows dusk. The soldiers
being dismissed from duty, some young officers in a frolic of
defiance halt, draw their swords and whet them on the steps of
the FRENCH AMBASSADOR'S residence as they pass. The noise of
whetting is audible through the street.]
CHORUS OF THE PITIES (aerial music)
The soul of a nation distrest
Is aflame,
And heaving with eager unrest
In its aim
To assert its old prowess, and stouten its chronicled fame!
SEMICHORUS I
It boils in a boisterous thrill
Through the mart,
Unconscious well-nigh as the Will
Of its part:
Would it wholly might be so, and feel not the forthcoming smart!
SEMICHORUS II
In conclaves no voice of reflection
Is heard,
King, Councillors, grudge circumspection
A word,
And victory is visioned, and seemings as facts are averred.
CHORUS
Yea, the soul of a nation distrest
Is aflame,
And heaving with eager unrest
In its aim
At supreme desperations to blazon the national name!
[Midnight strikes, lights are extinguished one by one, and the
scene disappears.]
SCENE IV
THE FIELD OF JENA
[Day has just dawned through a grey October haze. The French,
with their backs to the nebulous light, loom out and show
themselves to be already under arms; LANNES holding the centre,
NEY the right, SOULT the extreme right, and AUGEREAU the left.
The Imperial Guard and MURAT'S cavalry are drawn up on the
Landgrafenberg, behind the centre of the French position. In
a valley stretching along to the rear of this height flows
northward towards the Elbe the little river Saale, on which
the town of Jena stands.
On the irregular plateaux in front of the French lines, and almost
close to the latter, are the Prussians un TAUENZIEN; and away on
their right rear towards Weimar the bulk of the army under PRINCE
HOHENLOHE. The DUKE OF BRUNSWICK (father of the Princess of
Wales) is twelve miles off with his force at Auerstadt, in the
valley of the Ilm.
Enter NAPOLEON, and men bearing torches who escort him. He moves
along the front of his troops, and is lost to view behind the
mist and surrounding objects. But his voice is audible.]
NAPOLEON
Keep you good guard against their cavalry,
In past repute the formidablest known,
And such it may be now; so asks our heed.
Receive it, then, in square, unflinchingly. -
Remember, men, last year you captured Ulm,
So make no doubt that you will vanquish these!
SOLDIERS
Long live the Emperor! Advance, advance!
DUMB SHOW
Almost immediately glimpses reveal that LANNES' corps is moving
forward, and amid an unbroken clatter of firelocks spreads out
further and wider upon the stretch of country in front of the
Landgrafenberg. The Prussians, surprised at discerning in the
fog such masses of the enemy close at hand, recede towards the
Ilm.
From PRINCE HOHENLOHE, who is with the body of the Prussians on
the Weimar road to the south, comes perspiring the bulk of the
infantry to rally the retreating regiments of TAUENZIEN, and he
hastens up himself with the cavalry and artillery. The action
is renewed between him and NEY as the clocks of Jena strike ten.
But AUGEREAU is seen coming to Ney's assistance on one flank of
the Prussians, SOULT bearing down on the other, while NAPOLEON
on the Landgrafenberg orders the Imperial Guard to advance. The
doomed Prussians are driven back, this time more decisively,
falling in great numbers and losing many as prisoners as they
reel down the sloping land towards the banks of the Ilm behind
them. GENERAL RUCHEL, in a last despairing effort to rally,
faces the French onset in person and alone. He receives a bullet
through the chest and falls dead.
The crisis of the struggle is reached, though the battle is not
over. NAPOLEON, discerning from the Landgrafenberg that the
decisive moment has come, directs MURAT to sweep forward with all
his cavalry. It engages the shattered Prussians, surrounds them,
and cuts them down by thousands.
From behind the horizon, a dozen miles off, between the din of guns
in the visible battle, there can be heard an ominous roar, as of a
second invisible battle in progress there. Generals and other
officers look at each other and hazard conjectures between whiles,
the French with exultation, the Prussians gloomily.
HOHENLOHE
That means the Duke of Brunswick, I conceive,
Impacting on the enemy's further force
Led by, they say, Davout and Bernadotte.
God grant his star less lurid rays then ours,
Or this too pregnant, hoarsely-groaning day
Shall, ere its loud delivery be done,
Have twinned disasters to the fatherland
That fifty years will fail to sepulchre!
Enter a straggler on horseback.
STRAGGLER
Prince, I have circuited by Auerstadt,
And bring ye dazzling tidings of the fight,
Which, if report by those who saw't be true,
Has raged thereat from clammy day-dawn on,
And left us victors!
HOHENLOHE
Thitherward go I,
And patch the mischief wrought upon us here!
Enter a second and then a third straggler.
Well, wet-faced men, whence come ye? What d'ye bring?
STRAGGLER II
Your Highness, I rode straight from Hassenhausen,
Across the stream of battle as it boiled
Betwixt that village and the banks of Saale,
And such the turmoil that no man could speak
On what the issue was!
HOHENLOHE (To Straggler III)
Can you add aught?
STRAGGLER III
Nothing that's clear, your Highness.
HOHENLOHE
Man, your mien
Is that of one who knows, but will not say.
Detain him here.
STRAGGLER III
The blackness of my news,
Your Highness, darks my sense! . . . I saw this much:
His charging grenadiers, received in the face
A grape-shot stroke that gouged out half of it,
Proclaiming then and there his life fordone.
HOHENLOHE
Fallen? Brunswick! Reed in council, rock in fire . . .
Ah, this he looked for. Many a time of late
Has he, by some strange gift of foreknowing,
Declared his fate was hovering in such wise!
STRAGGLER III
His aged form being borne beyond the strife,
The gallant Moellendorf, in flushed despair,
Swore he would not survive; and, pressing on,
He, too, was slaughtered. Patriotic rage
Brimmed marshals' breasts and men's. The King himself
Fought like the commonest. But nothing served.
His horse is slain; his own doom yet unknown.
Prince William, too, is wounded. Brave Schmettau
Is broke; himself disabled. All give way,
And regiments crash like trees at felling-time!
HOHENLOHE
No more. We match it here. The yielding lines
Still sweep us backward. Backward we must go!
[Exeunt HOHENLOHE, Staff, stragglers, etc.]
The Prussian retreat from Jena quickens to a rout, many thousands
taken prisoners by MURAT, who pursues them to Weimar, where the
inhabitants fly shrieking through the streets.
The October day closes in to evening. By this time the troops
retiring with the King of Prussia from the second battlefield
of Auerstadt have intersected RUCHEL'S and HOHENLOHE'S flying
battalions from Jena. The crossing streams of fugitives strike
panic into each other, and the tumult increases with the
thickening darkness till night renders the scene invisible,
and nothing remains but a confused diminishing noise, and fitful
lights here and there.
SCENE V
BERLIN. A ROOM OVERLOOKING A PUBLIC PLACE
[A fluttering group of ladies is gathered at the window, gazing
out and conversing anxiously. The time draws towards noon, when
the clatter of a galloping horse's hoofs is heard echoing up the
long Potsdamer-Strasse, and presently turning into the Leipziger-
Strasse reaches the open space commanded by the ladies' outlook.
It ceases before a Government building opposite them, and the
rider disappears into the courtyard.]
FIRST LADY
Yes: surely he is a courier from the field!
SECOND LADY
Shall we not hasten down, and take from him
The doom his tongue may deal us?
THIRD LADY
We shall catch
As soon by watching here as hastening hence
The tenour of his new. (They wait.) Ah, yes: see - see
The bulletin is straightway to be nailed!
He was, then, from the field. . . .
[They wait on while the bulletin is affixed.]
SECOND LADY
I cannot scan the words the scroll proclaims;
Peer as I will, these too quick-thronging dreads
Bring water to the eyes. Grant us, good Heaven,
That victory be where she is needed most
To prove Thy goodness! . . . What do you make of it?
THIRD LADY (reading, through a glass)
"The battle strains us sorely; but resolve
May save us even now. Our last attack
Has failed, with fearful loss. Once more we strive."
[A long silence in the room. Another rider is heard approaching,
above the murmur of the gathering citizens. The second lady
looks out.]
SECOND LADY
A straggler merely he. . . . But they decide,
At last, to post his news, wild-winged or no.
THIRD LADY (reading again through her glass)
"The Duke of Brunswick, leading on a charge,
Has met his death-doom. Schmettau, too, is slain;
Prince William wounded. But we stand as yet,
Engaging with the last of our reserves."
[The agitation in the street communicates itself to the room.
Some of the ladies weep silently as they wait, much longer this
time. Another horseman is at length heard clattering into the
Platz, and they lean out again with painful eagerness.]
SECOND LADY
An adjutant of Marshal Moellendorf's
If I define him rightly. Read - O read! -
Though reading draw them from their socket-holes
Use your eyes now!
THIRD LADY (glass up)
As soon as 'tis affixed. . . .
Ah - this means much! The people's air and gait
Too well betray disaster. (Reading.) "Berliners,
The King has lost the battle! Bear it well.
The foremost duty of a citizen
Is to maintain a brave tranquillity.
This is what I, the Governor, demand
Of men and women now. . . . The King lives still."
[They turn from the window and sit in a silence broken only by
monosyllabic words, hearing abstractedly the dismay without
that has followed the previous excitement and hope.
The stagnation is ended by a cheering outside, of subdued
emotional quality, mixed with sounds of grief. They again
look forth. QUEEN LOUISA is leaving the city with a very
small escort, and the populace seem overcome. They strain
their eyes after her as she disappears. Enter fourth lady.]
FIRST LADY
How does she bear it? Whither does she go?
FOURTH LADY
She goes to join the King at Custrin, there
To abide events - as we. Her heroism
So schools her sense of her calamities
As out of grief to carve new queenliness,
And turn a mobile mien to statuesque,
Save for a sliding tear.
[The ladies leave the window severally.]
SPIRIT IRONIC
So the Will plays at flux and reflux still.
This monarchy, one-half whose pedestal
Is built of Polish bones, has bones home-made!
Let the fair woman bear it. Poland did.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Meanwhile the mighty Emperor nears apace,
And soon will glitter at the city gates
With palpitating drums, and breathing brass,
And rampant joyful-jingling retinue.
[An evening mist cloaks the scene.]
SCENE VI
THE SAME
[It is a brilliant morning, with a fresh breeze, and not a cloud.
The open Platz and the adjoining streets are filled with dense
crowds of citizens, in whose upturned faces curiosity has
mastered consternation and grief.
Martial music is heard, at first faint, then louder, followed
by a trampling of innumerable horses and a clanking of arms and
accoutrements. Through a street on the right hand of the view
from the windows come troops of French dragoons heralding the
arrival of BONAPARTE.
Re-enter the room hurriedly and cross to the windows several
ladies as before, some in tears.]
FIRST LADY
The kingdom late of Prussia, can it be
That thus it disappears? - a patriot-cry,
A battle, bravery, ruin; and no more?
SECOND LADY
Thank God the Queen's gone!
THIRD LADY
To what sanctuary?
From earthquake shocks there is no sheltering cell!
- Is this what men call conquest? Must it close
As historied conquests do, or be annulled
By modern reason and the urbaner sense? -
Such issue none would venture to predict,
Yet folly 'twere to nourish foreshaped fears
And suffer in conjecture and in deed. -
If verily our country be dislimbed,
Then at the mercy of his domination
The face of earth will lie, and vassal kings
Stand waiting on himself the Overking,
Who ruling rules all; till desperateness
Sting and excite a bonded last resistance,
And work its own release.
SECOND LADY
He comes even now
From sacrilege. I learn that, since the fight,
In marching here by Potsdam yesterday,
Sans-Souci Palace drew his curious feet,
Where even great Frederick's tomb was bared to him.
FOURTH LADY
All objects on the Palace - cared for, kept
Even as they were when our arch-monarch died -
The books, the chair, the inkhorn, and the pen
He quizzed with flippant curiosity;
And entering where our hero's bones are urned
He seized the sword and standards treasured there,
And with a mixed effrontery and regard
Declared they should be all dispatched to Paris
As gifts to the Hotel des Invalides.
THIRD LADY
Such rodomontade is cheap: what matters it!
[A galaxy of marshals, forming Napoleon's staff, now enters the
Platz immediately before the windows. In the midst rides the
EMPEROR himself. The ladies are silent. The procession passes
along the front until it reaches the entrance to the Royal Palace.
At the door NAPOLEON descends from his horse and goes into the
building amid the resonant trumpetings of his soldiers and the
silence of the crowd.]
SECOND LADY (impressed)
O why does such a man debase himself
By countenancing loud scurrility
Against a queen who cannot make reprise!
A power so ponderous needs no littleness -
The last resort of feeble desperates!
[Enter fifth lady.]
FIFTH LADY (breathlessly)
Humiliation grows acuter still.
He placards rhetoric to his soldiery
On their distress of us and our allies,
Declaring he'll not stack away his arms
Till he has choked the remaining foes of France
In their own gainful glut. - Whom means he, think you?
FIRST LADY
Us?
THIRD LADY
Russia? Austria?
FIFTH LADY
Neither: England. - Yea,
Her he still holds the master mischief-mind,
And marrer of the countries' quietude,
By exercising untold tyranny
Over all the ports and seas.
SECOND LADY
Then England's doomed!
When he has overturned the Russian rule,
England comes next for wrack. They say that know! . . .
Look - he has entered by the Royal doors
And makes the Palace his. - Now let us go! -
Our course, alas! is - whither?
[Exeunt ladies. The curtain drops temporarily.]
SEMICHORUS I OF IRONIC SPIRITS (aerial music)
Deeming himself omnipotent
With the Kings of the Christian continent,
To warden the waves was his further bent.
SEMICHORUS II
But the weaving Will from eternity,
(Hemming them in by a circling sea)
Evolved the fleet of the Englishry.
SEMICHORUS I
The wane of his armaments ill-advised,
At Trafalgar, to a force despised,
Was a wound which never has cicatrized.
SEMICHORUS II
This, O this is the cramp that grips!
And freezes the Emperor's finger-tips
From signing a peace with the Land of Ships.
CHORUS
The Universal-empire plot
Demands the rule of that wave-walled spot;
And peace with England cometh not!
THE SCENE REOPENS
[A lurid gloom now envelops the Platz and city; and Bonaparte
is heard as from the Palace:
VOICE OF NAPOLEON
These monstrous violations being in train
Of law and national integrities
By English arrogance in things marine,
(Which dares to capture simple merchant-craft,
In honest quest of harmless merchandize,
For crime of kinship to a hostile power)
Our vast, effectual, and majestic strokes