ACT SIXTHSCENE ITHE LINES OF TORRES VEDRAS[A bird’s-eye perspective is revealed of the peninsular tract ofPortuguese territory lying between the shining pool of the Tagus onthe east, and the white-frilled Atlantic lifting rhythmically onthe west. As thus beheld the tract features itself somewhat like alate-Gothic shield, the upper edge from the dexter to the sinisterchief being the lines of Torres Vedras, stretching across from themouth of the Zezambre on the left to Alhandra on the right, andthe south or base point being Fort S. Julian. The roofs of Lisbonappear at the sinister base, and in a corresponding spot on theopposite side Cape Roca.It is perceived in a moment that the northern verge of this nearlycoast-hemmed region is the only one through which access can begained to it by land, and a close scrutiny of the boundary therereveals that means are being adopted to effectually prevent suchaccess.From east to west along it runs a chain of defences, dotted atintervals by dozens of circular and square redoubts, either madeor in the making, two of the latter being of enormous size.Between these stretch unclimbable escarpments, stone walls, andother breastworks, and in front of all a double row of abatis,formed of the limbs of trees.Within the outer line of defence is a second, constructed on thesame shield-shaped tract of country; and is not more than a twelfthof the length of the others. It is a continuous entrenchment ofditches and ramparts, and its object—that of covering a forcedembarkation—is rendered apparent by some rocking Englishtransports off the shore hard by.]DUMB SHOWInnumerable human figures are busying themselves like cheese-mitesall along the northernmost frontage, undercutting easy slopes intosteep ones, digging ditches, piling stones, felling trees, draggingthem, and interlacing them along the front as required.On the second breastwork, which is completed, only a few figures move.On the third breastwork, which is fully matured and equipped, minutered sentinels creep backwards and forwards noiselessly.As time passes three reddish-grey streams of marching men loom outto the north, advancing southward along three roads towards threediverse points in the first defence. These form the English army,entering the lines for shelter. Looked down upon, their motionseems peristaltic and vermicular, like that of three caterpillars.The division on the left is under Picton, in the centre under Leithand Cole, and on the extreme right, by Alhandra, under Hill. Besideone of the roads two or three of the soldiers are dangling from atree by the neck, probably for plundering.The Dumb Show ends, and the point of view sinks to the earth.SCENE IITHE SAME. OUTSIDE THE LINES[The winter day has gloomed to a stormful evening, and the roadoutside the first line of defence forms the foreground of the stage.Enter in the dusk from the hills to the north of the entrenchment,near Calandrix, a group of horsemen, which includes MASSÉNA incommand of the French forces, FOY, LOISON, and other officers ofhis staff.They ride forward in the twilight and tempest, and reconnoitre,till they see against the sky the ramparts blocking the road theypursue. They halt silently. MASSÉNA, puzzled, endeavours with hisglass to make out the obstacle.]MASSÉNASomething stands here to peril our advance,Or even prevent it!FOYThese are the English lines—Their outer horns and tusks—whereof I spoke,Constructed by Lord Wellington of lateTo keep his foothold firm in Portugal.MASSÉNAThrusts he his burly, bossed disfigurementsSo far to north as this? I had pictured meThe lay much nearer Lisbon. Little strangeLord Wellington rode placid at BusacoWith this behind his back! Well, it is hardBut that we turn them somewhere, I assume?They scarce can close up every southward gapBetween the Tagus and the Atlantic Sea.FOYI hold they can, and do; although, no doubt,By searching we shall spy some raggednessWhich customed skill may force.MASSÉNAPlain ’tis, no less,We may heap corpses vainly hereabout,And crack good bones in waste. By human powerThis passes mounting! What say you’s behind?LOISONAnother line exactly like the first,But more matured. Behind its back a third.MASSÉNAHow long have these prim ponderositiesBeen rearing up their foreheads to the moon?LOISONSome months in all. I know not quite how long.They are Lord Wellington’s select device,And, like him, heavy, slow, laborious, sure.MASSÉNAMay he enjoy their sureness. He deserves to.I had no inkling of such barriers here.A good road runs along their front, it seems,Which offers us advantage.... What a night![The tempest cries dismally about the earthworks above them, asthe reconnoitrers linger in the slight shelter the lower groundaffords. They are about to turn back.Enter from the cross-road to the right JUNOT and some moreofficers. They come up at a signal that the others are thosethey lately parted from.]JUNOTWe have ridden along as far as Calandrix,Favoured therein by this disordered night,Which tongues its language to the disguise of ours;And find amid the vale an open routeThat, well manoeuvred, may be practicable.MASSÉNAI’ll look now at it, while the weather aids.If it may serve our end when all’s preparedSo good. If not, some other to the west.[Exeunt MASSÉNA, JUNOT, LOISON, FOY, and the rest by the pavedcrossway to the right.The wind continues to prevail as the spot is left desolate, thedarkness increases, rain descends more heavily, and the scene isblotted out.]SCENE IIIPARIS. THE TUILERIES[The anteroom to the EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE’S bed-chamber, in whichare discovered NAPOLÉON in his dressing-gown, the DUCHESS OFMONTEBELLO, and other ladies-in-waiting. CORVISART the firstphysician, and the second physician BOURDIER.The time is before dawn. The EMPEROR walks up and down, throwshimself on a sofa, or stands at the window. A cry of anguish comesoccasionally from within.NAPOLÉON opens the door and speaks into the bed-chamber.]NAPOLÉONHow now, Dubois?VOICE OF DUBOIS THE ACCOUCHEUR [nervously]Less well, sire, than I hoped;I fear no skill can save them both.NAPOLÉON [agitated]Good god![Exit CORVISART into the bed-room. Enter DUBOIS.]DUBOIS [with hesitation]Which life is to be saved? The Empress, sire,Lies in great jeopardy. I have not knownIn my long years of many-featured practiceAn instance in a thousand fall out so.NAPOLÉONThen save the mother, pray! Think but of her;It is her privilege, and my command.—Don’t lose you head, Dubois, at this tight time:Your furthest skill can work but what it may.Fancy that you are merely standing byA shop-wife’s couch, say, in the Rue Saint Denis;Show the aplomb and phlegm that you would showDid such a bed receive your ministry.[Exit DUBOIS.]VOICE OF MARIE LOUISE [within]O pray, pray don’t! Those ugly things terrify me! Why should I betortured even if I am but a means to an end! Let me die! It wascruel of him to bring this upon me![Exit NAPOLÉON impatiently to the bed-room.]VOICE OF MADAME DE MONTESQUIOU [within]Keep up your spirits, madame! I have been through it myself and Iassure you there is no danger to you. It is going on all right, andI am holding you.VOICE OF NAPOLÉON [within]Heaven above! Why did you not deep those cursed sugar-tongs out ofher sight? How is she going to get through it if you frighten herlike this?VOICE OF DUBOIS [within]If you will pardon me, your Majesty,I must implore you not to interfere!I’ll not be scapegoat for the consequenceIf, sire, you do! Better for her sake farWould you withdraw. The sight of your concernBut agitates and weakens her endurance.I will inform you all, and call you backIf things should worsen here.[Re-enter NAPOLÉON from the bed-chamber. He half shuts the door,and remains close to it listening, pale and nervous.]BOURDIERI ask you, sire,To harass yourself less with this event,Which may amend anon: I much regretThe honoured mother of your Majesty,And sister too, should both have left ere now,Whose solace would have bridged these anxious hours.NAPOLÉON [absently]As we were not expecting it so soonI begged they would sit up no longer here....She ought to get along; she has help enoughWith that half-dozen of them at hand within—Skilled Madame Blaise the nurse, and two besides,Madame de Montesquiou and Madame Ballant—-DUBOIS [speaking through the doorway]Past is the question, sire, of which to save!The child is dead; the while her MajestyIs getting through it well.NAPOLÉONPraise Heaven for that!I’ll not grieve overmuch about the child....Never shall She go through this strain againTo lay down a dynastic line for me.DUCHESS OF MONTEBELLO [aside to the second lady]He only says that now. In cold blood it would be far otherwise.That’s how men are.VOICE OF MADAME BLAISE [within]Doctor, the child’s alive! [The cry of an infant is heard.]VOICE OF DUBOIS [calling from within]Sire, both are saved.[NAPOLÉON rushes into the chamber, and is heard kissing MARIELOUISE.]VOICE OF MADAME BLAISE [within]A vigorous boy, your Imperial Majesty. The brandy and hot napkinsbrought him to.DUCHESS OF MONTEBELLOIt is as I expected. A healthy young woman of her build had everychance of doing well, despite the doctors.[An interval.]NAPOLÉON [re-entering radiantly]We have achieved a healthy heir, good dames,And in the feat the Empress was most brave,Although she suffered much—so much, indeed,That I would sooner father no more sonsThan have so fair a fruit-tree undergoAnother wrenching of such magnitude.[He walks to the window, pulls aside the curtains, and looks out.It is a joyful spring morning. The Tuileries’ gardens are throngedwith an immense crowd, kept at a little distance off the Palace bya cord. The windows of the neighbouring houses are full of gazers,and the streets are thronged with halting carriages, their inmatesawaiting the event.]SPIRIT OF THE YEARS [whispering to Napoléon]At this high hour there broods a woman nigh,Ay, here in Paris, with her child and thine,Who might have played this part with truer eyeTo thee and to thy contemplated line!NAPOLÉON [soliloquizing]Strange that just now there flashes on my soulThat little one I loved in Warsaw days,Marie Walewska, and my boy by her!—She was shown faithless by a foul intrigueTill fate sealed up her opportunity....But what’s one woman’s fortune more or lessBeside the schemes of kings!—Ah, there’s the new![A gun is heard from the Invalides.]CROWD [excitedly]One![Another report of the gun, and another, succeed.]Two! Three! Four![The firing and counting proceed to twenty-one, when there is greatsuspense. The gun fires again, and the excitement is doubled.]Twenty-two! A boy![The remainder of the counting up to a hundred-and-one is drownedin the huzzas. Bells begin ringing, and from the Champ de Mars aballoon ascends, from which the tidings are scattered in hand-billsas it floats away from France.Enter the PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE, CAMBACÉRÈS, BERTHIER, LEBRUN,and other officers of state. NAPOLÉON turns from the window.]CAMBACÉRÈSUnstinted gratulations and goodwillWe bring to your Imperial Majesty,While still resounds the superflux of joyWith which your people welcome this live starUpon the horizon of history!PRESIDENT OF THE SENATEAll blessings at their goodliest will graceThe advent of this New Messiah, sire,Of fairer prospects than the former one,Whose coming at so apt an hour enduesThe widening glory of your high exploitsWith permanence, and flings the dimness farThat cloaked the future of our chronicle!NAPOLÉONMy thanks; though, gentlemen, upon my soulYou might have drawn the line at the Messiah.But I excuse you.—Yes, the boy has come;He took some coaxing, but he’s here at last.—And what news brings the morning from without?I know of none but this the Empress nowTrumps to the world from the adjoining room.PRESIDENT OF THE SENATENothing in Europe, sire, that can compareIn magnitude therewith to more effectThan with an eagle some frail finch or wren.To wit: the ban on English trade prevailing,Subjects our merchant-houses to such strainThat many of the best see bankruptcyLike a grim ghost ahead. Next week, they sayIn secret here, six of the largest close.NAPOLÉONIt shall not be! Our burst of natal joyMust not be sullied by so mean a thing:Aid shall be rendered. Much as we may suffer,England must suffer more, and I am content.What has come in from Spain and Portugal?BERTHIERVaguely-voiced rumours, sire, but nothing more,Which travel countries quick as earthquake thrills,No mortal knowing how.NAPOLÉONOf Masséna?BERTHIERYea. He retreats for prudence’ sake, it seems,Before Lord Wellington. Dispatches soonMust reach your Majesty, explaining all.NAPOLÉONEver retreating! Why declines he soFrom all his olden prowess? Why, again,Did he give battle at Busaco lately,When Lisbon could be marched on without strain?Why has he dallied by the Tagus bankAnd shunned the obvious course? I gave him Ney,Soult, and Junot, and eighty thousand men,And he does nothing. Really it might seemAs though we meant to let this WellingtonBe even with us there!BERTHIERHis mighty fortsAt Torres Vedras hamper Masséna,And quite preclude advance.NAPOLÉONO well—no matter:Why should I linger on these haps of warNow that I have a son![Exeunt NAPOLÉON by one door and by another the PRESIDENT OF THESENATE, CAMBACÉRÈS, LEBRUN, BERTHIER, and officials.]CHORUS OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music]The Will Itself is slave to him,And holds it blissful to obey!—He said, “Go to; it is my whim“To bed a bride without delay,Who shall unite my dull new nameWith one that shone in Caesar’s day.“She must conceive—you hear my claim?—And bear a son—no daughter, mind—Who shall hand on my form and fame“To future times as I have designed;And at the birth throughout the landMust cannon roar and alp-horns wind!”The Will grew conscious at command,And ordered issue as he planned.[The interior of the Palace is veiled.]SCENE IVSPAIN. ALBUERA[The dawn of a mid-May day in the same spring shows the villageof Albuera with the country around it, as viewed from the summitof a line of hills on which the English and their allies are rangedunder Beresford. The landscape swept by the eye includes to theright foreground a hill loftier than any, and somewhat detachedfrom the range. The green slopes behind and around this hill areuntrodden—though in a few hours to be the sanguinary scene of themost murderous struggle of the whole war.The village itself lies to the left foreground, with its streamflowing behind it in the distance on the right. A creeping brookat the bottom of the heights held by the English joins the streamby the village. Behind the stream some of the French forces arevisible. Away behind these stretches a great wood several milesin area, out of which the Albuera stream emerges, and behind thefurthest verge of the wood the morning sky lightens momently. Thebirds in the wood, unaware that this day is to be different fromevery other day they have known there, are heard singing theirovertures with their usual serenity.]DUMB SHOWAs objects grow more distinct it can be perceived that some strategicdispositions of the night are being completed by the French forces,which the evening before lay in the woodland to the front of theEnglish army. They have emerged during the darkness, and largesections of them—infantry, cuirassiers, and artillery—have creptround to BERESFORD’S right without his suspecting the movement, wherethey lie hidden by the great hill aforesaid, though not more thanhalf-a-mile from his right wing.SPIRIT OF THE YEARSA hot ado goes forward here to-day,If I may read the Immanent IntentFrom signs and tokens blentWith weird unrest along the firmamentOf causal coils in passionate display.—Look narrowly, and what you witness say.SPIRIT OF THE PITIESI see red smears upon the sickly dawn,And seeming drops of gore. On earth belowAre men—unnatural and mechanic-drawn—Mixt nationalities in row and row,Wheeling them to and froIn moves dissociate from their souls’ demand,For dynasts’ ends that few even understand!SPIRIT OF THE YEARSSpeak more materially, and less in dream.SPIRIT OF RUMOURI’ll do it.... The stir of strife grows well definedAround the hamlet and the church thereby:Till, from the wood, the ponderous columns wind,Guided by Godinot, with Werle nigh.They bear upon the vill. But the gruff gunsOf Dickson’s PortuguesePunch spectral vistas through the maze of these!...More Frenchmen press, and roaring antiphonsOf cannonry contuse the roofs and walls and trees.SPIRIT OF THE PITIESWrecked are the ancient bridge, the green spring plot,the blooming fruit-tree, the fair flower-knot!SPIRIT OF RUMOURYet the true mischief to the English mightIs meant to fall not there. Look to the right,And read the shaping scheme by yon hill-side,Where cannon, foot, and brisk dragoons you see,With Werle and Latour-Maubourg to guide,Waiting to breast the hill-brow bloodily.BERESFORD now becomes aware of this project on his flank, and sendsorders to throw back his right to face the attack. The order is notobeyed. Almost at the same moment the French rush is made, theSpanish and Portuguese allies of the English are beaten beck, andthe hill is won. But two English divisions bear from the centre oftheir front, and plod desperately up the hill to retake it.SPIRIT SINISTERNow he among us who may wish to beA skilled practitioner in slaughtery,Should watch this hour’s fruition yonder there,And he will know, if knowing ever were,How mortals may be freed their fleshly cells,And quaint red doors set ope in sweating fells,By methods swift and slow and foul and fair!The English, who have plunged up the hill, are caught in a heavymist, that hides from them an advance in their rear of the lancersand hussars of the enemy. The lines of the Buffs, the Sixty-sixth,and those of the Forty-eighth, who were with them, in a chaos ofsmoke, steel, sweat, curses, and blood, are beheld melting downlike wax from an erect position to confused heaps. Their formslie rigid, or twitch and turn, as they are trampled over by thehoofs of the enemy’s horse. Those that have not fallen are taken.SPIRIT OF THE PITIESIt works as you, uncanny Phantom, wist!...Whose is that towering formThat tears across the mistTo where the shocks are sorest?—his with armOutstretched, and grimy face, and bloodshot eye,Like one who, having done his deeds, will die?SPIRIT OF RUMOURHe is one Beresford, who heads the fightFor England here to-day.SPIRIT OF THE PITIESHe calls the sightDespite itself!—parries yon lancer’s thrust,And with his own sword renders dust to dust!The ghastly climax of the strife is reached; the combatants areseen to be firing grape and canister at speaking distance, anddischarging musketry in each other’s faces when so close thattheir complexions may be recognized. Hot corpses, their mouthsblackened by cartridge-biting, and surrounded by cast-awayknapsacks, firelocks, hats, stocks, flint-boxes, and priminghorns, together with red and blue rags of clothing, gaiters,epaulettes, limbs and viscera accumulate on the slopes, increasingfrom twos and threes to half-dozens, and from half-dozens to heaps,which steam with their own warmth as the spring rain falls gentlyupon them.The critical instant has come, and the English break. But acomparatively fresh division, with fusileers, is brought into theturmoil by HARDINGE and COLE, and these make one last strain tosave the day, and their names and lives. The fusileers mount theincline, and issuing from the smoke and mist startle the enemy bytheir arrival on a spot deemed won.SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]They come, beset by riddling hail;They sway like sedges is a gale;The fail, and win, and win, and fail. Albuera!SEMICHORUS IIThey gain the ground there, yard by yard,Their brows and hair and lashes charred,Their blackened teeth set firm and hard.SEMICHORUS ITheir mad assailants rave and reel,And face, as men who scorn to feel,The close-lined, three-edged prongs of steel.SEMICHORUS IITill faintness follows closing-in,When, faltering headlong down, they spinLike leaves. But those pay well who win Albuera.SEMICHORUS IOut of six thousand souls that swareTo hold the mount, or pass elsewhere,But eighteen hundred muster there.SEMICHORUS IIPale Colonels, Captains, ranksmen lie,Facing the earth or facing sky;—They strove to live, they stretch to die.SEMICHORUS IFriends, foemen, mingle; heap and heap.—Hide their hacked bones, Earth!—deep, deep, deep,Where harmless worms caress and creep.CHORUSHide their hacked bones, Earth!—deep, deep, deep,Where harmless worms caress and creep.—What man can grieve? what woman weep?Better than waking is to sleep! Albuera!The night comes on, and darkness covers the battle-field.SCENE VWINDSOR CASTLE. A ROOM IN THE KING’S APARTMENT[The walls of the room are padded, and also the articles offurniture, the stuffing being overlaid with satin and velvet, onwhich are worked in gold thread monograms and crowns. The windowsare guarded, and the floor covered with thick cork, carpeted. Thetime is shortly after the last scene.The KING is seated by a window, and two of Dr. WILLIS’S attendantsare in the room. His MAJESTY is now seventy-two; his sight isvery defective, but he does not look ill. He appears to be lostin melancholy thought, and talks to himself reproachfully, hurriedmanner on occasion being the only irregular symptom that hebetrays.]KINGIn my lifetime I did not look after her enough—enough—enough!And now she is lost to me, and I shall never see her more. Had Ibut known, had I but thought of it! Gentlemen, when did I lose thePrincess Amelia?FIRST ATTENDANTThe second of last November, your Majesty.KINGAnd what is it now?FIRST ATTENDANTNow, sir, it is the beginning of June.KINGAh, June, I remember!... The June flowers are not for me. Ishall never see them; nor will she. So fond of them as she was.... Even if I were living I would never go where there are flowersany more! No: I would go to the bleak, barren places that she neverwould walk in, and never knew, so that nothing might remind me ofher, and make my heart ache more than I can bear!... Why, thebeginning of June?—that’s when they are coming to examine me! [Hegrows excited.]FIRST ATTENDANT [to second attendant, aside]Dr. Reynolds ought not have reminded him of their visit. It onlydisquiets him and makes him less fit to see them.KINGHow long have I been confined here?FIRST ATTENDANTSince November, sir; for your health’s sake entirely, as your Majestyknows.KINGWhat, what? So long? Ah, yes. I must bear it. This is the fourthgreat black gulf in my poor life, is it not? The fourth.[A signal from the door. The second attendant opens it and whispers.Enter softly SIR HENRY HALFORD, DR. WILLIAM HEBERDEN, DR. ROBERTWILLIS, DR. MATTHEW BAILLIE, the KING’S APOTHECARY, and one or twoother gentlemen.]KING [straining his eye to discern them]What! Are they come? What will they do to me? How dare they! Iam Elector of Hanover! [Finding Dr. Willis is among them he shrieks.]O, they are going to bleed me—yes, to bleed me! [Piteously.] Myfriends, don’t bleed me—pray don’t! It makes me so weak to take myblood. And the leeches do, too, when you put so many. You will notbe so unkind, I am sure!WILLIS [to Baillie]It is extraordinary what a vast aversion he has to bleeding—thatmost salutary remedy, fearlessly practised. He submits to leechesas yet but I won’t say that he will for long without being strait-jacketed.KING [catching some of the words]You will strait-jacket me? O no, no!WILLISLeeches are not effective, really. Dr. Home, when I mentioned it tohim yesterday, said he would bleed him till he fainted if he hadcharge of him!KINGO will you do it, sir, against my will,And put me, once your king, in needless pain?I do assure you truly, my good friends,That I have done no harm! In sunnier yearsEre I was throneless, withered to a shade,Deprived of my divine authority—When I was hale, and ruled the English land—I ever did my utmost to promoteThe welfare of my people, body and soul!Right many a morn and night I have prayed and musedHow I could bring them to a better way.So much of me you surely know, my friends,And will not hurt me in my weakness here! [He trembles.]SPIRIT OF THE PITIESThe tears that lie about this plightful sceneOf heavy travail in a suffering soul,Mocked with the forms and feints of royaltyWhile scarified by briery Circumstance,Might drive Compassion past her patiencyTo hold that some mean, monstrous ironistHad built this mistimed fabric of the SpheresTo watch the throbbings of its captive lives,[The which may Truth forfend], and not thy saidUnmaliced, unimpassioned, nescient Will!SPIRIT OF THE YEARSMild one, be not touched with human fate.Such is the Drama: such the Mortal state:No sigh of thine can null the Plan Predestinate!HALFORDWe have come to do your Majesty no harm.Here’s Dr. Heberden, whom I am sure you like,And this is Dr. Baillie. We arriveBut to inquire and gather how you are,Thereon to let the Privy Council know,And give assurances for you people’s good.[A brass band is heard playing in the distant part of Windsor.]KINGAh—what does that band play for here to-day?She has been dead and I so short a time!...Her little hands are hardly cold as yet;But they can show such cruel indecencyAs to let trumpets play!HALFORDThey guess not, sir,That you can hear them, or their chords would cease.Their boisterous music fetches back to meThat, of our errands to your Majesty,One was congratulation most sincereUpon this glorious victory you have won.The news is just in port; the band booms outTo celebrate it, and to honour you.KINGA victory? I? Pray where?HALFORDIndeed so, sir:Hard by Albuera—far in harried Spain—Yes, sir; you have achieved a victoryOf dash unmatched and feats unparalleled!KINGHe says I have won a battle? But I thoughtI was a poor afflicted captive here,In darkness lingering out my lonely days,Beset with terror of these myrmidonsThat suck my blood like vampires! Ay, ay, ay!—No aims left to me but to quicken deathTo quicklier please my son!—And yet he saysThat I have won a battle! O God, curse, damn!When will the speech of the world accord with truth,And men’s tongues roll sincerely!GENTLEMAN [aside]Faith, ’twould seemAs if the madman were the sanest here![The KING’S face has flushed, and he becomes violent. Theattendants rush forward to him.]SPIRIT OF THE PITIESSomething within me aches to prayTo some Great Heart, to take awayThis evil day, this evil day!CHORUS IRONICHa-ha! That’s good. Thou’lt pray to It:—But where do Its compassions sit?Yea, where abides the heart of it?Is it where sky-fires flame and flit,Or solar craters spew and spit,Or ultra-stellar night-webs knit?What is Its shape? Man’s counterfeit?That turns in some far sphere unlitThe Wheel which drives the Infinite?SPIRIT OF THE PITIESMock on, mock on! Yet I’ll go prayTo some Great Heart, who haply mayCharm mortal miseries away![The KING’S paroxysm continues. The attendants hold him.]HALFORDThis is distressing. One can never tellHow he will take things now. I thought AlbueraA subject that would surely solace him.These paroxysms—have they been bad this week? [To Attendants.]FIRST ATTENDANTSir Henry, no. He has quite often namedThe late Princess, as gently as a childA little bird found starved.WILLIS [aside to apothecary]I must increase the opium to-night, and lower him by a double set ofleeches since he won’t stand the lancet quietly.APOTHECARYYou should take twenty ounces, doctor, if a drop—indeed, go onblooding till he’s unconscious. He is too robust by half. And thewatering-pot would do good again—not less than six feet above hishead. See how heated he is.WILLISCurse that town band. It will have to be stopped.HEBERDENThe same thing is going on all over England, no doubt, on account ofthis victory.HALFORDWhen he is in a more domineering mood he likes such allusions to hisrank as king.... If he could resume his walks on the terrace hemight improve slightly. But it is too soon yet. We must considerwhat we shall report to the Council. There is little hope of hisbeing much better. What do you think, Willis?WILLISNone. He is done for this time!HALFORDWell, we must soften it down a little, so as not to upset the Queentoo much, poor woman, and distract the Council unnecessarily. Eldonwill go pumping up bucketfuls, and the Archbishops are so easilyshocked that a certain conventional reserve is almost forced upon us.WILLIS [returning from the King]He is already better. The paroxysm has nearly passed. Your opinionwill be far more favourable before you leave.[The KING soon grows calm, and the expression of his face changesto one of dejection. The attendants leave his side: he bends hishead, and covers his face with his hand, while his lips move as ifin prayer. He then turns to them.]KING [meekly]I am most truly sorry, gentlemen,If I have used language that would seem to showDiscourtesy to you for your good helpIn this unhappy malady of mine!My nerves unstring, my friend; my flesh grows weak:“The good that I do I leave undone,The evil which I would not, that I do!”Shame, shame on me!WILLIS [aside to the others]Now he will be as low as before he was in the other extreme.KINGA king should bear him kingly; I of all,One of so long a line. O shame on me!...—This battle that you speak of?—Spain, of course?Ah—Albuera! And many fall—eh? Yes?HALFORDMany hot hearts, sir, cold, I grieve to say.There’s Major-General Houghton, Captain Bourke,And Herbert of the Third, Lieutenant Fox,And Captains Erck and Montague, and more.With Majors-General Cole and Stewart wounded,And Quartermaster-General Wallace too:A total of three generals, colonels five,Five majors, fifty captains; and to theseAdd ensigns and lieutenants sixscore odd,Who went out, but returned not. Heavily tithedWere the attenuate battalions thereWho stood and bearded Death by the hour that day!KINGO fearful price for victory! Add theretoAll those I lost at Walchere.—A crimeLay there!... I stood on Chatham’s being sent:It wears on me, till I am unfit to live!WILLIS [aside to the others]Don’t let him get on that Walcheren business. There will be anotheroutbreak. Heberden, please ye talk to him. He fancies you most.HEBERDENI’ll tell him some of the brilliant feats of the battle. [He goesand talks to the KING.]WILLIS [to the rest]Well, my inside begins to cry cupboard. I had breakfast early. Wehave enough particulars now to face the Queen’s Council with, Ishould say, Sir Henry?HALFORDYes.—I want to get back to town as soon as possible to-day. MrsSiddons has a party at her house at Westbourne to-night, and all theworld is going to be there.BAILLIEWell, I am not. But I have promised to take some friends to Vauxhall,as it is a grand gala and fireworks night. Miss Farren is going tosing “The Canary Bird.”—The Regent’s fete, by the way, is postponedtill the nineteenth, on account of this relapse. Pretty grumpy hewas at having to do it. All the world will be THERE, sure!WILLISAnd some from the Shades, too, of the fair, sex.—Well, here comesHeberden. He has pacified his Majesty nicely. Now we can get away.[The physicians withdraw softly, and the scene is covered.]SCENE VILONDON. CARLTON HOUSE AND THE STREETS ADJOINING[It is a cloudless midsummer evening, and as the west fades thestars beam down upon the city, the evening-star hanging like ajonquil blossom. They are dimmed by the unwonted radiance whichspreads around and above Carlton House. As viewed from aloft theglare rises through the skylights, floods the forecourt towardsPall Mall, and kindles with a diaphanous glow the huge tents inthe gardens that overlook the Mall. The hour has arrived of thePrince Regent’s festivity.A stream of carriages and sedan-chairs, moving slowly, stretchesfrom the building along Pall Mall into Piccadilly and Bond Street,and crowds fill the pavements watching the bejewelled and featheredoccupants. In addition to the grand entrance inside the Pall Mallcolonnade there is a covert little “chair-door” in Warwick Streetfor sedans only, by which arrivals are perceived to be slipping inalmost unobserved.]SPIRIT IRONICWhat domiciles are those, of singular expression,Whence no guest comes to join the gemmed procession;That, west of Hyde, this, in the Park-side Lane,Each front beclouded like a mask of pain?SPIRIT OF RUMOURTherein the princely host’s two spouses dwell;A wife in each. Let me inspect and tell.[The walls of the two houses—one in Park Lane, the other atKensington—become transparent.]I see within the first his latter wife—That Caroline of Brunswick whose brave sireYielded his breath on Jena’s reeking plain,And of whose kindred other yet may fallEre long, if character indeed be fate.—She idles feasting, and is full of jestAs each gay chariot rumbles to the rout.“I rank like your Archbishops’ wives,” laughs she;“Denied my husband’s honours. Funny me!”[Suddenly a Beau on his way to the Carlton House festival halts ather house, calls, and is shown in.]He brings her news that a fresh favourite rulesHer husband’s ready heart; likewise of thoseObscure and unmissed courtiers late deceased,Who have in name been bidden to the feastBy blundering scribes.[The Princess is seen to jump up from table at some words from hervisitor, and clap her hands.]These tidings, juxtaposed,Have fired her hot with curiosity,And lit her quick invention with a plan.PRINCESS OF WALESMine God, I’ll go disguised—in some dead nameAnd enter by the leetle, sly, chair-doorDesigned for those not welcomed openly.There unobserved I’ll note mine new supplanter!’Tis indiscreet? Let indiscretion rule,Since caution pensions me so scurvily!SPIRIT IRONICGood. Now for the other sweet and slighted spouse.SPIRIT OF RUMOURThe second roof shades the Fitzherbert Fair;Reserved, perverse. As coach and coach roll byShe mopes within her lattice; lampless, lone,As if she grieved at her ungracious fate,And yet were loth to kill the sting of itBy frankly forfeiting the Prince and town.“Bidden,” says she, “but as one low of rank,And go I will not so unworthily,To sit with common dames!”—A flippant friendWrites then that a new planet sways to-nightThe sense of her erratic lord; whereonThe fair Fitzherbert muses hankeringly.MRS. FITZHERBERT [soliloquizing]The guest-card which I publicly refusedMight, as a fancy, privately be used!...Yes—one last look—a wordless, wan farewellTo this false life which glooms me like a knell,And him, the cause; from some hid nook surveyHis new magnificence;—then go for aye!SPIRIT OF RUMOURShe cloaks and veils, and in her private chairPasses the Princess also stealing there—Two honest wives, and yet a differing pair!SPIRIT IRONICWith dames of strange repute, who bear a ticketFor screened admission by the private wicket.CHORUS OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music]A wife of the body, a wife of the mind,A wife somewhat frowsy, a wife too refined:Could the twain but grow one, and no other dames be,No husband in Europe more steadfast than he!SPIRIT OF THE YEARSCease fooling on weak waifs who love and wedBut as the unweeting Urger may bestead!—See them withinside, douce and diamonded.[The walls of Carlton House open, and the spectator finds himselfconfronting the revel.]SCENE VIITHE SAME. THE INTERIOR OF CARLTON HOUSE[A central hall is disclosed, radiant with constellations ofcandles, lamps, and lanterns, and decorated with flowering shrubs.An opening on the left reveals the Grand Council-chamber preparedfor dancing, the floor being chalked with arabesques having in thecentre “G. III. R.,” with a crown, arms, and supporters. Orange-trees and rose-bushes in bloom stand against the walls. On theright hand extends a glittering vista of the supper-rooms andtables, now crowded with guests. This display reaches as far asthe conservatory westward, and branches into long tents on thelawn.On a dais at the chief table, laid with gold and silver plate, thePrince Regent sits like a lay figure, in a state chair of crimsonand gold, with six servants at his back. He swelters in a gorgeousuniform of scarlet and gold lace which represents him as FieldMarshal, and he is surrounded by a hundred-and-forty of hisparticular friends.Down the middle of this state-table runs a purling brook crossedby quaint bridges, in which gold and silver fish frisk aboutbetween banks of moss and flowers. The whole scene is lit withwax candles in chandeliers, and in countless candelabra on thetables.The people at the upper tables include the Duchess of York, lookingtired from having just received as hostess most of the ladiespresent, except those who have come informally, Louis XVIII. ofFrance, the Duchess of Angouleme, all the English Royal Dukes,nearly all the ordinary Dukes and Duchesses; also the LordChancellor of the Exchequer and other Ministers, the Lord Mayorand Lady Mayoress, all the more fashionable of the other Peers,Peeresses, and Members of Parliament, Generals, Admirals, andMayors, with their wives. The ladies of position wear, almost tothe extent of a uniform, a nodding head-dress of ostrich featherswith diamonds, and gowns of white satin embroidered in gold orsilver, on which, owing to the heat, dribbles of wax from thechandeliers occasionally fall.The Guards’ bands play, and attendants rush about in blue and goldlace.]SPIRIT OF THE PITIESThe Queen, the Regent’s mother, sits not here;Wanting, too, are his sisters, I perceive;And it is well. With the distempered KingImmured at Windsor, sore distraught or dying,It borders nigh on indecencyIn their regard, that this loud feast is kept,A thought not strange to many, as I read,Even of those gathered here.SPIRIT IRONICMy dear phantom and crony, the gloom upon their faces is due ratherto their having borrowed those diamonds at eleven per cent than totheir loyalty to a suffering monarch! But let us test the feeling.I’ll spread a report.[He calls up the SPIRIT OF RUMOUR, who scatters whispers throughthe assemblage.]A GUEST [to his neighbour]Have you heard this report—that the King is dead?ANOTHER GUESTIt has just reached me from the other side. Can it be true?THIRD GUESTI think it probable. He has been very ill all week.PRINCE REGENTDead? Then my fete is spoilt, by God!SHERIDANLong live the King! [He holds up his glass and bows to the Regent.]MARCHIONESS OF HERTFORD [the new favourite, to the Regent]The news is more natural than the moment of it! It is too cruel toyou that it should happen now!PRINCE REGENTDamn me, though; can it be true? [He provisionally throws a regalair into his countenance.]DUCHESS OF YORK [on the Regent’s left]I hardly can believe it. This forenoonHe was reported mending.DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME [on the Regent’s right]On this sideThey are asserting that the news is false—That Buonaparte’s child, the “King of Rome,”Is dead, and not your royal father, sire.PRINCE REGENTThat’s mighty fortunate! Had it been true,I should have been abused by all the world—The Queen the keenest of the chorus, too—Though I have been postponing this pledged feastThrough days and weeks, in hopes the King would mend,Till expectation fusted with delay.But give a dog a bad name—or a Prince!So, then, it is new-come King of RomeWho has passed or ever the world has welcomed him!...Call him a king—that pompous upstart’s son—Beside us scions of the ancient lines!DUKE OF BEDFORDI think that rumour untrue also, sir. I heard it as I drove up fromWoburn this evening, and it was contradicted then.PRINCE REGENTDrove up this evening, did ye, Duke. Why did you cut it so close?DUKE OF BEDFORDWell, it so happened that my sheep-sheering dinner was fixed forthis very day, and I couldn’t put it off. So I dined with themthere at one o’clock, discussed the sheep, rushed off, drove thetwo-and-forty miles, jumped into my clothes at my house here, andreached your Royal Highness’s door in no very bad time.PRINCE REGENTCapital, capital. But, ’pon my soul, ’twas a close shave![Soon the babbling and glittering company rise from supper, andbegin promenading through the rooms and tents, the REGENT settingthe example, and mixing up and talking unceremoniously with hisguests of every degree. He and the group round him disappear intothe remoter chambers; but may concentrate in the Grecian Hall,which forms the foreground of the scene, whence a glance can beobtained into the ball-room, now filled with dancers.The band is playing the tune of the season, “The Regency Hornpipe,”which is danced as a country-dance by some thirty couples; so thatby the time the top couple have danced down the figure they arequite breathless. Two young lords talk desultorily as they surveythe scene.]FIRST LORDAre the rumours of the King of Rome’s death confirmed?SECOND LORDNo. But they are probably true. He was a feeble brat from thefirst. I believe they had to baptize him on the day he was born.What can one expect after such presumption—calling him the NewMessiah, and God knows what all. Ours is the only country whichdid not write fulsome poems about him. “Wise English!” the TsarAlexander said drily when he heard it.FIRST LORDAy! The affection between that Pompey and Caesar has begun to cool.Alexander’s soreness at having his sister thrown over so cavalierlyis not salved yet.SECOND LORDThere is much beside. I’d lay a guinea there will be war betweenRussia and France before another year has flown.FIRST LORDPrinny looks a little worried to-night.SECOND LORDYes. The Queen don’t like the fete being held, considering theKing’s condition. She and her friends say it should have been putoff altogether. But the Princess of Wales is not troubled that way.Though she was not asked herself she went wildly off and bought herpeople new gowns to come in. Poor maladroit woman!....[Another new dance of the year is started, and another long lineof couples begin to foot it.]That’s a pretty thing they are doing now. What d’ye call it?FIRST LORD“Speed the Plough.” It is just out. They are having it everywhere.The next is to be one of those foreign things in three-eight timethey call Waltzes. I question if anybody is up to dancing ’em hereyet.[“Speed the Plough” is danced to its conclusion, and the bandstrikes up “The Copenhagen Waltz.”]SPIRIT IRONICNow for the wives. They both were tearing hither,Unless reflection sped them back again;But dignity that nothing else may bendSuccumbs to woman’s curiosity,So deem them here. Messengers, call them nigh![The PRINCE REGENT, having gone the round of the other rooms, nowappears at the ball-room door, and stands looking at the dancers.Suddenly he turns, and gazes about with a ruffled face. He seesa tall, red-faced man near him—LORD MOIRA, one of his friends.]PRINCE REGENTDamned hot here, Moira. Hottest of all for me!MOIRAYes, it is warm, sir. Hence I do not dance.PRINCE REGENTH’m. What I meant was of another order;I spoke figuratively.MOIRAO indeed, sir?PRINCE REGENTShe’s here. I heard her voice. I’ll swear I did!MOIRAWho, sir?PRINCE REGENTWhy, the Princess of Wales. Do you think I could mistake thosebeastly German Ps and Bs of hers?—She asked to come, and wasdenied; but she’s got here, I’ll wager ye, through the chair-doorin Warwick Street, which I arranged for a few ladies whom I wishedto come privately. [He looks about again, and moves till he is bya door which affords a peep up the grand staircase.] By God, Moira,I see TWO figures up there who shouldn’t be here—leaning over thebalustrade of the gallery!MOIRATwo figures, sir. Whose are they?PRINCE REGENTShe is one. The Fitzherbert in t’other! O I am almost sure it is!I would have welcomed her, but she bridled and said she wouldn’t sitdown at my table as a plain “Mrs.” to please anybody. As I had swornthat on this occasion people should sit strictly according to theirrank, I wouldn’t give way. Why the devil did she come like this?’Pon my soul, these women will be the death o’ me!MOIRA [looking cautiously up the stairs]I can see nothing of her, sir, nor of the Princess either. There isa crowd of idlers up there leaning over the bannisters, and you mayhave mistaken some others for them.PRINCE REGENTO no. They have drawn back their heads. There have been such damnedmistakes made in sending out the cards that the biggest w—- in Londonmight be here. She’s watching Lady Hertford, that’s what she’s doing.For all their indifference, both of them are as jealous as two catsover the tom.[Somebody whispers that a lady has fainted up-stairs.]That’s Maria, I’ll swear! She’s always doing it. Whenever I hearof some lady fainting about upon the furniture at my presence, andsending for a glass of water, I say to myself, There’s Maria at itagain, by God!SPIRIT IRONICNow let him hear their voices once again.[The REGENT starts as he seems to hear from the stairs the tonguesof the two ladies growing louder and nearer, the PRINCESS pouringreproaches into one ear, and MRS. FITZHERBERT into the other.]PRINCE REGENT’Od seize ’em, Moira; this will drive me mad!If men of blood must mate with only oneOf those dear damned deluders called the Sex,Why has Heaven teased us with the taste for change?—God, I begin to loathe the whole curst show!How hot it is! Get me a glass of brandy,Or I shall swoon off too. Now let’s go out,And find some fresher air upon the lawn.[Exit the PRINCE REGENT, with LORDS MOIRA and YARMOUTH. The bandstrikes up “La Belle Catarina” and a new figure is formed.]SPIRIT OF THE YEARSPhantoms, ye strain your powers unduly here,Making faint fancies as they were indeedThe Mighty Will’s firm work.SPIRIT IRONICNay, Father, nay;The wives prepared to hasten hitherwardUnder the names of some gone down to death,Who yet were bidden. Must they not by here?SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThere lie long leagues between a woman’s word—“She will, indeed she will!”—and acting on’t.Whether those came or no, thy antics cease,And let the revel wear it out in peace.[Enter SPENCER PERCEVAL the Prime Minister, a small, pale, grave-looking man, and an Under-Secretary of State, meeting.]UNDER-SECRETARYIs the King of Rome really dead, and the gorgeous gold cradle wasted?PERCEVALO no, he is alive and waxing strong:That tale has been set travelling more than once.But touching it, booms echo to our earOf graver import, unimpeachable.UNDER-SECRETARYYour speech is dark.PERCEVALWell, a new war in Europe.Before the year is out there may ariseA red campaign outscaling any seen.Russia and France the parties to the strife—Ay, to the death!UNDER-SECRETARYBy Heaven, sir, do you say so?[Enter CASTLEREAGH, a tall, handsome man with a Roman nose, who,seeing them, approaches.]PERCEVALHa, Castlereagh. Till now I have missed you here.This news is startling for us all, I say!CASTLEREAGHMy mind is blank on it! Since I left officeI know no more what villainy’s afoot,Or virtue either, than an anchoretWho mortifies the flesh in some lone cave.PERCEVALWell, happily that may not last for long.But this grave pother that’s just now agogMay reach such radius in its consequenceAs to outspan our lives! Yes, BonaparteAnd Alexander—late such bosom-friends—Are closing to a mutual murder-boutAt which the lips of Europe will wax wan.Bonaparte says the fault is not with him,And so says Alexander. But we knowThe Austrian knot began their severance,And that the Polish question largens it.Nothing but time is needed for the clash.And if so be that Wellington but keepHis foot in the Peninsula awhile,Between the pestle and the mortar-stoneOf Russia and of Spain, Napoléon’s brayed.SPIRIT OF RUMOUR [to the Spirit of the Years]Permit me now to join them and confirm,By what I bring from far, their forecasting?SPIRIT OF THE YEARSI’ll go. Thou knowest not greatly more than they.[The SPIRIT OF THE YEARS enters the apartment in the shape of apale, hollow-eye gentleman wearing an embroidered suit. At thesame time re-enter the REGENT, LORDS MOIRA, YARMOUTH, KEITH, LADYHERTFORD, SHERIDAN, the DUKE OF BEDFORD, with many more notables.The band changes into the popular dance, “Down with the French,”and the characters aforesaid look on at the dancers.]SPIRIT OF THE YEARS [to Perceval]Yes, sir; your text is true. In closest touchWith European courts and cabinets,The imminence of dire and deadly warBetwixt these east and western emperiesIs lipped by special pathways to mine ear.You may not see the impact: ere it comeThe tomb-worm may caress thee [Perceval shrinks]; but believeBefore five more have joined the shotten yearsWhose useless films infest the foggy Past,Traced thick with teachings glimpsed unheedingly,The rawest Dynast of the group concernedWill, for the good or ill of mute mankind,Down-topple to the dust like soldier Saul,And Europe’s mouldy-minded oligarchsBe propped anew; while garments roll in bloodTo confused noise, with burning, and fuel of fire.Nations shall lose their noblest in the strife,And tremble at the tidings of an hour![He passes into the crowd and vanishes.]PRINCE REGENT [who has heard with parted lips]Who the devil is he?PERCEVALOne in the suite of the French princes, perhaps, sir?—though histone was not monarchical. He seems to be a foreigner.CASTLEREAGHHis manner was that of an old prophet, and his features had a Jewishcast, which accounted for his Hebraic style.PRINCE REGENTHe could not have known me, to speak so freely in my presence!SHERIDANI expected to see him write on the wall, like the gentleman with theHand at Belshazzar’s Feast.PRINCE REGENT [recovering]He seemed to know a damn sight more about what’s going on in Europe,sir [to Perceval], than your Government does, with all its secretinformation.PERCEVALHe is recently over, I conjecture, your royal Highness, and bringsthe latest impressions.PRINCE REGENTBy Gad, sir, I shall have a comfortable time of it in my regency, orreign, if what he foresees be true! But I was born for war; it ismy destiny![He draws himself up inside his uniform and stalks away. The groupdissolves, the band continuing stridently, “Down with the French,”as dawn glimmers in. Soon the REGENT’S guests begin severally andin groups to take leave.]SPIRIT OF THE PITIESBehold To-morrow riddles the curtains through,And labouring life without shoulders its cross anew!CHORUS OF THE YEARS [aerial music]Why watch we here? Look all aroundWhere Europe spreads her crinkled ground,From Osmanlee to Hekla’s mound,Look all around!Hark at the cloud-combed Ural pines;See how each, wailful-wise, inclines;Mark the mist’s labyrinthine lines;Behold the tumbling Biscay Bay;The Midland main in silent sway;As urged to move them, so move they.No less through regal puppet-showsThe rapt Determinator throes,That neither good nor evil knows!SPIRIT OF THE PITIESYet I may wake and understandEre Earth unshape, know all things, andWith knowledge use a painless hand,A painless hand![Solitude reigns in the chambers, and the scene shuts up.]
THE LINES OF TORRES VEDRAS[A bird’s-eye perspective is revealed of the peninsular tract ofPortuguese territory lying between the shining pool of the Tagus onthe east, and the white-frilled Atlantic lifting rhythmically onthe west. As thus beheld the tract features itself somewhat like alate-Gothic shield, the upper edge from the dexter to the sinisterchief being the lines of Torres Vedras, stretching across from themouth of the Zezambre on the left to Alhandra on the right, andthe south or base point being Fort S. Julian. The roofs of Lisbonappear at the sinister base, and in a corresponding spot on theopposite side Cape Roca.It is perceived in a moment that the northern verge of this nearlycoast-hemmed region is the only one through which access can begained to it by land, and a close scrutiny of the boundary therereveals that means are being adopted to effectually prevent suchaccess.From east to west along it runs a chain of defences, dotted atintervals by dozens of circular and square redoubts, either madeor in the making, two of the latter being of enormous size.Between these stretch unclimbable escarpments, stone walls, andother breastworks, and in front of all a double row of abatis,formed of the limbs of trees.Within the outer line of defence is a second, constructed on thesame shield-shaped tract of country; and is not more than a twelfthof the length of the others. It is a continuous entrenchment ofditches and ramparts, and its object—that of covering a forcedembarkation—is rendered apparent by some rocking Englishtransports off the shore hard by.]
DUMB SHOWInnumerable human figures are busying themselves like cheese-mitesall along the northernmost frontage, undercutting easy slopes intosteep ones, digging ditches, piling stones, felling trees, draggingthem, and interlacing them along the front as required.On the second breastwork, which is completed, only a few figures move.On the third breastwork, which is fully matured and equipped, minutered sentinels creep backwards and forwards noiselessly.As time passes three reddish-grey streams of marching men loom outto the north, advancing southward along three roads towards threediverse points in the first defence. These form the English army,entering the lines for shelter. Looked down upon, their motionseems peristaltic and vermicular, like that of three caterpillars.The division on the left is under Picton, in the centre under Leithand Cole, and on the extreme right, by Alhandra, under Hill. Besideone of the roads two or three of the soldiers are dangling from atree by the neck, probably for plundering.The Dumb Show ends, and the point of view sinks to the earth.
THE SAME. OUTSIDE THE LINES[The winter day has gloomed to a stormful evening, and the roadoutside the first line of defence forms the foreground of the stage.Enter in the dusk from the hills to the north of the entrenchment,near Calandrix, a group of horsemen, which includes MASSÉNA incommand of the French forces, FOY, LOISON, and other officers ofhis staff.They ride forward in the twilight and tempest, and reconnoitre,till they see against the sky the ramparts blocking the road theypursue. They halt silently. MASSÉNA, puzzled, endeavours with hisglass to make out the obstacle.]
MASSÉNASomething stands here to peril our advance,Or even prevent it!
FOYThese are the English lines—Their outer horns and tusks—whereof I spoke,Constructed by Lord Wellington of lateTo keep his foothold firm in Portugal.
MASSÉNAThrusts he his burly, bossed disfigurementsSo far to north as this? I had pictured meThe lay much nearer Lisbon. Little strangeLord Wellington rode placid at BusacoWith this behind his back! Well, it is hardBut that we turn them somewhere, I assume?They scarce can close up every southward gapBetween the Tagus and the Atlantic Sea.
FOYI hold they can, and do; although, no doubt,By searching we shall spy some raggednessWhich customed skill may force.
MASSÉNAPlain ’tis, no less,We may heap corpses vainly hereabout,And crack good bones in waste. By human powerThis passes mounting! What say you’s behind?
LOISONAnother line exactly like the first,But more matured. Behind its back a third.
MASSÉNAHow long have these prim ponderositiesBeen rearing up their foreheads to the moon?
LOISONSome months in all. I know not quite how long.They are Lord Wellington’s select device,And, like him, heavy, slow, laborious, sure.
MASSÉNAMay he enjoy their sureness. He deserves to.I had no inkling of such barriers here.A good road runs along their front, it seems,Which offers us advantage.... What a night![The tempest cries dismally about the earthworks above them, asthe reconnoitrers linger in the slight shelter the lower groundaffords. They are about to turn back.Enter from the cross-road to the right JUNOT and some moreofficers. They come up at a signal that the others are thosethey lately parted from.]
JUNOTWe have ridden along as far as Calandrix,Favoured therein by this disordered night,Which tongues its language to the disguise of ours;And find amid the vale an open routeThat, well manoeuvred, may be practicable.
MASSÉNAI’ll look now at it, while the weather aids.If it may serve our end when all’s preparedSo good. If not, some other to the west.[Exeunt MASSÉNA, JUNOT, LOISON, FOY, and the rest by the pavedcrossway to the right.The wind continues to prevail as the spot is left desolate, thedarkness increases, rain descends more heavily, and the scene isblotted out.]
PARIS. THE TUILERIES[The anteroom to the EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE’S bed-chamber, in whichare discovered NAPOLÉON in his dressing-gown, the DUCHESS OFMONTEBELLO, and other ladies-in-waiting. CORVISART the firstphysician, and the second physician BOURDIER.The time is before dawn. The EMPEROR walks up and down, throwshimself on a sofa, or stands at the window. A cry of anguish comesoccasionally from within.NAPOLÉON opens the door and speaks into the bed-chamber.]
NAPOLÉONHow now, Dubois?
VOICE OF DUBOIS THE ACCOUCHEUR [nervously]Less well, sire, than I hoped;I fear no skill can save them both.
NAPOLÉON [agitated]Good god![Exit CORVISART into the bed-room. Enter DUBOIS.]
DUBOIS [with hesitation]Which life is to be saved? The Empress, sire,Lies in great jeopardy. I have not knownIn my long years of many-featured practiceAn instance in a thousand fall out so.
NAPOLÉONThen save the mother, pray! Think but of her;It is her privilege, and my command.—Don’t lose you head, Dubois, at this tight time:Your furthest skill can work but what it may.Fancy that you are merely standing byA shop-wife’s couch, say, in the Rue Saint Denis;Show the aplomb and phlegm that you would showDid such a bed receive your ministry.[Exit DUBOIS.]
VOICE OF MARIE LOUISE [within]O pray, pray don’t! Those ugly things terrify me! Why should I betortured even if I am but a means to an end! Let me die! It wascruel of him to bring this upon me![Exit NAPOLÉON impatiently to the bed-room.]
VOICE OF MADAME DE MONTESQUIOU [within]Keep up your spirits, madame! I have been through it myself and Iassure you there is no danger to you. It is going on all right, andI am holding you.
VOICE OF NAPOLÉON [within]Heaven above! Why did you not deep those cursed sugar-tongs out ofher sight? How is she going to get through it if you frighten herlike this?
VOICE OF DUBOIS [within]If you will pardon me, your Majesty,I must implore you not to interfere!I’ll not be scapegoat for the consequenceIf, sire, you do! Better for her sake farWould you withdraw. The sight of your concernBut agitates and weakens her endurance.I will inform you all, and call you backIf things should worsen here.[Re-enter NAPOLÉON from the bed-chamber. He half shuts the door,and remains close to it listening, pale and nervous.]
BOURDIERI ask you, sire,To harass yourself less with this event,Which may amend anon: I much regretThe honoured mother of your Majesty,And sister too, should both have left ere now,Whose solace would have bridged these anxious hours.
NAPOLÉON [absently]As we were not expecting it so soonI begged they would sit up no longer here....She ought to get along; she has help enoughWith that half-dozen of them at hand within—Skilled Madame Blaise the nurse, and two besides,Madame de Montesquiou and Madame Ballant—-
DUBOIS [speaking through the doorway]Past is the question, sire, of which to save!The child is dead; the while her MajestyIs getting through it well.
NAPOLÉONPraise Heaven for that!I’ll not grieve overmuch about the child....Never shall She go through this strain againTo lay down a dynastic line for me.
DUCHESS OF MONTEBELLO [aside to the second lady]He only says that now. In cold blood it would be far otherwise.That’s how men are.
VOICE OF MADAME BLAISE [within]Doctor, the child’s alive! [The cry of an infant is heard.]
VOICE OF DUBOIS [calling from within]Sire, both are saved.[NAPOLÉON rushes into the chamber, and is heard kissing MARIELOUISE.]
VOICE OF MADAME BLAISE [within]A vigorous boy, your Imperial Majesty. The brandy and hot napkinsbrought him to.
DUCHESS OF MONTEBELLOIt is as I expected. A healthy young woman of her build had everychance of doing well, despite the doctors.[An interval.]
NAPOLÉON [re-entering radiantly]We have achieved a healthy heir, good dames,And in the feat the Empress was most brave,Although she suffered much—so much, indeed,That I would sooner father no more sonsThan have so fair a fruit-tree undergoAnother wrenching of such magnitude.[He walks to the window, pulls aside the curtains, and looks out.It is a joyful spring morning. The Tuileries’ gardens are throngedwith an immense crowd, kept at a little distance off the Palace bya cord. The windows of the neighbouring houses are full of gazers,and the streets are thronged with halting carriages, their inmatesawaiting the event.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS [whispering to Napoléon]At this high hour there broods a woman nigh,Ay, here in Paris, with her child and thine,Who might have played this part with truer eyeTo thee and to thy contemplated line!
NAPOLÉON [soliloquizing]Strange that just now there flashes on my soulThat little one I loved in Warsaw days,Marie Walewska, and my boy by her!—She was shown faithless by a foul intrigueTill fate sealed up her opportunity....But what’s one woman’s fortune more or lessBeside the schemes of kings!—Ah, there’s the new![A gun is heard from the Invalides.]
CROWD [excitedly]One![Another report of the gun, and another, succeed.]Two! Three! Four![The firing and counting proceed to twenty-one, when there is greatsuspense. The gun fires again, and the excitement is doubled.]Twenty-two! A boy![The remainder of the counting up to a hundred-and-one is drownedin the huzzas. Bells begin ringing, and from the Champ de Mars aballoon ascends, from which the tidings are scattered in hand-billsas it floats away from France.Enter the PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE, CAMBACÉRÈS, BERTHIER, LEBRUN,and other officers of state. NAPOLÉON turns from the window.]
CAMBACÉRÈSUnstinted gratulations and goodwillWe bring to your Imperial Majesty,While still resounds the superflux of joyWith which your people welcome this live starUpon the horizon of history!
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATEAll blessings at their goodliest will graceThe advent of this New Messiah, sire,Of fairer prospects than the former one,Whose coming at so apt an hour enduesThe widening glory of your high exploitsWith permanence, and flings the dimness farThat cloaked the future of our chronicle!
NAPOLÉONMy thanks; though, gentlemen, upon my soulYou might have drawn the line at the Messiah.But I excuse you.—Yes, the boy has come;He took some coaxing, but he’s here at last.—And what news brings the morning from without?I know of none but this the Empress nowTrumps to the world from the adjoining room.
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATENothing in Europe, sire, that can compareIn magnitude therewith to more effectThan with an eagle some frail finch or wren.To wit: the ban on English trade prevailing,Subjects our merchant-houses to such strainThat many of the best see bankruptcyLike a grim ghost ahead. Next week, they sayIn secret here, six of the largest close.
NAPOLÉONIt shall not be! Our burst of natal joyMust not be sullied by so mean a thing:Aid shall be rendered. Much as we may suffer,England must suffer more, and I am content.What has come in from Spain and Portugal?
BERTHIERVaguely-voiced rumours, sire, but nothing more,Which travel countries quick as earthquake thrills,No mortal knowing how.
NAPOLÉONOf Masséna?
BERTHIERYea. He retreats for prudence’ sake, it seems,Before Lord Wellington. Dispatches soonMust reach your Majesty, explaining all.
NAPOLÉONEver retreating! Why declines he soFrom all his olden prowess? Why, again,Did he give battle at Busaco lately,When Lisbon could be marched on without strain?Why has he dallied by the Tagus bankAnd shunned the obvious course? I gave him Ney,Soult, and Junot, and eighty thousand men,And he does nothing. Really it might seemAs though we meant to let this WellingtonBe even with us there!
BERTHIERHis mighty fortsAt Torres Vedras hamper Masséna,And quite preclude advance.
NAPOLÉONO well—no matter:Why should I linger on these haps of warNow that I have a son![Exeunt NAPOLÉON by one door and by another the PRESIDENT OF THESENATE, CAMBACÉRÈS, LEBRUN, BERTHIER, and officials.]
CHORUS OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music]The Will Itself is slave to him,And holds it blissful to obey!—He said, “Go to; it is my whim“To bed a bride without delay,Who shall unite my dull new nameWith one that shone in Caesar’s day.“She must conceive—you hear my claim?—And bear a son—no daughter, mind—Who shall hand on my form and fame“To future times as I have designed;And at the birth throughout the landMust cannon roar and alp-horns wind!”The Will grew conscious at command,And ordered issue as he planned.[The interior of the Palace is veiled.]
SPAIN. ALBUERA[The dawn of a mid-May day in the same spring shows the villageof Albuera with the country around it, as viewed from the summitof a line of hills on which the English and their allies are rangedunder Beresford. The landscape swept by the eye includes to theright foreground a hill loftier than any, and somewhat detachedfrom the range. The green slopes behind and around this hill areuntrodden—though in a few hours to be the sanguinary scene of themost murderous struggle of the whole war.The village itself lies to the left foreground, with its streamflowing behind it in the distance on the right. A creeping brookat the bottom of the heights held by the English joins the streamby the village. Behind the stream some of the French forces arevisible. Away behind these stretches a great wood several milesin area, out of which the Albuera stream emerges, and behind thefurthest verge of the wood the morning sky lightens momently. Thebirds in the wood, unaware that this day is to be different fromevery other day they have known there, are heard singing theirovertures with their usual serenity.]
DUMB SHOWAs objects grow more distinct it can be perceived that some strategicdispositions of the night are being completed by the French forces,which the evening before lay in the woodland to the front of theEnglish army. They have emerged during the darkness, and largesections of them—infantry, cuirassiers, and artillery—have creptround to BERESFORD’S right without his suspecting the movement, wherethey lie hidden by the great hill aforesaid, though not more thanhalf-a-mile from his right wing.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSA hot ado goes forward here to-day,If I may read the Immanent IntentFrom signs and tokens blentWith weird unrest along the firmamentOf causal coils in passionate display.—Look narrowly, and what you witness say.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESI see red smears upon the sickly dawn,And seeming drops of gore. On earth belowAre men—unnatural and mechanic-drawn—Mixt nationalities in row and row,Wheeling them to and froIn moves dissociate from their souls’ demand,For dynasts’ ends that few even understand!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSSpeak more materially, and less in dream.
SPIRIT OF RUMOURI’ll do it.... The stir of strife grows well definedAround the hamlet and the church thereby:Till, from the wood, the ponderous columns wind,Guided by Godinot, with Werle nigh.They bear upon the vill. But the gruff gunsOf Dickson’s PortuguesePunch spectral vistas through the maze of these!...More Frenchmen press, and roaring antiphonsOf cannonry contuse the roofs and walls and trees.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESWrecked are the ancient bridge, the green spring plot,the blooming fruit-tree, the fair flower-knot!
SPIRIT OF RUMOURYet the true mischief to the English mightIs meant to fall not there. Look to the right,And read the shaping scheme by yon hill-side,Where cannon, foot, and brisk dragoons you see,With Werle and Latour-Maubourg to guide,Waiting to breast the hill-brow bloodily.
BERESFORD now becomes aware of this project on his flank, and sendsorders to throw back his right to face the attack. The order is notobeyed. Almost at the same moment the French rush is made, theSpanish and Portuguese allies of the English are beaten beck, andthe hill is won. But two English divisions bear from the centre oftheir front, and plod desperately up the hill to retake it.
SPIRIT SINISTERNow he among us who may wish to beA skilled practitioner in slaughtery,Should watch this hour’s fruition yonder there,And he will know, if knowing ever were,How mortals may be freed their fleshly cells,And quaint red doors set ope in sweating fells,By methods swift and slow and foul and fair!
The English, who have plunged up the hill, are caught in a heavymist, that hides from them an advance in their rear of the lancersand hussars of the enemy. The lines of the Buffs, the Sixty-sixth,and those of the Forty-eighth, who were with them, in a chaos ofsmoke, steel, sweat, curses, and blood, are beheld melting downlike wax from an erect position to confused heaps. Their formslie rigid, or twitch and turn, as they are trampled over by thehoofs of the enemy’s horse. Those that have not fallen are taken.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESIt works as you, uncanny Phantom, wist!...Whose is that towering formThat tears across the mistTo where the shocks are sorest?—his with armOutstretched, and grimy face, and bloodshot eye,Like one who, having done his deeds, will die?
SPIRIT OF RUMOURHe is one Beresford, who heads the fightFor England here to-day.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESHe calls the sightDespite itself!—parries yon lancer’s thrust,And with his own sword renders dust to dust!
The ghastly climax of the strife is reached; the combatants areseen to be firing grape and canister at speaking distance, anddischarging musketry in each other’s faces when so close thattheir complexions may be recognized. Hot corpses, their mouthsblackened by cartridge-biting, and surrounded by cast-awayknapsacks, firelocks, hats, stocks, flint-boxes, and priminghorns, together with red and blue rags of clothing, gaiters,epaulettes, limbs and viscera accumulate on the slopes, increasingfrom twos and threes to half-dozens, and from half-dozens to heaps,which steam with their own warmth as the spring rain falls gentlyupon them.The critical instant has come, and the English break. But acomparatively fresh division, with fusileers, is brought into theturmoil by HARDINGE and COLE, and these make one last strain tosave the day, and their names and lives. The fusileers mount theincline, and issuing from the smoke and mist startle the enemy bytheir arrival on a spot deemed won.
SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]They come, beset by riddling hail;They sway like sedges is a gale;The fail, and win, and win, and fail. Albuera!
SEMICHORUS IIThey gain the ground there, yard by yard,Their brows and hair and lashes charred,Their blackened teeth set firm and hard.
SEMICHORUS ITheir mad assailants rave and reel,And face, as men who scorn to feel,The close-lined, three-edged prongs of steel.
SEMICHORUS IITill faintness follows closing-in,When, faltering headlong down, they spinLike leaves. But those pay well who win Albuera.
SEMICHORUS IOut of six thousand souls that swareTo hold the mount, or pass elsewhere,But eighteen hundred muster there.
SEMICHORUS IIPale Colonels, Captains, ranksmen lie,Facing the earth or facing sky;—They strove to live, they stretch to die.
SEMICHORUS IFriends, foemen, mingle; heap and heap.—Hide their hacked bones, Earth!—deep, deep, deep,Where harmless worms caress and creep.
CHORUSHide their hacked bones, Earth!—deep, deep, deep,Where harmless worms caress and creep.—What man can grieve? what woman weep?Better than waking is to sleep! Albuera!
The night comes on, and darkness covers the battle-field.
WINDSOR CASTLE. A ROOM IN THE KING’S APARTMENT[The walls of the room are padded, and also the articles offurniture, the stuffing being overlaid with satin and velvet, onwhich are worked in gold thread monograms and crowns. The windowsare guarded, and the floor covered with thick cork, carpeted. Thetime is shortly after the last scene.The KING is seated by a window, and two of Dr. WILLIS’S attendantsare in the room. His MAJESTY is now seventy-two; his sight isvery defective, but he does not look ill. He appears to be lostin melancholy thought, and talks to himself reproachfully, hurriedmanner on occasion being the only irregular symptom that hebetrays.]
KINGIn my lifetime I did not look after her enough—enough—enough!And now she is lost to me, and I shall never see her more. Had Ibut known, had I but thought of it! Gentlemen, when did I lose thePrincess Amelia?
FIRST ATTENDANTThe second of last November, your Majesty.
KINGAnd what is it now?
FIRST ATTENDANTNow, sir, it is the beginning of June.
KINGAh, June, I remember!... The June flowers are not for me. Ishall never see them; nor will she. So fond of them as she was.... Even if I were living I would never go where there are flowersany more! No: I would go to the bleak, barren places that she neverwould walk in, and never knew, so that nothing might remind me ofher, and make my heart ache more than I can bear!... Why, thebeginning of June?—that’s when they are coming to examine me! [Hegrows excited.]
FIRST ATTENDANT [to second attendant, aside]Dr. Reynolds ought not have reminded him of their visit. It onlydisquiets him and makes him less fit to see them.
KINGHow long have I been confined here?
FIRST ATTENDANTSince November, sir; for your health’s sake entirely, as your Majestyknows.
KINGWhat, what? So long? Ah, yes. I must bear it. This is the fourthgreat black gulf in my poor life, is it not? The fourth.[A signal from the door. The second attendant opens it and whispers.Enter softly SIR HENRY HALFORD, DR. WILLIAM HEBERDEN, DR. ROBERTWILLIS, DR. MATTHEW BAILLIE, the KING’S APOTHECARY, and one or twoother gentlemen.]
KING [straining his eye to discern them]What! Are they come? What will they do to me? How dare they! Iam Elector of Hanover! [Finding Dr. Willis is among them he shrieks.]O, they are going to bleed me—yes, to bleed me! [Piteously.] Myfriends, don’t bleed me—pray don’t! It makes me so weak to take myblood. And the leeches do, too, when you put so many. You will notbe so unkind, I am sure!
WILLIS [to Baillie]It is extraordinary what a vast aversion he has to bleeding—thatmost salutary remedy, fearlessly practised. He submits to leechesas yet but I won’t say that he will for long without being strait-jacketed.
KING [catching some of the words]You will strait-jacket me? O no, no!
WILLISLeeches are not effective, really. Dr. Home, when I mentioned it tohim yesterday, said he would bleed him till he fainted if he hadcharge of him!
KINGO will you do it, sir, against my will,And put me, once your king, in needless pain?I do assure you truly, my good friends,That I have done no harm! In sunnier yearsEre I was throneless, withered to a shade,Deprived of my divine authority—When I was hale, and ruled the English land—I ever did my utmost to promoteThe welfare of my people, body and soul!Right many a morn and night I have prayed and musedHow I could bring them to a better way.So much of me you surely know, my friends,And will not hurt me in my weakness here! [He trembles.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESThe tears that lie about this plightful sceneOf heavy travail in a suffering soul,Mocked with the forms and feints of royaltyWhile scarified by briery Circumstance,Might drive Compassion past her patiencyTo hold that some mean, monstrous ironistHad built this mistimed fabric of the SpheresTo watch the throbbings of its captive lives,[The which may Truth forfend], and not thy saidUnmaliced, unimpassioned, nescient Will!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSMild one, be not touched with human fate.Such is the Drama: such the Mortal state:No sigh of thine can null the Plan Predestinate!
HALFORDWe have come to do your Majesty no harm.Here’s Dr. Heberden, whom I am sure you like,And this is Dr. Baillie. We arriveBut to inquire and gather how you are,Thereon to let the Privy Council know,And give assurances for you people’s good.[A brass band is heard playing in the distant part of Windsor.]
KINGAh—what does that band play for here to-day?She has been dead and I so short a time!...Her little hands are hardly cold as yet;But they can show such cruel indecencyAs to let trumpets play!
HALFORDThey guess not, sir,That you can hear them, or their chords would cease.Their boisterous music fetches back to meThat, of our errands to your Majesty,One was congratulation most sincereUpon this glorious victory you have won.The news is just in port; the band booms outTo celebrate it, and to honour you.
KINGA victory? I? Pray where?
HALFORDIndeed so, sir:Hard by Albuera—far in harried Spain—Yes, sir; you have achieved a victoryOf dash unmatched and feats unparalleled!
KINGHe says I have won a battle? But I thoughtI was a poor afflicted captive here,In darkness lingering out my lonely days,Beset with terror of these myrmidonsThat suck my blood like vampires! Ay, ay, ay!—No aims left to me but to quicken deathTo quicklier please my son!—And yet he saysThat I have won a battle! O God, curse, damn!When will the speech of the world accord with truth,And men’s tongues roll sincerely!
GENTLEMAN [aside]Faith, ’twould seemAs if the madman were the sanest here![The KING’S face has flushed, and he becomes violent. Theattendants rush forward to him.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESSomething within me aches to prayTo some Great Heart, to take awayThis evil day, this evil day!
CHORUS IRONICHa-ha! That’s good. Thou’lt pray to It:—But where do Its compassions sit?Yea, where abides the heart of it?Is it where sky-fires flame and flit,Or solar craters spew and spit,Or ultra-stellar night-webs knit?What is Its shape? Man’s counterfeit?That turns in some far sphere unlitThe Wheel which drives the Infinite?
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESMock on, mock on! Yet I’ll go prayTo some Great Heart, who haply mayCharm mortal miseries away![The KING’S paroxysm continues. The attendants hold him.]
HALFORDThis is distressing. One can never tellHow he will take things now. I thought AlbueraA subject that would surely solace him.These paroxysms—have they been bad this week? [To Attendants.]
FIRST ATTENDANTSir Henry, no. He has quite often namedThe late Princess, as gently as a childA little bird found starved.
WILLIS [aside to apothecary]I must increase the opium to-night, and lower him by a double set ofleeches since he won’t stand the lancet quietly.
APOTHECARYYou should take twenty ounces, doctor, if a drop—indeed, go onblooding till he’s unconscious. He is too robust by half. And thewatering-pot would do good again—not less than six feet above hishead. See how heated he is.
WILLISCurse that town band. It will have to be stopped.
HEBERDENThe same thing is going on all over England, no doubt, on account ofthis victory.
HALFORDWhen he is in a more domineering mood he likes such allusions to hisrank as king.... If he could resume his walks on the terrace hemight improve slightly. But it is too soon yet. We must considerwhat we shall report to the Council. There is little hope of hisbeing much better. What do you think, Willis?
WILLISNone. He is done for this time!
HALFORDWell, we must soften it down a little, so as not to upset the Queentoo much, poor woman, and distract the Council unnecessarily. Eldonwill go pumping up bucketfuls, and the Archbishops are so easilyshocked that a certain conventional reserve is almost forced upon us.
WILLIS [returning from the King]He is already better. The paroxysm has nearly passed. Your opinionwill be far more favourable before you leave.[The KING soon grows calm, and the expression of his face changesto one of dejection. The attendants leave his side: he bends hishead, and covers his face with his hand, while his lips move as ifin prayer. He then turns to them.]
KING [meekly]I am most truly sorry, gentlemen,If I have used language that would seem to showDiscourtesy to you for your good helpIn this unhappy malady of mine!My nerves unstring, my friend; my flesh grows weak:“The good that I do I leave undone,The evil which I would not, that I do!”Shame, shame on me!
WILLIS [aside to the others]Now he will be as low as before he was in the other extreme.
KINGA king should bear him kingly; I of all,One of so long a line. O shame on me!...—This battle that you speak of?—Spain, of course?Ah—Albuera! And many fall—eh? Yes?
HALFORDMany hot hearts, sir, cold, I grieve to say.There’s Major-General Houghton, Captain Bourke,And Herbert of the Third, Lieutenant Fox,And Captains Erck and Montague, and more.With Majors-General Cole and Stewart wounded,And Quartermaster-General Wallace too:A total of three generals, colonels five,Five majors, fifty captains; and to theseAdd ensigns and lieutenants sixscore odd,Who went out, but returned not. Heavily tithedWere the attenuate battalions thereWho stood and bearded Death by the hour that day!
KINGO fearful price for victory! Add theretoAll those I lost at Walchere.—A crimeLay there!... I stood on Chatham’s being sent:It wears on me, till I am unfit to live!
WILLIS [aside to the others]Don’t let him get on that Walcheren business. There will be anotheroutbreak. Heberden, please ye talk to him. He fancies you most.
HEBERDENI’ll tell him some of the brilliant feats of the battle. [He goesand talks to the KING.]
WILLIS [to the rest]Well, my inside begins to cry cupboard. I had breakfast early. Wehave enough particulars now to face the Queen’s Council with, Ishould say, Sir Henry?
HALFORDYes.—I want to get back to town as soon as possible to-day. MrsSiddons has a party at her house at Westbourne to-night, and all theworld is going to be there.
BAILLIEWell, I am not. But I have promised to take some friends to Vauxhall,as it is a grand gala and fireworks night. Miss Farren is going tosing “The Canary Bird.”—The Regent’s fete, by the way, is postponedtill the nineteenth, on account of this relapse. Pretty grumpy hewas at having to do it. All the world will be THERE, sure!
WILLISAnd some from the Shades, too, of the fair, sex.—Well, here comesHeberden. He has pacified his Majesty nicely. Now we can get away.[The physicians withdraw softly, and the scene is covered.]
LONDON. CARLTON HOUSE AND THE STREETS ADJOINING[It is a cloudless midsummer evening, and as the west fades thestars beam down upon the city, the evening-star hanging like ajonquil blossom. They are dimmed by the unwonted radiance whichspreads around and above Carlton House. As viewed from aloft theglare rises through the skylights, floods the forecourt towardsPall Mall, and kindles with a diaphanous glow the huge tents inthe gardens that overlook the Mall. The hour has arrived of thePrince Regent’s festivity.A stream of carriages and sedan-chairs, moving slowly, stretchesfrom the building along Pall Mall into Piccadilly and Bond Street,and crowds fill the pavements watching the bejewelled and featheredoccupants. In addition to the grand entrance inside the Pall Mallcolonnade there is a covert little “chair-door” in Warwick Streetfor sedans only, by which arrivals are perceived to be slipping inalmost unobserved.]
SPIRIT IRONICWhat domiciles are those, of singular expression,Whence no guest comes to join the gemmed procession;That, west of Hyde, this, in the Park-side Lane,Each front beclouded like a mask of pain?
SPIRIT OF RUMOURTherein the princely host’s two spouses dwell;A wife in each. Let me inspect and tell.[The walls of the two houses—one in Park Lane, the other atKensington—become transparent.]I see within the first his latter wife—That Caroline of Brunswick whose brave sireYielded his breath on Jena’s reeking plain,And of whose kindred other yet may fallEre long, if character indeed be fate.—She idles feasting, and is full of jestAs each gay chariot rumbles to the rout.“I rank like your Archbishops’ wives,” laughs she;“Denied my husband’s honours. Funny me!”[Suddenly a Beau on his way to the Carlton House festival halts ather house, calls, and is shown in.]He brings her news that a fresh favourite rulesHer husband’s ready heart; likewise of thoseObscure and unmissed courtiers late deceased,Who have in name been bidden to the feastBy blundering scribes.[The Princess is seen to jump up from table at some words from hervisitor, and clap her hands.]These tidings, juxtaposed,Have fired her hot with curiosity,And lit her quick invention with a plan.
PRINCESS OF WALESMine God, I’ll go disguised—in some dead nameAnd enter by the leetle, sly, chair-doorDesigned for those not welcomed openly.There unobserved I’ll note mine new supplanter!’Tis indiscreet? Let indiscretion rule,Since caution pensions me so scurvily!
SPIRIT IRONICGood. Now for the other sweet and slighted spouse.
SPIRIT OF RUMOURThe second roof shades the Fitzherbert Fair;Reserved, perverse. As coach and coach roll byShe mopes within her lattice; lampless, lone,As if she grieved at her ungracious fate,And yet were loth to kill the sting of itBy frankly forfeiting the Prince and town.“Bidden,” says she, “but as one low of rank,And go I will not so unworthily,To sit with common dames!”—A flippant friendWrites then that a new planet sways to-nightThe sense of her erratic lord; whereonThe fair Fitzherbert muses hankeringly.
MRS. FITZHERBERT [soliloquizing]The guest-card which I publicly refusedMight, as a fancy, privately be used!...Yes—one last look—a wordless, wan farewellTo this false life which glooms me like a knell,And him, the cause; from some hid nook surveyHis new magnificence;—then go for aye!
SPIRIT OF RUMOURShe cloaks and veils, and in her private chairPasses the Princess also stealing there—Two honest wives, and yet a differing pair!
SPIRIT IRONICWith dames of strange repute, who bear a ticketFor screened admission by the private wicket.
CHORUS OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music]A wife of the body, a wife of the mind,A wife somewhat frowsy, a wife too refined:Could the twain but grow one, and no other dames be,No husband in Europe more steadfast than he!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSCease fooling on weak waifs who love and wedBut as the unweeting Urger may bestead!—See them withinside, douce and diamonded.[The walls of Carlton House open, and the spectator finds himselfconfronting the revel.]
THE SAME. THE INTERIOR OF CARLTON HOUSE[A central hall is disclosed, radiant with constellations ofcandles, lamps, and lanterns, and decorated with flowering shrubs.An opening on the left reveals the Grand Council-chamber preparedfor dancing, the floor being chalked with arabesques having in thecentre “G. III. R.,” with a crown, arms, and supporters. Orange-trees and rose-bushes in bloom stand against the walls. On theright hand extends a glittering vista of the supper-rooms andtables, now crowded with guests. This display reaches as far asthe conservatory westward, and branches into long tents on thelawn.On a dais at the chief table, laid with gold and silver plate, thePrince Regent sits like a lay figure, in a state chair of crimsonand gold, with six servants at his back. He swelters in a gorgeousuniform of scarlet and gold lace which represents him as FieldMarshal, and he is surrounded by a hundred-and-forty of hisparticular friends.Down the middle of this state-table runs a purling brook crossedby quaint bridges, in which gold and silver fish frisk aboutbetween banks of moss and flowers. The whole scene is lit withwax candles in chandeliers, and in countless candelabra on thetables.The people at the upper tables include the Duchess of York, lookingtired from having just received as hostess most of the ladiespresent, except those who have come informally, Louis XVIII. ofFrance, the Duchess of Angouleme, all the English Royal Dukes,nearly all the ordinary Dukes and Duchesses; also the LordChancellor of the Exchequer and other Ministers, the Lord Mayorand Lady Mayoress, all the more fashionable of the other Peers,Peeresses, and Members of Parliament, Generals, Admirals, andMayors, with their wives. The ladies of position wear, almost tothe extent of a uniform, a nodding head-dress of ostrich featherswith diamonds, and gowns of white satin embroidered in gold orsilver, on which, owing to the heat, dribbles of wax from thechandeliers occasionally fall.The Guards’ bands play, and attendants rush about in blue and goldlace.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESThe Queen, the Regent’s mother, sits not here;Wanting, too, are his sisters, I perceive;And it is well. With the distempered KingImmured at Windsor, sore distraught or dying,It borders nigh on indecencyIn their regard, that this loud feast is kept,A thought not strange to many, as I read,Even of those gathered here.
SPIRIT IRONICMy dear phantom and crony, the gloom upon their faces is due ratherto their having borrowed those diamonds at eleven per cent than totheir loyalty to a suffering monarch! But let us test the feeling.I’ll spread a report.[He calls up the SPIRIT OF RUMOUR, who scatters whispers throughthe assemblage.]
A GUEST [to his neighbour]Have you heard this report—that the King is dead?
ANOTHER GUESTIt has just reached me from the other side. Can it be true?
THIRD GUESTI think it probable. He has been very ill all week.
PRINCE REGENTDead? Then my fete is spoilt, by God!
SHERIDANLong live the King! [He holds up his glass and bows to the Regent.]
MARCHIONESS OF HERTFORD [the new favourite, to the Regent]The news is more natural than the moment of it! It is too cruel toyou that it should happen now!
PRINCE REGENTDamn me, though; can it be true? [He provisionally throws a regalair into his countenance.]
DUCHESS OF YORK [on the Regent’s left]I hardly can believe it. This forenoonHe was reported mending.
DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME [on the Regent’s right]On this sideThey are asserting that the news is false—That Buonaparte’s child, the “King of Rome,”Is dead, and not your royal father, sire.
PRINCE REGENTThat’s mighty fortunate! Had it been true,I should have been abused by all the world—The Queen the keenest of the chorus, too—Though I have been postponing this pledged feastThrough days and weeks, in hopes the King would mend,Till expectation fusted with delay.But give a dog a bad name—or a Prince!So, then, it is new-come King of RomeWho has passed or ever the world has welcomed him!...Call him a king—that pompous upstart’s son—Beside us scions of the ancient lines!
DUKE OF BEDFORDI think that rumour untrue also, sir. I heard it as I drove up fromWoburn this evening, and it was contradicted then.
PRINCE REGENTDrove up this evening, did ye, Duke. Why did you cut it so close?
DUKE OF BEDFORDWell, it so happened that my sheep-sheering dinner was fixed forthis very day, and I couldn’t put it off. So I dined with themthere at one o’clock, discussed the sheep, rushed off, drove thetwo-and-forty miles, jumped into my clothes at my house here, andreached your Royal Highness’s door in no very bad time.
PRINCE REGENTCapital, capital. But, ’pon my soul, ’twas a close shave![Soon the babbling and glittering company rise from supper, andbegin promenading through the rooms and tents, the REGENT settingthe example, and mixing up and talking unceremoniously with hisguests of every degree. He and the group round him disappear intothe remoter chambers; but may concentrate in the Grecian Hall,which forms the foreground of the scene, whence a glance can beobtained into the ball-room, now filled with dancers.The band is playing the tune of the season, “The Regency Hornpipe,”which is danced as a country-dance by some thirty couples; so thatby the time the top couple have danced down the figure they arequite breathless. Two young lords talk desultorily as they surveythe scene.]
FIRST LORDAre the rumours of the King of Rome’s death confirmed?
SECOND LORDNo. But they are probably true. He was a feeble brat from thefirst. I believe they had to baptize him on the day he was born.What can one expect after such presumption—calling him the NewMessiah, and God knows what all. Ours is the only country whichdid not write fulsome poems about him. “Wise English!” the TsarAlexander said drily when he heard it.
FIRST LORDAy! The affection between that Pompey and Caesar has begun to cool.Alexander’s soreness at having his sister thrown over so cavalierlyis not salved yet.
SECOND LORDThere is much beside. I’d lay a guinea there will be war betweenRussia and France before another year has flown.
FIRST LORDPrinny looks a little worried to-night.
SECOND LORDYes. The Queen don’t like the fete being held, considering theKing’s condition. She and her friends say it should have been putoff altogether. But the Princess of Wales is not troubled that way.Though she was not asked herself she went wildly off and bought herpeople new gowns to come in. Poor maladroit woman!....[Another new dance of the year is started, and another long lineof couples begin to foot it.]That’s a pretty thing they are doing now. What d’ye call it?
FIRST LORD“Speed the Plough.” It is just out. They are having it everywhere.The next is to be one of those foreign things in three-eight timethey call Waltzes. I question if anybody is up to dancing ’em hereyet.[“Speed the Plough” is danced to its conclusion, and the bandstrikes up “The Copenhagen Waltz.”]
SPIRIT IRONICNow for the wives. They both were tearing hither,Unless reflection sped them back again;But dignity that nothing else may bendSuccumbs to woman’s curiosity,So deem them here. Messengers, call them nigh![The PRINCE REGENT, having gone the round of the other rooms, nowappears at the ball-room door, and stands looking at the dancers.Suddenly he turns, and gazes about with a ruffled face. He seesa tall, red-faced man near him—LORD MOIRA, one of his friends.]
PRINCE REGENTDamned hot here, Moira. Hottest of all for me!
MOIRAYes, it is warm, sir. Hence I do not dance.
PRINCE REGENTH’m. What I meant was of another order;I spoke figuratively.
MOIRAO indeed, sir?
PRINCE REGENTShe’s here. I heard her voice. I’ll swear I did!
MOIRAWho, sir?
PRINCE REGENTWhy, the Princess of Wales. Do you think I could mistake thosebeastly German Ps and Bs of hers?—She asked to come, and wasdenied; but she’s got here, I’ll wager ye, through the chair-doorin Warwick Street, which I arranged for a few ladies whom I wishedto come privately. [He looks about again, and moves till he is bya door which affords a peep up the grand staircase.] By God, Moira,I see TWO figures up there who shouldn’t be here—leaning over thebalustrade of the gallery!
MOIRATwo figures, sir. Whose are they?
PRINCE REGENTShe is one. The Fitzherbert in t’other! O I am almost sure it is!I would have welcomed her, but she bridled and said she wouldn’t sitdown at my table as a plain “Mrs.” to please anybody. As I had swornthat on this occasion people should sit strictly according to theirrank, I wouldn’t give way. Why the devil did she come like this?’Pon my soul, these women will be the death o’ me!
MOIRA [looking cautiously up the stairs]I can see nothing of her, sir, nor of the Princess either. There isa crowd of idlers up there leaning over the bannisters, and you mayhave mistaken some others for them.
PRINCE REGENTO no. They have drawn back their heads. There have been such damnedmistakes made in sending out the cards that the biggest w—- in Londonmight be here. She’s watching Lady Hertford, that’s what she’s doing.For all their indifference, both of them are as jealous as two catsover the tom.[Somebody whispers that a lady has fainted up-stairs.]That’s Maria, I’ll swear! She’s always doing it. Whenever I hearof some lady fainting about upon the furniture at my presence, andsending for a glass of water, I say to myself, There’s Maria at itagain, by God!
SPIRIT IRONICNow let him hear their voices once again.[The REGENT starts as he seems to hear from the stairs the tonguesof the two ladies growing louder and nearer, the PRINCESS pouringreproaches into one ear, and MRS. FITZHERBERT into the other.]
PRINCE REGENT
’Od seize ’em, Moira; this will drive me mad!If men of blood must mate with only oneOf those dear damned deluders called the Sex,Why has Heaven teased us with the taste for change?—God, I begin to loathe the whole curst show!How hot it is! Get me a glass of brandy,Or I shall swoon off too. Now let’s go out,And find some fresher air upon the lawn.[Exit the PRINCE REGENT, with LORDS MOIRA and YARMOUTH. The bandstrikes up “La Belle Catarina” and a new figure is formed.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSPhantoms, ye strain your powers unduly here,Making faint fancies as they were indeedThe Mighty Will’s firm work.
SPIRIT IRONICNay, Father, nay;The wives prepared to hasten hitherwardUnder the names of some gone down to death,Who yet were bidden. Must they not by here?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSThere lie long leagues between a woman’s word—“She will, indeed she will!”—and acting on’t.Whether those came or no, thy antics cease,And let the revel wear it out in peace.[Enter SPENCER PERCEVAL the Prime Minister, a small, pale, grave-looking man, and an Under-Secretary of State, meeting.]
UNDER-SECRETARYIs the King of Rome really dead, and the gorgeous gold cradle wasted?
PERCEVALO no, he is alive and waxing strong:That tale has been set travelling more than once.But touching it, booms echo to our earOf graver import, unimpeachable.
UNDER-SECRETARYYour speech is dark.
PERCEVALWell, a new war in Europe.Before the year is out there may ariseA red campaign outscaling any seen.Russia and France the parties to the strife—Ay, to the death!
UNDER-SECRETARYBy Heaven, sir, do you say so?[Enter CASTLEREAGH, a tall, handsome man with a Roman nose, who,seeing them, approaches.]
PERCEVALHa, Castlereagh. Till now I have missed you here.This news is startling for us all, I say!
CASTLEREAGHMy mind is blank on it! Since I left officeI know no more what villainy’s afoot,Or virtue either, than an anchoretWho mortifies the flesh in some lone cave.
PERCEVALWell, happily that may not last for long.But this grave pother that’s just now agogMay reach such radius in its consequenceAs to outspan our lives! Yes, BonaparteAnd Alexander—late such bosom-friends—Are closing to a mutual murder-boutAt which the lips of Europe will wax wan.Bonaparte says the fault is not with him,And so says Alexander. But we knowThe Austrian knot began their severance,And that the Polish question largens it.Nothing but time is needed for the clash.And if so be that Wellington but keepHis foot in the Peninsula awhile,Between the pestle and the mortar-stoneOf Russia and of Spain, Napoléon’s brayed.
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR [to the Spirit of the Years]Permit me now to join them and confirm,By what I bring from far, their forecasting?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARSI’ll go. Thou knowest not greatly more than they.[The SPIRIT OF THE YEARS enters the apartment in the shape of apale, hollow-eye gentleman wearing an embroidered suit. At thesame time re-enter the REGENT, LORDS MOIRA, YARMOUTH, KEITH, LADYHERTFORD, SHERIDAN, the DUKE OF BEDFORD, with many more notables.The band changes into the popular dance, “Down with the French,”and the characters aforesaid look on at the dancers.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS [to Perceval]Yes, sir; your text is true. In closest touchWith European courts and cabinets,The imminence of dire and deadly warBetwixt these east and western emperiesIs lipped by special pathways to mine ear.You may not see the impact: ere it comeThe tomb-worm may caress thee [Perceval shrinks]; but believeBefore five more have joined the shotten yearsWhose useless films infest the foggy Past,Traced thick with teachings glimpsed unheedingly,The rawest Dynast of the group concernedWill, for the good or ill of mute mankind,Down-topple to the dust like soldier Saul,And Europe’s mouldy-minded oligarchsBe propped anew; while garments roll in bloodTo confused noise, with burning, and fuel of fire.Nations shall lose their noblest in the strife,And tremble at the tidings of an hour![He passes into the crowd and vanishes.]
PRINCE REGENT [who has heard with parted lips]Who the devil is he?
PERCEVALOne in the suite of the French princes, perhaps, sir?—though histone was not monarchical. He seems to be a foreigner.
CASTLEREAGHHis manner was that of an old prophet, and his features had a Jewishcast, which accounted for his Hebraic style.
PRINCE REGENTHe could not have known me, to speak so freely in my presence!
SHERIDANI expected to see him write on the wall, like the gentleman with theHand at Belshazzar’s Feast.
PRINCE REGENT [recovering]He seemed to know a damn sight more about what’s going on in Europe,sir [to Perceval], than your Government does, with all its secretinformation.
PERCEVALHe is recently over, I conjecture, your royal Highness, and bringsthe latest impressions.
PRINCE REGENTBy Gad, sir, I shall have a comfortable time of it in my regency, orreign, if what he foresees be true! But I was born for war; it ismy destiny![He draws himself up inside his uniform and stalks away. The groupdissolves, the band continuing stridently, “Down with the French,”as dawn glimmers in. Soon the REGENT’S guests begin severally andin groups to take leave.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESBehold To-morrow riddles the curtains through,And labouring life without shoulders its cross anew!
CHORUS OF THE YEARS [aerial music]Why watch we here? Look all aroundWhere Europe spreads her crinkled ground,From Osmanlee to Hekla’s mound,Look all around!Hark at the cloud-combed Ural pines;See how each, wailful-wise, inclines;Mark the mist’s labyrinthine lines;Behold the tumbling Biscay Bay;The Midland main in silent sway;As urged to move them, so move they.No less through regal puppet-showsThe rapt Determinator throes,That neither good nor evil knows!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESYet I may wake and understandEre Earth unshape, know all things, andWith knowledge use a painless hand,A painless hand![Solitude reigns in the chambers, and the scene shuts up.]