Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated)
Page 850
With seventy pounds of luggage on their loins,
That the dim Prussian masses seen afar
Are Grouchy's three-and-thirty thousand, come
To clinch a victory.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
But Ney demurs!
SPIRIT IRONIC
Ney holds indignantly that such a feint
Is not war-worthy. Says Napoleon then,
Snuffing anew, with sour sardonic scowl,
That he is choiceless.
SPIRIT SINISTER
Excellent Emperor!
He tops all human greatness; in that he
To lesser grounds of greatness adds the prime,
Of being without a conscience.
[LA BEDOYERE and orderlies start on their mission. The false
intelligence is seen to spread, by the excited motion of the
columns, and the soldiers can be heard shouting as their spirits
revive.
WELLINGTON is beginning to discern the features of the coming
onset, when COLONEL FRASER rides up.]
FRASER
We have just learnt from a deserting captain,
One of the carabineers who charged of late,
That an assault which dwarfs all instances—
The whole Imperial Guard in welded weight—
Is shortly to be made.
WELLINGTON
For your smart speed
My thanks. My observation is confirmed.
We'll hasten now along the battle-line [to Staff],
As swiftest means for giving orders out
Whereby to combat this.
[The speaker, accompanied by HILL, UXBRIDGE, and others—all now
looking as worn and besmirched as the men in the ranks—proceed
along the lines, and dispose the brigades to meet the threatened
shock. The infantry are brought out of the shelter they have
recently sought, the cavalry stationed in the rear, and the
batteries of artillery hitherto kept in reserve are moved to the
front.
The last Act of the battle begins.
There is a preliminary attack by DONZELOT'S columns, combined
with swarms of sharpshooters, to the disadvantage of the English
and their Allies. WELLINGTON has scanned it closely. FITZROY
SOMERSET, his military secretary, comes up.]
WELLINGTON
What casualty has thrown its shade among
The regiments of Nassau, to shake them so?
SOMERSET
The Prince of Orange has been badly struck—
A bullet through his shoulder—so they tell;
And Kielmansegge has shown some signs of stress.
Kincaird's tried line wanes leaner and more lean—
Whittled to a weak skein of skirmishers;
The Twenty-seventh lie dead.
WELLINGTON
Ah yes—I know!
[While they watch developments a cannon-shot passes and knocks
SOMERSET'S right arm to a mash. He is assisted to the rear.
NEY and FRIANT now lead forward the last and most desperate
assault of the day, in charges of the Old and Middle Guard,
the attack by DONZELOT and ALLIX further east still continuing as
a support. It is about a quarter-past eight, and the midsummer
evening is fine after the wet night and morning, the sun approaching
its setting in a sky of gorgeous colours.
The picked and toughened Guard, many of whom stood in the ranks
at Austerlitz and Wagram, have been drawn up in three or four
echelons, the foremost of which now advances up the slopes to
the Allies' position. The others follow at intervals, the
drummers beating the "pas de charge."]
CHORUS OF RUMOURS [aerial music]
Twice thirty throats of couchant cannonry—
Ranked in a hollow curve, to close their blaze
Upon the advancing files—wait silently
Like to black bulls at gaze.
The Guard approaches nearer and more near:
To touch-hole moves each match of smoky sheen:
The ordnance roars: the van-ranks disappear
As if wiped off the scene.
The aged Friant falls as it resounds;
Ney's charger drops—his fifth on this sore day—
Its rider from the quivering body bounds
And forward foots his way.
The cloven columns tread the English height,
Seize guns, repulse battalions rank by rank,
While horse and foot artillery heavily bite
Into their front and flank.
It nulls the power of a flesh-built frame
To live within that zone of missiles. Back
The Old Guard, staggering, climbs to whence it came.
The fallen define its track.
[The second echelon of the Imperial Guard has come up to the
assault. Its columns have borne upon HALKETT'S right. HALKETT,
desperate to keep his wavering men firm, himself seizes and
waves the flag of the Thirty-third, in which act he falls wounded.
But the men rally. Meanwhile the Fifty-second, covered by the
Seventy-first, has advanced across the front, and charges the
Imperial Guard on the flank.
The third echelon next arrives at the English lines and squares;
rushes through the very focus of their fire, and seeing nothing
more in front, raises a shout.
IMPERIAL GUARD
The Emperor! It's victory!
WELLINGTON
Stand up, Guards!
Form line upon the front face of the square!
[Two thousand of MAITLAND'S Guards, hidden in the hollow roadway,
thereupon spring up, form as ordered, and reveal themselves as a
fence of leveled firelocks four deep. The flints click in a
multitude, the pans flash, and volley after volley is poured into
the bear-skinned figures of the massed French, who kill COLONEL
D'OYLEY in returning fire.]
WELLINGTON
Now drive the fellows in! Go on; go on!
You'll do it now!
[COLBORNE converges on the French guard with the Fifty-second, and
The former splits into two as the climax comes. ADAM, MAITLAND,
and COLBORNE pursue their advantage. The Imperial columns are
broken, and their confusion is increased by grape-shot from
BOLTON'S battery.]
Campbell, this order next:
Vivian's hussars are to support, and bear
Against the cavalry towards Belle Alliance.
Go—let him know.
[Sir C. CAMPBELL departs with the order. Soon VIVIAN'S and
VANDELEUR'S light horse are seen advancing, and in due time the
French cavalry are rolled back.
WELLINGTON goes in the direction of the hussars with UXBRIDGE. A
cannon-shot hisses past.]
UXBRIDGE [starting]
I have lost my leg, by God!
WELLINGTON
By God, and have you! Ay—the wind o' the shot
Blew past the withers of my Copenhagen
Like the foul sweeping of a witch's broom.—
Aha—they are giving way!
[While UXBRIDGE is being helped to the rear, WELLINGTON makes a
sign to SALTOUN, Colonel of the First Footguards.]
SALTOUN [shouting]
Boys, now's your time;
Forward and win!
FRENCH VOICES
The Guard gives way—we are beaten!
[They recede down the hill, carrying confusion into NAPOLEON'S
centre just as the Prussians press forward at a right angle from
the other side of the field. N
APOLEON is seen standing in the
hollow beyond La Haye Sainte, alone, except for the presence of
COUNT FLAHAULT, his aide-de-camp. His lips move with sudden
exclamation.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
He says "Now all is lost! The clocks of the world
Strike my last empery-hour."
[Towards La Haye Sainte the French of DONZELOT and ALLIX, who
are fighting KEMPT, PACK, KRUSE, and LAMBERT, seeing what has
happened to the Old and Middle Guard, lose heart and recede
likewise; so that the whole French line rolls back like a tide.
Simultaneously the Prussians are pressing forward at Papelotte
and La Haye. The retreat of the French grows into a panic.]
FRENCH VOICES [despairingly]
We are betrayed!
[WELLINGTON rides at a gallop to the most salient point of the
English position, halts, and waves his hat as a signal to all
the army. The sign is answered by a cheer along the length of
the line.]
WELLINGTON
No cheering yet, my lads; but bear ahead,
Before the inflamed face of the west out there
Dons blackness. So you'll round your victory!
[The few aides that are left unhurt dart hither and thither with
this message, and the whole English host and it allies advance
in an ordered mass down the hill except some of the artillery,
who cannot get their wheels over the bank of corpses in front.
Trumpets, drums, and bugles resound with the advance.
The streams of French fugitives as they run are cut down and shot
by their pursuers, whose clothes and contracted features are
blackened by smoke and cartridge-biting, and soiled with loam
and blood. Some French blow out their own brains as they fly.
The sun drops below the horizon while the slaughter goes on.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Is this the last Esdraelon of a moil
For mortal man's effacement?
SPIRIT IRONIC
Warfare, mere,
Plied by the Managed for the Managers;
To wit: by frenzied folks who profit nought
For those who profit all!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Between the jars
Of these who live, I hear uplift and move
The bones of those who placidly have lain
Within the sacred garths of yon grey fanes—
Nivelles, and Plancenoit, and Braine l'Alleud—
Beneath the unmemoried mounds through deedless years
Their dry jaws quake: "What Sabaoath is this,
That shakes us in our unobtrusive shrouds,
As though our tissues did not yet abhor
The fevered feats of life?"
SPIRIT IRONIC
Mere fancy's feints!
How know the coffined what comes after them,
Even though it whirl them to the Pleiades?—
Turn to the real.
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
That hatless, smoke-smirched shape
There in the vale, is still the living Ney,
His sabre broken in his hand, his clothes
Slitten with ploughing ball and bayonet,
One epaulette shorn away. He calls out "Follow!"
And a devoted handful follow him
Once more into the carnage. Hear his voice.
NEY [calling afar]
My friends, see how a Marshal of France can die!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Alas, not here in battle, something hints,
But elsewhere!... Who's the sworded brother-chief
Swept past him in the tumult?
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
D'Erlon he.
Ney cries to him:
NEY
Be sure of this, my friend,
If we don't perish here at English hands,
Nothing is left us but the halter-noose
The Bourbons will provide!
SPIRIT IRONIC
A caustic wit,
And apt, to those who deal in adumbrations!
[The brave remnant of the Imperial Guard repulses for a time the
English cavalry under Vivian, in which MAJOR HOWARD and LIEUTENANT
GUNNING of the Tenth Hussars are shot. But the war-weary French
cannot cope with the pursuing infantry, helped by grape-shot from
the batteries.
NAPOLEON endeavours to rally them. It is his last effort as a
warrior; and the rally ends feebly.]
NAPOLEON
They are crushed! So it has ever been since Crecy!
[He is thrown violently off his horse, and bids his page bring
another, which he mounts, and is lost to sight.]
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
He loses his last chance of dying well!
[The three or four heroic battalions of the Old and Middle Guard
fall back step by step, halting to reform in square when they
get badly broken and shrunk. At last they are surrounded by the
English Guards and other foot, who keep firing on them and smiting
them to smaller and smaller numbers. GENERAL CAMBRONNE is inside
the square.]
COLONEL HUGH HALKETT [shouting]
Surrender! And preserve those heroes' lives!
CAMBRONNE [with exasperation]
Mer-r-rde!... You've to deal with desperates, man, today:
Life is a byword here!
[Hollow laughter, as from people in hell, comes approvingly from
the remains of the Old Guard. The English proceed with their
massacre, the devoted band thins and thins, and a ball strikes
CAMBRONNE, who falls, and is trampled over.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Observe that all wide sight and self-command
Desert these throngs now driven to demonry
By the Immanent Unrecking. Nought remains
But vindictiveness here amid the strong,
And there amid the weak an impotent rage.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Why prompts the Will so senseless-shaped a doing?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
I have told thee that It works unwittingly,
As one possessed, not judging.
SEMICHORUS I OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music]
Of Its doings if It knew,
What It does It would not do!
SEMICHORUS II
Since It knows not, what far sense
Speeds Its spinnings in the Immense?
SEMICHORUS I
None; a fixed foresightless dream
Is Its whole philosopheme.
SEMICHORUS II
Just so; an unconscious planning,
Like a potter raptly panning!
CHORUS
Are then, Love and Light Its aim—
Good Its glory, Bad Its blame?
Nay; to alter evermore
Things from what they were before.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Your knowings of the Unknowable declared,
Let the last pictures of the play be bared.
[Enter, fighting, more English and Prussians against the French.
NEY is caught by the throng and borne ahead. RULLIERE hides an
eagle beneath his coat and follows Ney. NAPOLEON is involved
none knows where in the crowd of fugitives.
WELLINGTON and BLUCHER come severally to the view. They meet in
the dusk and salute warmly. The Prussian bands strike up "God save
the King" as the two shake hands. From his gestures of assent it
can be seen that WELLINGTON accepts BLUCHER'S offer to pursue.
The reds disappear from the sky, and the dusk grows deeper. The
action of the battle degenerat
es to a hunt, and recedes further
and further into the distance southward. When the tramplings
and shouts of the combatants have dwindled, the lower sounds are
noticeable that come from the wounded: hopeless appeals, cries
for water, elaborate blasphemies, and impotent execrations of
Heaven and hell. In the vast and dusky shambles black slouching
shapes begin to move, the plunderers of the dead and dying.
The night grows clear and beautiful, and the moon shines musingly
down. But instead of the sweet smell of green herbs and dewy rye
as at her last beaming upon these fields, there is now the stench
of gunpowder and a muddy stew of crushed crops and gore.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
So hath the Urging Immanence used to-day
Its inadvertent might to field this fray:
And Europe's wormy dynasties rerobe
Themselves in their old gilt, to dazzle anew the globe!
[The scene us curtained by a night-mist.[25]]
SCENE IX
THE WOOD OF BOSSU
[It is midnight. NAPOLEON enters a glade of the wood, a solitary
figure on a faded horse. The shadows of the boughs travel over
his listless form as he moves along. The horse chooses its own
path, comes to a standstill, and feeds. The tramp of BERTRAND,
SOULT, DROUOT, and LOBAU'S horses, gone forward in hope to find
a way of retreat, is heard receding over the hill.]
NAPOLEON [to himself, languidly]
Here should have been some troops of Gerard's corps,
Left to protect the passage of the convoys,
Yet they, too, fail.... I have nothing more to lose,
But life!
[Flocks of fugitive soldiers pass along the adjoining road without
seeing him. NAPOLEON'S head droops lower and lower as he sits
listless in the saddle, and he falls into a fitful sleep. The
moon shines upon his face, which is drawn and waxen.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
"Sic diis immortalibus placet,"—
"Thus is it pleasing to the immortal gods,"
As earthlings used to say. Thus, to this last,
The Will in thee has moved thee, Bonaparte,
As we say now.
NAPOLEON [starting]
Whose frigid tones are those,
Breaking upon my lurid loneliness
So brusquely?... Yet, 'tis true, I have ever know
That such a Will I passively obeyed!
[He drowses again.]
SPIRIT IRONIC
Nothing care I for these high-doctrined dreams,
And shape the case in quite a common way,
So I would ask, Ajaccian Bonaparte,
Has all this been worth while?
NAPOLEON
O hideous hour,