Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)

by Thomas Hardy

  in, and the growling of artillery ceases, though the wheels of the

  flying enemy are still heard in the distance. The fires kindled

  by the soldiers as they make their bivouacs blaze up in the gloom,

  and throw their glares a long way, revealing on the slopes of the

  hills many suffering ones who have not yet been carried in.

  The last victorious regiment comes up from the rear, fifing and

  drumming ere it reaches its resting-place the last bars of "The

  Downfall of Paris":—

  Transcriber's Note: There follows in musical notation four bars

  from that song in 2/4 time, key of C—

  \E EF G FE EF G FE EC D DBC \

  SCENE IV

  A FETE AT VAUXHALL

  [It is the Vitoria festival at Vauxhall. The orchestra of the

  renowned gardens exhibits a blaze of lamps and candles arranged

  in the shape of a temple, a great artificial sun glowing at the

  top, and under it in illuminated characters the words "Vitoria"

  and "Wellington." The band is playing the new air "The Plains

  of Vitoria."

  All round the colonnade of the rotunda are to be read in the

  illumination the names of Peninsular victories, underneath them

  figuring the names of British and Spanish generals who led at

  those battles, surmounted by wreaths of laurel The avenues

  stretching away from the rotunda into the gardens charm the eyes

  with their mild multitudinous lights, while festoons of lamps

  hang from the trees elsewhere, and transparencies representing

  scenes from the war.

  The gardens and saloons are crowded, among those present being the

  KING'S sons—the DUKES OF YORK, CLARENCE, KENT, and CAMBRIDGE—

  Ambassadors, peers, and peeresses, and other persons of quality,

  English and foreign.

  In the immediate foreground on the left hand is an alcove, the

  interior of which is in comparative obscurity. Two foreign

  attaches enter it and sit down.]

  FIRST ATTACHE

  Ah—now for the fireworks. They are under the direction of Colonel

  Congreve.

  [At the end of an alley, purposely kept dark, fireworks are

  discharged.]

  SECOND ATTACHE

  Very good: very good.—This looks like the Duke of Sussex coming in,

  I think. Who the lady is with him I don't know.

  [Enter the DUKE OF SUSSEX in a Highland dress, attended by several

  officers in like attire. He walks about the gardens with LADY

  CHARLOTTE CAMPBELL.]

  FIRST ATTACHE

  People have been paying a mighty price for tickets—as much as

  fifteen guineas has been offered, I hear. I had to walk up to the

  gates; the number of coaches struggling outside prevented my driving

  near. It was as bad as the battle of Vitoria itself.

  SECOND ATTACHE

  So Wellington is made Field-Marshal for his achievement.

  FIRST ATTACHE

  Yes. By the by, you have heard of the effect of the battle upon

  the Conference at Reichenbach?—that Austria is to join Russia and

  Prussia against France? So much for Napoleon's marriage! I wonder

  what he thinks of his respected father-in-law now.

  SECOND ATTACHE

  Of course, an enormous subsidy is paid to Francis by Great Britain

  for this face-about?

  FIRST ATTACHE

  Yes. As Bonaparte says, English guineas are at the bottom of

  everything!—Ah, here comes Caroline.

  [The PRINCESS OF WALES arrives, attended by LADY ANNE HAMILTON

  and LADY GLENBERVIE. She is conducted forward by the DUKE OF

  GLOUCESTER and COLONEL ST. LEDGER, and wears a white satin train

  with a dark embroidered bodice, and a green wreath with diamonds.

  Repeated hurrahs greet her from the crowd. She bows courteously.]

  SECOND ATTACHE

  The people are staunch for her still!... You heard, sir, what

  Austrian Francis said when he learnt of Vitoria?—"A warm climate

  seems to agree with my son-in-law no better than a cold one."

  FIRST ATTACHE

  Ha-ha-ha!

  Marvellous it is how this loud victory

  Has couched the late blind Europe's Cabinets.

  Would I could spell precisely what was phrased

  'Twixt Bonaparte and Metternich at Dresden—

  Their final word, I ween, till God knows when!—

  SECOND ATTACHE

  I own to feeling it a sorry thing

  That Francis should take English money down

  To throw off Bonaparte. 'Tis sordid, mean!

  He is his daughter's husband after all.

  FIRST ATTACHE

  Ay; yes!... They say she knows not of it yet.

  SECOND ATTACHE

  Poor thing, I daresay it will harry her

  When all's revealed. But the inside o't is,

  Since Castlereagh's return to power last year

  Vienna, like Berlin and Petersburg,

  Has harboured England's secret emissaries,

  Primed, purse in hand, with the most lavish sums

  To knit the league to drag Napoleon down....

  [More fireworks.] That's grand.—Here comes one Royal item more.

  [The DUCHESS OF YORK enters, attended by her ladies and by the

  HON. B. CRAVEN and COLONEL BARCLAY. She is received with signals

  of respect.]

  FIRST ATTACHE

  She calls not favour forth as Caroline can!

  SECOND ATTACHE

  To end my words:—Though happy for this realm,

  Austria's desertion frankly is, by God,

  Rank treachery!

  FIRST ATTACHE

  Whatever it is, it means

  Two hundred thousand swords for the Allies,

  And enemies in batches for Napoleon

  Leaping from unknown lairs.—Yes, something tells me

  That this is the beginning of the end

  For Emperor Bonaparte!

  [The PRINCESS OF WALES prepares to leave. An English diplomatist

  joins the attaches in the alcove. The PRINCESS and her ladies go

  out.]

  DIPLOMATIST

  I saw you over here, and I came round. Cursed hot and crowded, isn't

  it?

  SECOND ATTACHE

  What is the Princess leaving so soon for?

  DIPLOMATIST

  Oh, she has not been received in the Royal box by the other members

  of the Royal Family, and it has offended her, though she was told

  beforehand that she could not be. Poor devil! Nobody invited her

  here. She came unasked, and she has gone unserved.

  FIRST ATTACHE

  We shall have to go unserved likewise, I fancy. The scramble at the

  buffets is terrible.

  DIPLOMATIST

  And the road from here to Marsh Gate is impassable. Some ladies have

  been sitting in their coaches for hours outside the hedge there. We

  shall not get home till noon to-morrow.

  A VOICE [from the back]

  Take care of your watches! Pickpockets!

  FIRST ATTACHE

  Good. That relieves the monotony a little.

  [Excitement in the throng. When it has subsided the band strikes

  up a country dance, and stewards with white ribbons and laurel

  leaves are seen bustling about.]

  SECOND ATTACHE

  Let us go and look at the dancing. It is "Voulez-vous danser"—no,

  it is not,—it is "Enrico"—two ladies between two gentlemen.

  [They go from the alc
ove.]

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

  From this phantasmagoria let us roam

  To the chief wheel and capstan of the show,

  Distant afar. I pray you closely read

  What I reveal—wherein each feature bulks

  In measure with its value humanly.

  [The beholder finds himself, as it were, caught up on high, and

  while the Vauxhall scene still dimly twinkles below, he gazes

  southward towards Central Europe—the contorted and attenuated

  ecorche of the Continent appearing as in an earlier scene, but

  now obscure under the summer stars.]

  Three cities loom out large: Vienna there,

  Dresden, which holds Napoleon, over here,

  And Leipzig, whither we shall shortly wing,

  Out yonderwards. 'Twixt Dresden and Vienna

  What thing do you discern?

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

  Something broad-faced,

  Flat-folded, parchment-pale, and in its shape

  Rectangular; but moving like a cloud

  The Dresden way.

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

  Yet gaze more closely on it.

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

  The object takes a letter's lineaments

  Though swollen to mainsail measure,—magically,

  I gather from your words; and on its face

  Are three vast seals, red—signifying blood

  Must I suppose? It moves on Dresden town,

  And dwarfs the city as it passes by.—

  You say Napoleon's there?

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

  The document,

  Sized to its big importance, as I told,

  Bears in it formal declaration, signed,

  Of war by Francis with his late-linked son,

  The Emperor of France. Now let us go

  To Leipzig city, and await the blow.

  [A chaotic gloom ensues, accompanied by a rushing like that of a

  mighty wind.]

  ACT THIRD

  SCENE I

  LEIPZIG. NAPOLEON'S QUARTERS IN THE REUDNITZ SUBURB

  [The sitting-room of a private mansion. Evening. A large stove-

  fire and candles burning. The October wind is heard without, and

  the leaded panes of the old windows shake mournfully.]

  SEMICHORUS I OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music]

  We come; and learn as Time's disordered dear sands run

  That Castlereagh's diplomacy has wiled, waxed, won.

  The beacons flash the fevered news to eyes keen bent

  That Austria's formal words of war are shaped, sealed, sent.

  SEMICHORUS II

  So; Poland's three despoilers primed by Bull's gross pay

  To stem Napoleon's might, he waits the weird dark day;

  His proffered peace declined with scorn, in fell force then

  They front him, with yet ten-score thousand more massed men.

  [At the back of the room CAULAINCOURT, DUKE OF VICENZA, and

  JOUANNE, one of Napoleon's confidential secretaries, are unpacking

  and laying out the Emperor's maps and papers. In the foreground

  BERTHIER, MURAT, LAURISTON, and several officers of Napoleon's

  suite, are holding a desultory conversation while they await his

  entry. Their countenances are overcast.]

  MURAT

  At least, the scheme of marching on Berlin

  Is now abandoned.

  LAURISTON

  Not without high words:

  He yielded and gave order prompt for Leipzig

  But coldness and reserve have marked his mood

  Towards us ever since.

  BERTHIER

  The march hereto

  He has looked on as a retrogressive one,

  And that, he ever holds, is courting woe.

  To counsel it was doubtless full of risk,

  And heaped us with responsibilities;

  —Yet 'twas your missive, sire, that settled it [to MURAT].

  How stirred he was! "To Leipzig, or Berlin?"

  He kept repeating, as he drew and drew

  Fantastic figures on the foolscap sheet,—

  "The one spells ruin—t'other spells success,

  And which is which?"

  MURAT [stiffly]

  What better could I do?

  So far were the Allies from sheering off

  As he supposed, that they had moved in march

  Full fanfare hither! I was duty-bound

  To let him know.

  LAURISTON

  Assuming victory here,

  If he should let the advantage slip him by

  As on the Dresden day, he wrecks us all!

  'Twas damnable—to ride back from the fight

  Inside a coach, as though we had not won!

  CAULAINCOURT [from the back]

  The Emperor was ill: I have ground for knowing.

  [NAPOLEON enters.]

  NAPOLEON [buoyantly]

  Comrades, the outlook promises us well!

  MURAT [dryly]

  Right glad are we you tongue such tidings, sire.

  To us the stars have visaged differently;

  To wit: we muster outside Leipzig here

  Levies one hundred and ninety thousand strong.

  The enemy has mustered, OUTSIDE US,

  Three hundred and fifty thousand—if not more.

  NAPOLEON

  All that is needful is to conquer them!

  We are concentred here: they lie a-spread,

  Which shrinks them to two-hundred-thousand power:—

  Though that the urgency of victory

  Is absolute, I admit.

  MURAT

  Yea; otherwise

  The issue will be worse than Moscow, sire!

  [MARMONT, DUKE OF RAGUSA [Wellington's adversary in Spain], is

  announced, and enters.]

  NAPOLEON

  Ah, Marmont; bring you in particulars?

  MARMONT

  Some sappers I have taken captive, sire,

  Say the Allies will be at stroke with us

  The morning next to to-morrow's.—I am come,

  Now, from the steeple-top of Liebenthal,

  Where I beheld the enemy's fires bespot

  The horizon round with raging eyes of flame:—

  My vanward posts, too, have been driven in,

  And I need succours—thrice ten thousand, say.

  NAPOLEON [coldly]

  The enemy vexes not your vanward posts;

  You are mistaken.—Now, however, go;

  Cross Leipzig, and remain as the reserve.—

  Well, gentlemen, my hope herein is this:

  The first day to annihilate Schwarzenberg,

  The second Blucher. So shall we slip the toils

  They are all madding to enmesh us in.

  BERTHIER

  Few are our infantry to fence with theirs!

  NAPOLEON [cheerfully]

  We'll range them in two lines instead of three,

  And so we shall look stronger by one-third.

  BERTHIER [incredulously]

  Can they be thus deceived, sire?

  NAPOLEON

  Can they? Yes!

  With all my practice I can err in numbers

  At least one-quarter; why not they one-third?

  Anyhow, 'tis worth trying at a pinch....

  [AUGEREAU is suddenly announced.]

  Good! I've not seen him yet since he arrived.

  [Enter AUGEREAU.

  Here you are then at last, old Augereau!

  You have been looked for long.—But you are no more

  The Augereau of Castiglione days!

  AUGEREAU

  Nay, sire! I still should be the Augereau

  Of glorious Castiglione, could you give

  The boys of Italy back again to me!

  NAPOLEON

  Well, let it drop.... Only I
notice round me

  An atmosphere of scopeless apathy

  Wherein I do not share.

  AUGEREAU

  There are reasons, sire,

  Good reasons for despondence! As I came

  I learnt, past question, that Bavaria

  Swerves on the very pivot of desertion.

  This adds some threescore thousand to our foes.

  NAPOLEON [irritated]

  That consummation long has threatened us!...

  Would that you showed the steeled fidelity

  You used to show! Except me, all are slack!

  [To Murat] Why, even you yourself, my brother-in-law,

  Have been inclining to abandon me!

  MURAT [vehemently]

  I, sire? It is not so. I stand and swear

  The grievous imputation is untrue.

  You should know better than believe these things,

  And well remember I have enemies

  Who ever wait to slander me to you!

  NAPOLEON [more calmly]

  Ah yes, yes. That is so.—And yet—and yet

  You have deigned to weigh the feasibility

  Of treating me as Austria has done!...

  But I forgive you. You are a worthy man;

  You feel real friendship for me. You are brave.

  Yet I was wrong to make a king of you.

  If I had been content to draw the line

  At vice-king, as with young Eugene, no more,

  As he has laboured you'd have laboured, too!

  But as full monarch, you have foraged rather

  For your own pot than mine!

  [MURAT and the marshal are silent, and look at each other with

  troubled countenances. NAPOLEON goes to the table at the back, and

  bends over the charts with CAULAINCOURT, dictating desultory notes

  to the secretaries.]

  SPIRIT IRONIC

  A seer might say

  This savours of a sad Last-Supper talk

  'Twixt his disciples and this Christ of war!

  [Enter an attendant.]

  ATTENDANT

  The Saxon King and Queen and the Princess

  Enter the city gates, your Majesty.

  They seek the shelter of the civic walls

  Against the risk of capture by Allies.

  NAPOLEON

  Ah, so? My friend Augustus, is he near?

  I will be prompt to meet him when he comes,

  And safely quarter him. [He returns to the map.]

  [An interval. The clock strikes midnight. The EMPEROR rises

  abruptly, sighs, and comes forward.]

  I now retire,

  Comrades. Good-night, good-night. Remember well

  All must prepare to grip with gory death

  In the now voidless battle. It will be

  A great one and a critical; one, in brief,

  That will seal France's fate, and yours, and mine!