ACT THIRDSCENE ILEIPZIG. NAPOLÉON’S QUARTERS IN THE REUDNITZ SUBURB[The sitting-room of a private mansion. Evening. A large stove-fire and candles burning. The October wind is heard without, andthe leaded panes of the old windows shake mournfully.]SEMICHORUS I OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music]We come; and learn as Time’s disordered dear sands runThat Castlereagh’s diplomacy has wiled, waxed, won.The beacons flash the fevered news to eyes keen bentThat Austria’s formal words of war are shaped, sealed, sent.SEMICHORUS IISo; Poland’s three despoilers primed by Bull’s gross payTo stem Napoléon’s might, he waits the weird dark day;His proffered peace declined with scorn, in fell force thenThey front him, with yet ten-score thousand more massed men.[At the back of the room CAULAINCOURT, DUKE OF VICENZA, andJOUANNE, one of Napoléon’s confidential secretaries, are unpackingand laying out the Emperor’s maps and papers. In the foregroundBERTHIER, MURAT, LAURISTON, and several officers of Napoléon’ssuite, are holding a desultory conversation while they await hisentry. Their countenances are overcast.]MURATAt least, the scheme of marching on BerlinIs now abandoned.LAURISTONNot without high words:He yielded and gave order prompt for LeipzigBut coldness and reserve have marked his moodTowards us ever since.BERTHIERThe march heretoHe has looked on as a retrogressive one,And that, he ever holds, is courting woe.To counsel it was doubtless full of risk,And heaped us with responsibilities;—Yet ’twas your missive, sire, that settled it [to MURAT].How stirred he was! “To Leipzig, or Berlin?”He kept repeating, as he drew and drewFantastic figures on the foolscap sheet,—“The one spells ruin—t’other spells success,And which is which?”MURAT [stiffly]What better could I do?So far were the Allies from sheering offAs he supposed, that they had moved in marchFull fanfare hither! I was duty-boundTo let him know.LAURISTONAssuming victory here,If he should let the advantage slip him byAs on the Dresden day, he wrecks us all!’Twas damnable—to ride back from the fightInside a coach, as though we had not won!CAULAINCOURT [from the back]The Emperor was ill: I have ground for knowing.[NAPOLÉON enters.]NAPOLÉON [buoyantly]Comrades, the outlook promises us well!MURAT [dryly]Right glad are we you tongue such tidings, sire.To us the stars have visaged differently;To wit: we muster outside Leipzig hereLevies one hundred and ninety thousand strong.The enemy has mustered, OUTSIDE US,Three hundred and fifty thousand—if not more.NAPOLÉONAll that is needful is to conquer them!We are concentred here: they lie a-spread,Which shrinks them to two-hundred-thousand power:—Though that the urgency of victoryIs absolute, I admit.MURATYea; otherwiseThe issue will be worse than Moscow, sire![MARMONT, DUKE OF RAGUSA [Wellington’s adversary in Spain], isannounced, and enters.]NAPOLÉONAh, Marmont; bring you in particulars?MARMONTSome sappers I have taken captive, sire,Say the Allies will be at stroke with usThe morning next to to-morrow’s.—I am come,Now, from the steeple-top of Liebenthal,Where I beheld the enemy’s fires bespotThe horizon round with raging eyes of flame:—My vanward posts, too, have been driven in,And I need succours—thrice ten thousand, say.NAPOLÉON [coldly]The enemy vexes not your vanward posts;You are mistaken.—Now, however, go;Cross Leipzig, and remain as the reserve.—Well, gentlemen, my hope herein is this:The first day to annihilate Schwarzenberg,The second Blücher. So shall we slip the toilsThey are all madding to enmesh us in.BERTHIERFew are our infantry to fence with theirs!NAPOLÉON [cheerfully]We’ll range them in two lines instead of three,And so we shall look stronger by one-third.BERTHIER [incredulously]Can they be thus deceived, sire?NAPOLÉONCan they? Yes!With all my practice I can err in numbersAt least one-quarter; why not they one-third?Anyhow, ’tis worth trying at a pinch....[AUGEREAU is suddenly announced.]Good! I’ve not seen him yet since he arrived.[Enter AUGEREAU.Here you are then at last, old Augereau!You have been looked for long.—But you are no moreThe Augereau of Castiglione days!AUGEREAUNay, sire! I still should be the AugereauOf glorious Castiglione, could you giveThe boys of Italy back again to me!NAPOLÉONWell, let it drop.... Only I notice round meAn atmosphere of scopeless apathyWherein I do not share.AUGEREAUThere are reasons, sire,Good reasons for despondence! As I cameI learnt, past question, that BavariaSwerves on the very pivot of desertion.This adds some threescore thousand to our foes.NAPOLÉON [irritated]That consummation long has threatened us!...Would that you showed the steeled fidelityYou used to show! Except me, all are slack![To Murat] Why, even you yourself, my brother-in-law,Have been inclining to abandon me!MURAT [vehemently]I, sire? It is not so. I stand and swearThe grievous imputation is untrue.You should know better than believe these things,And well remember I have enemiesWho ever wait to slander me to you!NAPOLÉON [more calmly]Ah yes, yes. That is so.—And yet—and yetYou have deigned to weigh the feasibilityOf treating me as Austria has done!...But I forgive you. You are a worthy man;You feel real friendship for me. You are brave.Yet I was wrong to make a king of you.If I had been content to draw the lineAt vice-king, as with young Eugène, no more,As he has laboured you’d have laboured, too!But as full monarch, you have foraged ratherFor your own pot than mine![MURAT and the marshal are silent, and look at each other withtroubled countenances. NAPOLÉON goes to the table at the back, andbends over the charts with CAULAINCOURT, dictating desultory notesto the secretaries.]SPIRIT IRONICA seer might sayThis savours of a sad Last-Supper talk’Twixt his disciples and this Christ of war![Enter an attendant.]ATTENDANTThe Saxon King and Queen and the PrincessEnter the city gates, your Majesty.They seek the shelter of the civic wallsAgainst the risk of capture by Allies.NAPOLÉONAh, so? My friend Augustus, is he near?I will be prompt to meet him when he comes,And safely quarter him. [He returns to the map.][An interval. The clock strikes midnight. The EMPEROR risesabruptly, sighs, and comes forward.]I now retire,Comrades. Good-night, good-night. Remember wellAll must prepare to grip with gory deathIn the now voidless battle. It will beA great one and a critical; one, in brief,That will seal France’s fate, and yours, and mine!ALL [fervidly]We’ll do our utmost, by the Holy Heaven!NAPOLÉONAh—what was that? [He pulls back the window-curtain.]SEVERALIt is our enemies,Whose southern hosts are signalling to their north.[A white rocket is beheld high in the air. It is followed by asecond, and a third. There is a pause, during which NAPOLÉON andthe rest wait motionless. In a minute or two, from the oppositeside of the city, three coloured rockets are sent up, in evidentanswer to the three white ones. NAPOLÉON muses, and lets thecurtain drop.]NAPOLÉONYes, Schwarzenberg to Blücher.... It must beTo show that they are ready. So are we![He goes out without saying more. The marshals and other officerswithdraw. The room darkens and ends the scene.]SCENE IITHE SAME. THE CITY AND THE BATTLEFIELD[Leipzig is viewed in aerial perspective from a position above thesouth suburbs, and reveals itself as standing in a plain, withrivers and marshes on the west, north, and south of it, and higherground to the east and south-east.At this date it is somewhat in she shape of the letter D, thestraight part of which is the river Pleisse. Except as to thisside it is surrounded by armies—the inner horseshoe of thembeing the French defending the city; the outer horseshoe beingthe Allies about to attack it.Far over the city—as it were at the top of the D—at Lindenthal,we see MARMONT stationed to meet BLÜCHER when he arrives on thatside. To the right of him is NEY, and further off to the right,on heights eastward, MACDONALD. Then round the curve towards thesouth in order, AUGEREAU, LAURISTON [behind whom is NAPOLÉONhimself and the reserve of Guards], VICTOR [at Wachau], andPONIATOWSKI, near the Pleisse River at the bottom of the D. Nearhim are the cavalry of KELLERMANN and MILHAUD, and in the samedirection MURAT with his, covering the great avenues of approachon the south.Outside all these stands SCHWARZENBERG’S army, of which, opposedto MACDONALD and LAURISTON, are KLEINAU’S Austrians and ZIETEN’SPrussians, covered on the flank by Cossacks under PLATOFF.Opposed to VICTOR and PONIATOWSKI are MEERFELDT and Hesse-Homburg’sAustrians, WITTGENSTEIN’S Russians, KLEIST’S Prussians, GUILAY’SAustrians, with LICHTENSTEIN’S and THIELMANN’S light troops: thusreaching round across the Elster into the morass on our near left—the lower point of the D.]SEMICHORUS I OF RUMOURS [aerial music]This is the combat of Napoléon’s hope,But not of his assurance! Shrunk in powerHe broods beneath October’s clammy cope,While hemming hordes wax denser every hour.SEMICHORUS IIHe knows, he knows that though in equal fightHe stand s heretofore the matched of none,A feeble skill is propped by numbers’ might,And now three hosts close round to crush out one!DUMB SHOWThe Leipzig clocks imperturbably strike nine, and the battle whichis to decide the fate of Europe, and perhaps the world, begins withthree booms from the line of the allies. They are the signal fora general cannonade of devastating intensity.So massive is the contest that we soon fail to individualize thecombatants as beings, and can only observe them as amorphous drifts,clouds, and waves of conscious atoms, surging and rolling together;can only particularize them by race, tribe, and language.Nationalities from the uttermost parts of Asia here meet those fromthe Atlantic edge of Europe for the first and last time. By noonthe sound becomes a loud droning, uninterrupted and breve-like, asfrom the pedal of an organ kept continuously down.CHORUS OF RUMOURSNow triple battle beats about the town,And now contracts the huge elastic ringOf fighting flesh, as those within go down,Or spreads, as those without show faltering!It becomes apparent that the French have a particular intention,the Allies only a general one. That of the French is to breakthrough the enemy’s centre and surround his right. To this endNAPOLÉON launches fresh columns, and simultaneously OUDINOT supportsVICTOR against EUGÈNE OF WURTEMBERG’S right, while on the otherside of him the cavalry of MILHAUD and KELLERMAN prepares to charge.NAPOLÉON’S combination is successful, and drives back EUGÈNE.Meanwhile SCHWARZENBERG is stuck fast, useless in the marshesbetween the Pleisse and the Elster.By three o’clock the Allied centre, which has held out against theassaults of the French right and left, is broken through by cavalryunder MURAT, LATOUR-MAUBOURG, and KELLERMANN.The bells of Leipzig ring.CHORUS OF THE PITIESThose chimings, ill-advised and premature!Who knows if such vast valour will endure?The Austro-Russians are withdrawn from the marshes by SCHWARZENBERG.But the French cavalry also get entangled in the swamps, andsimultaneously MARMONT is beaten at Mockern.Meanwhile NEY, to the north of Leipzig, having heard the battleraging southward, leaves his position to assist it. He has nearlyarrived when he hears BLÜCHER attacking at the point he came from,and sends back some of his divisions.BERTRAND has kept open the west road to Lindenau and the Rhine, theonly French line of retreat.Evening finds the battle a drawn one. With the nightfall three blankshots reverberate hollowly.SEMICHORUS I OF RUMOURSThey sound to say that, for this moaning night,As Nature sleeps, so too shall sleep the fight;Neither the victor.SEMICHORUS IIBut, for France and him,Half-won is losing!CHORUSYea, his hopes drop dim,Since nothing less than victory to-dayHad saved a cause whose ruin is delay!The night gets thicker and no more is seen.SCENE IIITHE SAME, FROM THE TOWER OF THE PLEISSENBURG[The tower commands a view of a great part of the battlefield.Day has just dawned, and citizens, saucer-eyed from anxiety andsleeplessness, are discover watching.]FIRST CITIZENThe wind increased at midnight while I watched,With flapping showers, and clouds that combed the moon,Till dawn began outheaving this huge day,Pallidly—as if scared by its own issue;This day that the Allies with bonded mightHave vowed to deal their felling finite blow.SECOND CITIZENSo must it be! They have welded close the coopWherein our luckless Frenchmen are enjailedWith such compression that their front has shrunkFrom five miles’ farness to but half as far.—Men say Napoléon made resolve last nightTo marshal a retreat. If so, his wayIs by the Bridge of Lindenau.[They look across in the cold east light at the long straightcauseway from the Ranstadt Gate at the north-west corner of thetown, and the Lindenau bridge over the Elster beyond.]FIRST CITIZENLast night I saw, like wolf-packs, hosts appearUpon the Dresden road; and then, anon,The already stout arrays of SchwarzenbergGrew stoutened more. I witnessed clearly, too,Just before dark, the bands of BernadotteCome, hemming in the north more thoroughly.The horizon glowered with a thousand firesAs the unyielding circle shut around.[As it grows light they scan and define the armies.]THIRD CITIZENThose lying there, ’twixt Connewitz and Dolitz,Are the right wing of horse Murat commands.Next, Poniatowski, Victor, and the rest.Out here, Napoléon’s centre at Probstheida,Where he has bivouacked. Those round this wayAre his left wing with Ney, that face the northBetween Paunsdorf and Gohlis.—Thus, you seeThey are skilfully sconced within the villages,With cannon ranged in front. And every copse,Dingle, and grove is packed with riflemen.[The heavy sky begins to clear with the full arrival of themorning. The sun bursts out, and the previously dark and gloomymasses glitter in the rays. It is now seven o’clock, and with theshining of the sun, the battle is resumed.The army of Bohemia to the south and east, in three great columns,marches concentrically upon NAPOLÉON’S new and much-contracted line—the first column of thirty-five thousand under BENNIGSEN; thesecond, the central, forty-five thousand under BARCLAY DE TOLLY;the third, twenty-five thousand under the PRINCE OF HESSE-HOMBURG.An interval of suspense.]FIRST CITIZENAh, see! The French bend, falter, and fall back.[Another interval. Then a huge rumble of artillery resounds fromthe north.]SEMICHORUS OF RUMOURS [aerial music]Now Blücher has arrived; and now falls to!Marmont withdraws before him. BernadotteTouching Bennigsen, joins attack with him,And Ney must needs recede. This serves as signTo Schwarzenberg to bear upon Probstheida—Napoléon’s keystone and dependence here.But for long whiles he fails to win his will,The chief being nigh—outmatching might with skill.SEMICHORUS IINey meanwhile, stung still sharplier, still withdrawsNearer the town, and met by new mischance,Finds him forsaken by his Saxon wing—Fair files of thrice twelve thousand footmanry.But rallying those still true with signs and calls,He warely closes up his remnant to the walls.SEMICHORUS IAround Probstheida still the conflict rollsUnder Napoléon’s eye surpassingly.Like sedge before the scythe the sections fallAnd bayonets slant and reek. Each cannon-blazeMakes the air thick with human limbs; while keenContests rage hand to hand. Throats shout “advance,”And forms walm, wallow, and slack suddenly.Hot ordnance split and shiver and rebound,And firelocks fouled and flintless overstrew the ground.SEMICHORUS IIAt length the Allies, daring tumultuously,Find them inside Probstheida. There is fixedNapoléon’s cardinal and centre hold.But need to loose it grows his gloomy fearAs night begins to brown and treacherous mists appear.CHORUSThen, on the three fronts of this reaching field,A furious, far, and final cannonadeBurns from two thousand mouths and shakes the plain,And hastens the sure end! Towards the westBertrand keeps open the retreating-way,Along which wambling waggons since the noonHave crept in closening file. Dusk draws around;The marching remnants drowse amid their talk,And worn and harrowed horses slumber as the walk.[In the darkness of the distance spread cries from the maimedanimals and the wounded men. Multitudes of the latter contrive tocrawl into the city, until the streets are full of them. Theirvoices are heard calling.]SECOND CITIZENThey cry for water! Let us go down,And do what mercy may.[Exeunt citizens from the tower.]SPIRIT OF THE PITIESA fire is litNear to the Thonberg wind-wheel. Can it beNapoléon tarries yet? Let us go see.[The distant firelight becomes clearer and closer.]SCENE IVTHE SAME. AT THE THONBERG WINDMILL[By the newly lighted fire NAPOLÉON is seen walking up and down,much agitated and worn. With him are MURAT, BERTHIER, AUGEREAU,VICTOR, and other marshals of corps that have been engaged in thispart of the field—all perspiring, muddy, and fatigued.]NAPOLÉONBaseness so gross I had not guessed of them!—The thirty thousand false BavariansI looked on losing not unplacidly;But these troth-swearing sober SaxonryI reckoned staunch by virtue of their king!Thirty-five thousand and gone! It magnifiesA failure into a catastrophe....Murat, we must retreat precipitately,And not as hope had dreamed! Begin it thenThis very hour.—Berthier, write out the orders.—Let me sit down.[A chair is brought out from the mill. NAPOLÉON sinks into it, andBERTHIER, stooping over the fire, begins writing to the Emperor’sdictation, the marshals looking with gloomy faces at the flaminglogs.NAPOLÉON has hardly dictated a line when he stops short. BERTHIERturns round and finds that he has dropt asleep.]MURAT [sullenly]Far better not disturb him;He’ll soon enough awake![They wait, muttering to one another in tones expressing wearyindifference to issues. NAPOLÉON sleeps heavily for a quarter ofand hour, during which the moon rises over the field. At the endhe starts up stares around him with astonishment.]NAPOLÉONAm I awake?Or is this all a dream?—Ah, no. Too real!...And yet I have seen ere now a time like this.[The dictation is resumed. While it is in progress there can beheard between the words of NAPOLÉON the persistent cries from theplain, rising and falling like those of a vast rookery far away,intermingled with the trampling of hoofs and the rumble of wheels.The bivouac fires of the engirdling enemy glow all around exceptfor a small segment to the west—the track of retreat, still keptopen by BERTRAND, and already taken by the baggage-waggons.The orders for its adoption by the entire army being completed,NAPOLÉON bids adieu to his marshals, and rides with BERTHIER andCAULAINCOURT into Leipzig. Exeunt also the others.]SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIESNow, as in the dream of one sick to death,There comes a narrowing roomThat pens him, body and limbs and breath,To wait a hideous doom,SEMICHORUS IISo to Napoléon in the hushThat holds the town and towersThrough this dire night, a creeping crushSeems inborne with the hours.[The scene closes under a rimy mist, which makes a lurid cloud ofthe firelights.]SCENE VTHE SAME. A STREET NEAR THE RANSTADT GATE[High old-fashioned houses form the street, along which, from theeast of the city, is streaming a confusion of waggons, in hurriedexit through the gate westward upon the highroad to Lindenau,Lutzen, and the Rhine.In front of an inn called the “Prussian Arms” are some attendantsof NAPOLÉON waiting with horses.]FIRST OFFICERHe has just come from bidding the king and queenA long good-bye.... Is it that they will payFor his indulgence of their past ambitionBy sharing now his ruin? Much the kingDid beg him to leave them to their lot,And shun the shame of capture needlessly.[He looks anxiously towards the door.]I would he’d haste! Each minute is of price.SECOND OFFICERThe king will come to terms with the Allies.They will not hurt him. Though he has lost his all,His case is not like ours![The cheers of the approaching enemy grow louder. NAPOLÉON comesout from the “Prussian Arms,” haggard and in disordered attire.He is about to mount, but, perceiving the blocked state of thestreet, he hesitates.]NAPOLÉONGod, what a crowd!I shall more quickly gain the gate afoot.There is a byway somewhere, I suppose?[A citizen approaches out of the inn.]CITIZENThis alley, sire, will speed you to the gate;I shall be honoured much to point the way.NAPOLÉONThen do, good friend. [To attendants] Bring on the horses there;I if arrive soonest I will wait for you.[The citizen shows NAPOLÉON the way into the alley.]CITIZENA garden’s at the end, your Majesty,Through which you pass. Beyond there is a doorThat opens to the Elster bank unbalked.[NAPOLÉON disappears into the alley. His attendants plunge amidthe traffic with the horses, and thread their way down the street.Another citizen comes from the door of the inn and greets thefirst.]FIRST CITIZENHe’s gone!SECOND CITIZENI’ll see if he succeed.[He re-enters the inn and soon appears at an upper window.]FIRST CITIZEN [from below]You see him?SECOND CITIZEN [gazing]He is already at the garden-end;Now he has passed out to the river-brim,And plods along it toward the Ranstadt Gate....He finds no horses for him!... And the crowdThrusts him about, none recognizing him.Ah—now the horses do arrive. He mounts,And hurries through the arch.... Again I see him—Now he’s upon the causeway in the marsh;Now rides across the bridge of Lindenau...And now, among the troops that choke the roadI lose all sight of him.[A third citizen enters from the direction NAPOLÉON has taken.]THIRD CITIZEN [breathlessly]I have seen him go!And while he passed the gate I stood i’ the crowdSo close I could have touched him! Few discernedIn one so soiled the erst Arch-Emperor!—In the lax mood of him who has lost allHe stood inert there, idly singing thin:“Malbrough s’en va-t-en guerre!”—until his suiteCame up with horses.SECOND CITIZEN [still gazing afar]Poniatowski’s PolesWearily walk the level causeway now;Also, meseems, Macdonald’s corps and Reynier’s.The frail-framed, new-built bridge has broken down:They’ve but the old to cross by.FIRST CITIZENFeeble foresight!They should have had a dozen.SECOND CITIZENAll the corps—Macdonald’s, Poniatowski’s, Reynier’s—all—Confusedly block the entrance to the bridge.And—verily Blücher’s troops are through the town,And are debouching from the Ranstadt GateUpon the Frenchmen’s rear![A thunderous report stops his words, echoing through the city fromthe direction in which he is gazing, and rattling all the windows.A hoarse chorus of cries becomes audible immediately after.]FIRST, THIRD, ETC., CITIZENSAch, Heaven!—what’s that?SECOND CITIZENThe bridge of Lindenau has been upblown!SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]There leaps to the sky and earthen wave,And stones, and men, as thoughSome rebel churchyard crew updraveTheir sepulchres from below.SEMICHORUS IITo Heaven is blown Bridge Lindenau;Wrecked regiments reel therefrom;And rank and file in masses ploughThe sullen Elster-Strom.SEMICHORUS IA gulf is Lindenau; and deadAre fifties, hundreds, tens;And every current ripples redWith marshals’ blood and men’s.SEMICHORUS IIThe smart Macdonald swims therein,And barely wins the verge;Bold Poniatowski plunges inNever to re-emerge!FIRST CITIZENAre not the French across as yet, God save them?SECOND CITIZEN [still gazing above]Nor Reynier’s corps, Macdonald’s, Lauriston’s,Nor yet the Poles.... And Blücher’s troops approach,And all the French this side are prisoners.—Now for our handling by the Prussian host;Scant courtesy for our king![Other citizens appear beside him at the window, and furtherconversation continues entirely above.]CHORUS OF IRONIC SPIRITSThe Battle of the Nations now is closing,And all is lost to One, to many gained;The old dynastic routine reimposing,The new dynastic structure unsustained.Now every neighbouring realm is France’s warder,And smirking satisfaction will be feigned:The which is seemlier?—so-called ancient order,Or that the hot-breath’d war-horse ramp unreined?[The October night thickens and curtains the scene.]SCENE VITHE PYRENEES. NEAR THE RIVER NIVELLE[Evening. The dining-room of WELLINGTON’S quarters. The table islaid for dinner. The battle of the Nivelle has just been fought.Enter WELLINGTON, HILL, BERESFORD, STEWART, HOPE, CLINTON, COLBORNE,COLE, KEMPT [with a bound-up wound], and other officers.WELLINGTONIt is strange that they did not hold their grand position moretenaciously against us to-day. By God, I don’t quite see why weshould have beaten them!COLBORNEMy impression is that they had the stiffness taken out of them bysomething they had just heard of. Anyhow, startling news of somekind was received by those of the Eighty-eighth we took in thesignal-redoubt after I summoned the Commandant.WELLINGTONOh, what news?COLBORNEI cannot say, my lord, I only know that the latest number of theImperial Gazettewas seen in the hands of some of them before thecapture. They had been reading the contents, and were cast down.WELLINGTONThat’s interesting. I wonder what the news could have been?HILLSomething about Boney’s army in Saxony would be most probable.Though I question if there’s time yet for much to have beendecided there.BERESFORDWell, I wouldn’t say that. A hell of a lot of things may havehappened there by this time.COLBORNEIt was tantalizing, but they were just able to destroy the paperbefore we could prevent them.WELLINGTONDid you question them?COLBORNEOh yes. But they stayed sulking at being taken, and would tell usnothing, pretending that they knew nothing. Whether much were goingon, they said, or little, between the army of the Emperor and thearmy of the Allies, it was none of their business to relate it; sothey kept a gloomy silence for the most part.WELLINGTONThey will cheer up a bit and be more communicative when they have hadsome dinner.COLEThey are dining here, my lord?WELLINGTONI sent them an invitation an hour ago, which they have accepted.I could do no less, poor devils. They’ll be here in a few minutes.See that they have plenty of Madeira to whet their whistles with.It well screw them up into a better key, and they’ll not be soreserved.[The conversation on the day’s battle becomes general. Enter asguests French officers of the Eighty-eighth regiment now prisonerson parole. They are welcomed by WELLINGTON and the staff, and allsit down to dinner.For some time the meal proceeds almost in silence; but wine ispassed freely, and both French and English officers becometalkative and merry.WELLINGTON [to the French Commandant]More cozy this, sir, than—I’ll warrant me—You found it in that damned redoubt to-day?COMMANDANTThe devil if ’tis not, monseigneur, sure!WELLINGTONSo ’tis for us who were outside, by God!COMMANDANT [gloomily]No; we were not at ease! Alas, my lord,’Twas more than flesh and blood could do, to fightAfter such paralyzing tidings came.More life may trickle out of men through thoughtThan through a gaping wound.WELLINGTONYour referenceBears on the news from Saxony, I infer?SECOND FRENCH OFFICERYes: on the Emperor’s ruinous defeatAt Leipzig city—brought to our startled heedBy one of theGazettesjust now arrived.[All the English officers stop speaking, and listen eagerly.]WELLINGTONWhere are the Emperor’s headquarters now?COMMANDANTMy lord, there are no headquarters.WELLINGTONNo headquarters?COMMANDANTThere are no French headquarters now, my lord,For there is no French army! France’s fameIs fouled. And how, then, could we fight to-dayWith our hearts in our shoes!WELLINGTONWhy, that bears outWhat I but lately said; it was not likeThe brave men who have faced and foiled me hereSo many a long year past, to give awayA stubborn station quite so readily.BERESFORDAnd what, messieurs, ensued at Leipzig then?SEVERAL FRENCH OFFICERSWhy, sirs, should we conceal it? ThereuponPart of our army took the Lutzen road;Behind a blown-up bridge. Those in advanceArrived at Lutzen with the Emperor—The scene of our once famous victory!In such sad sort retreat was hurried on,Erfurt was gained with Blücher hot at heel.To cross the Rhine seemed then our only hope;Alas, the Austrians and the BavariansFaced us in Hanau Forest, led by Wrede,And dead-blocked our escape.WELLINGTONHa. Did they though?SECOND FRENCH OFFICERBut if brave hearts were ever desperate,Sir, we were desperate then! We pierced them through,Our loss unrecking. So by Frankfurt’s wallsWe fared to Mainz, and there recrossed the Rhine.A funeral procession, so we seemed,Upon the long bridge that had rung so oftTo our victorious feet!... What since has coursedWe know not, gentlemen. But this we know,That Germany echoes no French footfall!AN ENGLISH OFFICEROne sees not why it should.SECOND FRENCH OFFICERWe’ll leave it so.[Conversation on the Leipzig disaster continues till the dinnerends The French prisoners courteously take their leave and goout.]WELLINGTONVery good set of fellows. I could wishThey all were mine!...Well, well; there was no crimeIn trying to ascertain these fat events:They would have sounded soon from other tongues.HILLIt looks like the first scene of act the lastFor our and all men’s foe!WELLINGTONI count to meetThe Allies upon the cobble-stones of ParisBefore another half-year’s suns have shone.—But there’s some work for us to do here yet:The dawn must find us fording the Nivelle![Exeunt WELLINGTON and officers. The room darkens.]
LEIPZIG. NAPOLÉON’S QUARTERS IN THE REUDNITZ SUBURB[The sitting-room of a private mansion. Evening. A large stove-fire and candles burning. The October wind is heard without, andthe leaded panes of the old windows shake mournfully.]
SEMICHORUS I OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music]We come; and learn as Time’s disordered dear sands runThat Castlereagh’s diplomacy has wiled, waxed, won.The beacons flash the fevered news to eyes keen bentThat Austria’s formal words of war are shaped, sealed, sent.
SEMICHORUS IISo; Poland’s three despoilers primed by Bull’s gross payTo stem Napoléon’s might, he waits the weird dark day;His proffered peace declined with scorn, in fell force thenThey front him, with yet ten-score thousand more massed men.[At the back of the room CAULAINCOURT, DUKE OF VICENZA, andJOUANNE, one of Napoléon’s confidential secretaries, are unpackingand laying out the Emperor’s maps and papers. In the foregroundBERTHIER, MURAT, LAURISTON, and several officers of Napoléon’ssuite, are holding a desultory conversation while they await hisentry. Their countenances are overcast.]
MURATAt least, the scheme of marching on BerlinIs now abandoned.
LAURISTONNot without high words:He yielded and gave order prompt for LeipzigBut coldness and reserve have marked his moodTowards us ever since.
BERTHIERThe march heretoHe has looked on as a retrogressive one,And that, he ever holds, is courting woe.To counsel it was doubtless full of risk,And heaped us with responsibilities;—Yet ’twas your missive, sire, that settled it [to MURAT].How stirred he was! “To Leipzig, or Berlin?”He kept repeating, as he drew and drewFantastic figures on the foolscap sheet,—“The one spells ruin—t’other spells success,And which is which?”
MURAT [stiffly]What better could I do?So far were the Allies from sheering offAs he supposed, that they had moved in marchFull fanfare hither! I was duty-boundTo let him know.
LAURISTONAssuming victory here,If he should let the advantage slip him byAs on the Dresden day, he wrecks us all!’Twas damnable—to ride back from the fightInside a coach, as though we had not won!
CAULAINCOURT [from the back]The Emperor was ill: I have ground for knowing.[NAPOLÉON enters.]
NAPOLÉON [buoyantly]Comrades, the outlook promises us well!
MURAT [dryly]Right glad are we you tongue such tidings, sire.To us the stars have visaged differently;To wit: we muster outside Leipzig hereLevies one hundred and ninety thousand strong.The enemy has mustered, OUTSIDE US,Three hundred and fifty thousand—if not more.
NAPOLÉONAll that is needful is to conquer them!We are concentred here: they lie a-spread,Which shrinks them to two-hundred-thousand power:—Though that the urgency of victoryIs absolute, I admit.
MURATYea; otherwiseThe issue will be worse than Moscow, sire![MARMONT, DUKE OF RAGUSA [Wellington’s adversary in Spain], isannounced, and enters.]
NAPOLÉONAh, Marmont; bring you in particulars?
MARMONTSome sappers I have taken captive, sire,Say the Allies will be at stroke with usThe morning next to to-morrow’s.—I am come,Now, from the steeple-top of Liebenthal,Where I beheld the enemy’s fires bespotThe horizon round with raging eyes of flame:—My vanward posts, too, have been driven in,And I need succours—thrice ten thousand, say.
NAPOLÉON [coldly]The enemy vexes not your vanward posts;You are mistaken.—Now, however, go;Cross Leipzig, and remain as the reserve.—Well, gentlemen, my hope herein is this:The first day to annihilate Schwarzenberg,The second Blücher. So shall we slip the toilsThey are all madding to enmesh us in.
BERTHIERFew are our infantry to fence with theirs!
NAPOLÉON [cheerfully]We’ll range them in two lines instead of three,And so we shall look stronger by one-third.
BERTHIER [incredulously]Can they be thus deceived, sire?
NAPOLÉONCan they? Yes!With all my practice I can err in numbersAt least one-quarter; why not they one-third?Anyhow, ’tis worth trying at a pinch....[AUGEREAU is suddenly announced.]Good! I’ve not seen him yet since he arrived.[Enter AUGEREAU.Here you are then at last, old Augereau!You have been looked for long.—But you are no moreThe Augereau of Castiglione days!
AUGEREAUNay, sire! I still should be the AugereauOf glorious Castiglione, could you giveThe boys of Italy back again to me!
NAPOLÉONWell, let it drop.... Only I notice round meAn atmosphere of scopeless apathyWherein I do not share.
AUGEREAUThere are reasons, sire,Good reasons for despondence! As I cameI learnt, past question, that BavariaSwerves on the very pivot of desertion.This adds some threescore thousand to our foes.
NAPOLÉON [irritated]That consummation long has threatened us!...Would that you showed the steeled fidelityYou used to show! Except me, all are slack![To Murat] Why, even you yourself, my brother-in-law,Have been inclining to abandon me!
MURAT [vehemently]I, sire? It is not so. I stand and swearThe grievous imputation is untrue.You should know better than believe these things,And well remember I have enemiesWho ever wait to slander me to you!
NAPOLÉON [more calmly]Ah yes, yes. That is so.—And yet—and yetYou have deigned to weigh the feasibilityOf treating me as Austria has done!...But I forgive you. You are a worthy man;You feel real friendship for me. You are brave.Yet I was wrong to make a king of you.If I had been content to draw the lineAt vice-king, as with young Eugène, no more,As he has laboured you’d have laboured, too!But as full monarch, you have foraged ratherFor your own pot than mine![MURAT and the marshal are silent, and look at each other withtroubled countenances. NAPOLÉON goes to the table at the back, andbends over the charts with CAULAINCOURT, dictating desultory notesto the secretaries.]
SPIRIT IRONICA seer might sayThis savours of a sad Last-Supper talk’Twixt his disciples and this Christ of war![Enter an attendant.]
ATTENDANTThe Saxon King and Queen and the PrincessEnter the city gates, your Majesty.They seek the shelter of the civic wallsAgainst the risk of capture by Allies.
NAPOLÉONAh, so? My friend Augustus, is he near?I will be prompt to meet him when he comes,And safely quarter him. [He returns to the map.][An interval. The clock strikes midnight. The EMPEROR risesabruptly, sighs, and comes forward.]I now retire,Comrades. Good-night, good-night. Remember wellAll must prepare to grip with gory deathIn the now voidless battle. It will beA great one and a critical; one, in brief,That will seal France’s fate, and yours, and mine!
ALL [fervidly]We’ll do our utmost, by the Holy Heaven!
NAPOLÉONAh—what was that? [He pulls back the window-curtain.]
SEVERALIt is our enemies,Whose southern hosts are signalling to their north.[A white rocket is beheld high in the air. It is followed by asecond, and a third. There is a pause, during which NAPOLÉON andthe rest wait motionless. In a minute or two, from the oppositeside of the city, three coloured rockets are sent up, in evidentanswer to the three white ones. NAPOLÉON muses, and lets thecurtain drop.]
NAPOLÉONYes, Schwarzenberg to Blücher.... It must beTo show that they are ready. So are we![He goes out without saying more. The marshals and other officerswithdraw. The room darkens and ends the scene.]
THE SAME. THE CITY AND THE BATTLEFIELD[Leipzig is viewed in aerial perspective from a position above thesouth suburbs, and reveals itself as standing in a plain, withrivers and marshes on the west, north, and south of it, and higherground to the east and south-east.At this date it is somewhat in she shape of the letter D, thestraight part of which is the river Pleisse. Except as to thisside it is surrounded by armies—the inner horseshoe of thembeing the French defending the city; the outer horseshoe beingthe Allies about to attack it.Far over the city—as it were at the top of the D—at Lindenthal,we see MARMONT stationed to meet BLÜCHER when he arrives on thatside. To the right of him is NEY, and further off to the right,on heights eastward, MACDONALD. Then round the curve towards thesouth in order, AUGEREAU, LAURISTON [behind whom is NAPOLÉONhimself and the reserve of Guards], VICTOR [at Wachau], andPONIATOWSKI, near the Pleisse River at the bottom of the D. Nearhim are the cavalry of KELLERMANN and MILHAUD, and in the samedirection MURAT with his, covering the great avenues of approachon the south.Outside all these stands SCHWARZENBERG’S army, of which, opposedto MACDONALD and LAURISTON, are KLEINAU’S Austrians and ZIETEN’SPrussians, covered on the flank by Cossacks under PLATOFF.Opposed to VICTOR and PONIATOWSKI are MEERFELDT and Hesse-Homburg’sAustrians, WITTGENSTEIN’S Russians, KLEIST’S Prussians, GUILAY’SAustrians, with LICHTENSTEIN’S and THIELMANN’S light troops: thusreaching round across the Elster into the morass on our near left—the lower point of the D.]
SEMICHORUS I OF RUMOURS [aerial music]This is the combat of Napoléon’s hope,But not of his assurance! Shrunk in powerHe broods beneath October’s clammy cope,While hemming hordes wax denser every hour.
SEMICHORUS IIHe knows, he knows that though in equal fightHe stand s heretofore the matched of none,A feeble skill is propped by numbers’ might,And now three hosts close round to crush out one!
DUMB SHOWThe Leipzig clocks imperturbably strike nine, and the battle whichis to decide the fate of Europe, and perhaps the world, begins withthree booms from the line of the allies. They are the signal fora general cannonade of devastating intensity.So massive is the contest that we soon fail to individualize thecombatants as beings, and can only observe them as amorphous drifts,clouds, and waves of conscious atoms, surging and rolling together;can only particularize them by race, tribe, and language.Nationalities from the uttermost parts of Asia here meet those fromthe Atlantic edge of Europe for the first and last time. By noonthe sound becomes a loud droning, uninterrupted and breve-like, asfrom the pedal of an organ kept continuously down.
CHORUS OF RUMOURSNow triple battle beats about the town,And now contracts the huge elastic ringOf fighting flesh, as those within go down,Or spreads, as those without show faltering!
It becomes apparent that the French have a particular intention,the Allies only a general one. That of the French is to breakthrough the enemy’s centre and surround his right. To this endNAPOLÉON launches fresh columns, and simultaneously OUDINOT supportsVICTOR against EUGÈNE OF WURTEMBERG’S right, while on the otherside of him the cavalry of MILHAUD and KELLERMAN prepares to charge.NAPOLÉON’S combination is successful, and drives back EUGÈNE.Meanwhile SCHWARZENBERG is stuck fast, useless in the marshesbetween the Pleisse and the Elster.By three o’clock the Allied centre, which has held out against theassaults of the French right and left, is broken through by cavalryunder MURAT, LATOUR-MAUBOURG, and KELLERMANN.The bells of Leipzig ring.
CHORUS OF THE PITIESThose chimings, ill-advised and premature!Who knows if such vast valour will endure?
The Austro-Russians are withdrawn from the marshes by SCHWARZENBERG.But the French cavalry also get entangled in the swamps, andsimultaneously MARMONT is beaten at Mockern.Meanwhile NEY, to the north of Leipzig, having heard the battleraging southward, leaves his position to assist it. He has nearlyarrived when he hears BLÜCHER attacking at the point he came from,and sends back some of his divisions.BERTRAND has kept open the west road to Lindenau and the Rhine, theonly French line of retreat.Evening finds the battle a drawn one. With the nightfall three blankshots reverberate hollowly.
SEMICHORUS I OF RUMOURSThey sound to say that, for this moaning night,As Nature sleeps, so too shall sleep the fight;Neither the victor.
SEMICHORUS IIBut, for France and him,Half-won is losing!
CHORUSYea, his hopes drop dim,Since nothing less than victory to-dayHad saved a cause whose ruin is delay!
The night gets thicker and no more is seen.
THE SAME, FROM THE TOWER OF THE PLEISSENBURG[The tower commands a view of a great part of the battlefield.Day has just dawned, and citizens, saucer-eyed from anxiety andsleeplessness, are discover watching.]
FIRST CITIZENThe wind increased at midnight while I watched,With flapping showers, and clouds that combed the moon,Till dawn began outheaving this huge day,Pallidly—as if scared by its own issue;This day that the Allies with bonded mightHave vowed to deal their felling finite blow.
SECOND CITIZENSo must it be! They have welded close the coopWherein our luckless Frenchmen are enjailedWith such compression that their front has shrunkFrom five miles’ farness to but half as far.—Men say Napoléon made resolve last nightTo marshal a retreat. If so, his wayIs by the Bridge of Lindenau.[They look across in the cold east light at the long straightcauseway from the Ranstadt Gate at the north-west corner of thetown, and the Lindenau bridge over the Elster beyond.]
FIRST CITIZENLast night I saw, like wolf-packs, hosts appearUpon the Dresden road; and then, anon,The already stout arrays of SchwarzenbergGrew stoutened more. I witnessed clearly, too,Just before dark, the bands of BernadotteCome, hemming in the north more thoroughly.The horizon glowered with a thousand firesAs the unyielding circle shut around.[As it grows light they scan and define the armies.]
THIRD CITIZENThose lying there, ’twixt Connewitz and Dolitz,Are the right wing of horse Murat commands.Next, Poniatowski, Victor, and the rest.Out here, Napoléon’s centre at Probstheida,Where he has bivouacked. Those round this wayAre his left wing with Ney, that face the northBetween Paunsdorf and Gohlis.—Thus, you seeThey are skilfully sconced within the villages,With cannon ranged in front. And every copse,Dingle, and grove is packed with riflemen.[The heavy sky begins to clear with the full arrival of themorning. The sun bursts out, and the previously dark and gloomymasses glitter in the rays. It is now seven o’clock, and with theshining of the sun, the battle is resumed.The army of Bohemia to the south and east, in three great columns,marches concentrically upon NAPOLÉON’S new and much-contracted line—the first column of thirty-five thousand under BENNIGSEN; thesecond, the central, forty-five thousand under BARCLAY DE TOLLY;the third, twenty-five thousand under the PRINCE OF HESSE-HOMBURG.An interval of suspense.]
FIRST CITIZENAh, see! The French bend, falter, and fall back.[Another interval. Then a huge rumble of artillery resounds fromthe north.]
SEMICHORUS OF RUMOURS [aerial music]Now Blücher has arrived; and now falls to!Marmont withdraws before him. BernadotteTouching Bennigsen, joins attack with him,And Ney must needs recede. This serves as signTo Schwarzenberg to bear upon Probstheida—Napoléon’s keystone and dependence here.But for long whiles he fails to win his will,The chief being nigh—outmatching might with skill.
SEMICHORUS IINey meanwhile, stung still sharplier, still withdrawsNearer the town, and met by new mischance,Finds him forsaken by his Saxon wing—Fair files of thrice twelve thousand footmanry.But rallying those still true with signs and calls,He warely closes up his remnant to the walls.
SEMICHORUS IAround Probstheida still the conflict rollsUnder Napoléon’s eye surpassingly.Like sedge before the scythe the sections fallAnd bayonets slant and reek. Each cannon-blazeMakes the air thick with human limbs; while keenContests rage hand to hand. Throats shout “advance,”And forms walm, wallow, and slack suddenly.Hot ordnance split and shiver and rebound,And firelocks fouled and flintless overstrew the ground.
SEMICHORUS IIAt length the Allies, daring tumultuously,Find them inside Probstheida. There is fixedNapoléon’s cardinal and centre hold.But need to loose it grows his gloomy fearAs night begins to brown and treacherous mists appear.
CHORUSThen, on the three fronts of this reaching field,A furious, far, and final cannonadeBurns from two thousand mouths and shakes the plain,And hastens the sure end! Towards the westBertrand keeps open the retreating-way,Along which wambling waggons since the noonHave crept in closening file. Dusk draws around;The marching remnants drowse amid their talk,And worn and harrowed horses slumber as the walk.[In the darkness of the distance spread cries from the maimedanimals and the wounded men. Multitudes of the latter contrive tocrawl into the city, until the streets are full of them. Theirvoices are heard calling.]
SECOND CITIZENThey cry for water! Let us go down,And do what mercy may.[Exeunt citizens from the tower.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIESA fire is litNear to the Thonberg wind-wheel. Can it beNapoléon tarries yet? Let us go see.[The distant firelight becomes clearer and closer.]
THE SAME. AT THE THONBERG WINDMILL[By the newly lighted fire NAPOLÉON is seen walking up and down,much agitated and worn. With him are MURAT, BERTHIER, AUGEREAU,VICTOR, and other marshals of corps that have been engaged in thispart of the field—all perspiring, muddy, and fatigued.]
NAPOLÉONBaseness so gross I had not guessed of them!—The thirty thousand false BavariansI looked on losing not unplacidly;But these troth-swearing sober SaxonryI reckoned staunch by virtue of their king!Thirty-five thousand and gone! It magnifiesA failure into a catastrophe....Murat, we must retreat precipitately,And not as hope had dreamed! Begin it thenThis very hour.—Berthier, write out the orders.—Let me sit down.[A chair is brought out from the mill. NAPOLÉON sinks into it, andBERTHIER, stooping over the fire, begins writing to the Emperor’sdictation, the marshals looking with gloomy faces at the flaminglogs.NAPOLÉON has hardly dictated a line when he stops short. BERTHIERturns round and finds that he has dropt asleep.]
MURAT [sullenly]Far better not disturb him;He’ll soon enough awake![They wait, muttering to one another in tones expressing wearyindifference to issues. NAPOLÉON sleeps heavily for a quarter ofand hour, during which the moon rises over the field. At the endhe starts up stares around him with astonishment.]
NAPOLÉONAm I awake?Or is this all a dream?—Ah, no. Too real!...And yet I have seen ere now a time like this.[The dictation is resumed. While it is in progress there can beheard between the words of NAPOLÉON the persistent cries from theplain, rising and falling like those of a vast rookery far away,intermingled with the trampling of hoofs and the rumble of wheels.The bivouac fires of the engirdling enemy glow all around exceptfor a small segment to the west—the track of retreat, still keptopen by BERTRAND, and already taken by the baggage-waggons.The orders for its adoption by the entire army being completed,NAPOLÉON bids adieu to his marshals, and rides with BERTHIER andCAULAINCOURT into Leipzig. Exeunt also the others.]
SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIESNow, as in the dream of one sick to death,There comes a narrowing roomThat pens him, body and limbs and breath,To wait a hideous doom,
SEMICHORUS IISo to Napoléon in the hushThat holds the town and towersThrough this dire night, a creeping crushSeems inborne with the hours.[The scene closes under a rimy mist, which makes a lurid cloud ofthe firelights.]
THE SAME. A STREET NEAR THE RANSTADT GATE[High old-fashioned houses form the street, along which, from theeast of the city, is streaming a confusion of waggons, in hurriedexit through the gate westward upon the highroad to Lindenau,Lutzen, and the Rhine.In front of an inn called the “Prussian Arms” are some attendantsof NAPOLÉON waiting with horses.]
FIRST OFFICERHe has just come from bidding the king and queenA long good-bye.... Is it that they will payFor his indulgence of their past ambitionBy sharing now his ruin? Much the kingDid beg him to leave them to their lot,And shun the shame of capture needlessly.[He looks anxiously towards the door.]I would he’d haste! Each minute is of price.
SECOND OFFICERThe king will come to terms with the Allies.They will not hurt him. Though he has lost his all,His case is not like ours![The cheers of the approaching enemy grow louder. NAPOLÉON comesout from the “Prussian Arms,” haggard and in disordered attire.He is about to mount, but, perceiving the blocked state of thestreet, he hesitates.]
NAPOLÉONGod, what a crowd!I shall more quickly gain the gate afoot.There is a byway somewhere, I suppose?[A citizen approaches out of the inn.]
CITIZENThis alley, sire, will speed you to the gate;I shall be honoured much to point the way.
NAPOLÉONThen do, good friend. [To attendants] Bring on the horses there;I if arrive soonest I will wait for you.[The citizen shows NAPOLÉON the way into the alley.]
CITIZENA garden’s at the end, your Majesty,Through which you pass. Beyond there is a doorThat opens to the Elster bank unbalked.[NAPOLÉON disappears into the alley. His attendants plunge amidthe traffic with the horses, and thread their way down the street.Another citizen comes from the door of the inn and greets thefirst.]
FIRST CITIZENHe’s gone!
SECOND CITIZENI’ll see if he succeed.[He re-enters the inn and soon appears at an upper window.]
FIRST CITIZEN [from below]You see him?
SECOND CITIZEN [gazing]He is already at the garden-end;Now he has passed out to the river-brim,And plods along it toward the Ranstadt Gate....He finds no horses for him!... And the crowdThrusts him about, none recognizing him.Ah—now the horses do arrive. He mounts,And hurries through the arch.... Again I see him—Now he’s upon the causeway in the marsh;Now rides across the bridge of Lindenau...And now, among the troops that choke the roadI lose all sight of him.[A third citizen enters from the direction NAPOLÉON has taken.]
THIRD CITIZEN [breathlessly]I have seen him go!And while he passed the gate I stood i’ the crowdSo close I could have touched him! Few discernedIn one so soiled the erst Arch-Emperor!—In the lax mood of him who has lost allHe stood inert there, idly singing thin:“Malbrough s’en va-t-en guerre!”—until his suiteCame up with horses.
SECOND CITIZEN [still gazing afar]Poniatowski’s PolesWearily walk the level causeway now;Also, meseems, Macdonald’s corps and Reynier’s.The frail-framed, new-built bridge has broken down:They’ve but the old to cross by.
FIRST CITIZENFeeble foresight!They should have had a dozen.
SECOND CITIZENAll the corps—Macdonald’s, Poniatowski’s, Reynier’s—all—Confusedly block the entrance to the bridge.And—verily Blücher’s troops are through the town,And are debouching from the Ranstadt GateUpon the Frenchmen’s rear![A thunderous report stops his words, echoing through the city fromthe direction in which he is gazing, and rattling all the windows.A hoarse chorus of cries becomes audible immediately after.]
FIRST, THIRD, ETC., CITIZENSAch, Heaven!—what’s that?
SECOND CITIZENThe bridge of Lindenau has been upblown!
SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]There leaps to the sky and earthen wave,And stones, and men, as thoughSome rebel churchyard crew updraveTheir sepulchres from below.
SEMICHORUS IITo Heaven is blown Bridge Lindenau;Wrecked regiments reel therefrom;And rank and file in masses ploughThe sullen Elster-Strom.
SEMICHORUS IA gulf is Lindenau; and deadAre fifties, hundreds, tens;And every current ripples redWith marshals’ blood and men’s.
SEMICHORUS IIThe smart Macdonald swims therein,And barely wins the verge;Bold Poniatowski plunges inNever to re-emerge!
FIRST CITIZENAre not the French across as yet, God save them?
SECOND CITIZEN [still gazing above]Nor Reynier’s corps, Macdonald’s, Lauriston’s,Nor yet the Poles.... And Blücher’s troops approach,And all the French this side are prisoners.—Now for our handling by the Prussian host;Scant courtesy for our king![Other citizens appear beside him at the window, and furtherconversation continues entirely above.]
CHORUS OF IRONIC SPIRITSThe Battle of the Nations now is closing,And all is lost to One, to many gained;The old dynastic routine reimposing,The new dynastic structure unsustained.Now every neighbouring realm is France’s warder,And smirking satisfaction will be feigned:The which is seemlier?—so-called ancient order,Or that the hot-breath’d war-horse ramp unreined?[The October night thickens and curtains the scene.]
THE PYRENEES. NEAR THE RIVER NIVELLE[Evening. The dining-room of WELLINGTON’S quarters. The table islaid for dinner. The battle of the Nivelle has just been fought.Enter WELLINGTON, HILL, BERESFORD, STEWART, HOPE, CLINTON, COLBORNE,COLE, KEMPT [with a bound-up wound], and other officers.
WELLINGTONIt is strange that they did not hold their grand position moretenaciously against us to-day. By God, I don’t quite see why weshould have beaten them!
COLBORNEMy impression is that they had the stiffness taken out of them bysomething they had just heard of. Anyhow, startling news of somekind was received by those of the Eighty-eighth we took in thesignal-redoubt after I summoned the Commandant.
WELLINGTONOh, what news?
COLBORNEI cannot say, my lord, I only know that the latest number of theImperial Gazettewas seen in the hands of some of them before thecapture. They had been reading the contents, and were cast down.
WELLINGTONThat’s interesting. I wonder what the news could have been?
HILLSomething about Boney’s army in Saxony would be most probable.Though I question if there’s time yet for much to have beendecided there.
BERESFORDWell, I wouldn’t say that. A hell of a lot of things may havehappened there by this time.
COLBORNEIt was tantalizing, but they were just able to destroy the paperbefore we could prevent them.
WELLINGTONDid you question them?
COLBORNEOh yes. But they stayed sulking at being taken, and would tell usnothing, pretending that they knew nothing. Whether much were goingon, they said, or little, between the army of the Emperor and thearmy of the Allies, it was none of their business to relate it; sothey kept a gloomy silence for the most part.
WELLINGTONThey will cheer up a bit and be more communicative when they have hadsome dinner.
COLEThey are dining here, my lord?
WELLINGTONI sent them an invitation an hour ago, which they have accepted.I could do no less, poor devils. They’ll be here in a few minutes.See that they have plenty of Madeira to whet their whistles with.It well screw them up into a better key, and they’ll not be soreserved.[The conversation on the day’s battle becomes general. Enter asguests French officers of the Eighty-eighth regiment now prisonerson parole. They are welcomed by WELLINGTON and the staff, and allsit down to dinner.For some time the meal proceeds almost in silence; but wine ispassed freely, and both French and English officers becometalkative and merry.
WELLINGTON [to the French Commandant]More cozy this, sir, than—I’ll warrant me—You found it in that damned redoubt to-day?
COMMANDANTThe devil if ’tis not, monseigneur, sure!
WELLINGTONSo ’tis for us who were outside, by God!
COMMANDANT [gloomily]No; we were not at ease! Alas, my lord,’Twas more than flesh and blood could do, to fightAfter such paralyzing tidings came.More life may trickle out of men through thoughtThan through a gaping wound.
WELLINGTONYour referenceBears on the news from Saxony, I infer?
SECOND FRENCH OFFICERYes: on the Emperor’s ruinous defeatAt Leipzig city—brought to our startled heedBy one of theGazettesjust now arrived.[All the English officers stop speaking, and listen eagerly.]
WELLINGTONWhere are the Emperor’s headquarters now?
COMMANDANTMy lord, there are no headquarters.
WELLINGTONNo headquarters?
COMMANDANTThere are no French headquarters now, my lord,For there is no French army! France’s fameIs fouled. And how, then, could we fight to-dayWith our hearts in our shoes!
WELLINGTONWhy, that bears outWhat I but lately said; it was not likeThe brave men who have faced and foiled me hereSo many a long year past, to give awayA stubborn station quite so readily.
BERESFORDAnd what, messieurs, ensued at Leipzig then?
SEVERAL FRENCH OFFICERSWhy, sirs, should we conceal it? ThereuponPart of our army took the Lutzen road;Behind a blown-up bridge. Those in advanceArrived at Lutzen with the Emperor—The scene of our once famous victory!In such sad sort retreat was hurried on,Erfurt was gained with Blücher hot at heel.To cross the Rhine seemed then our only hope;Alas, the Austrians and the BavariansFaced us in Hanau Forest, led by Wrede,And dead-blocked our escape.
WELLINGTONHa. Did they though?
SECOND FRENCH OFFICERBut if brave hearts were ever desperate,Sir, we were desperate then! We pierced them through,Our loss unrecking. So by Frankfurt’s wallsWe fared to Mainz, and there recrossed the Rhine.A funeral procession, so we seemed,Upon the long bridge that had rung so oftTo our victorious feet!... What since has coursedWe know not, gentlemen. But this we know,That Germany echoes no French footfall!
AN ENGLISH OFFICEROne sees not why it should.
SECOND FRENCH OFFICERWe’ll leave it so.[Conversation on the Leipzig disaster continues till the dinnerends The French prisoners courteously take their leave and goout.]
WELLINGTONVery good set of fellows. I could wishThey all were mine!...Well, well; there was no crimeIn trying to ascertain these fat events:They would have sounded soon from other tongues.
HILLIt looks like the first scene of act the lastFor our and all men’s foe!
WELLINGTONI count to meetThe Allies upon the cobble-stones of ParisBefore another half-year’s suns have shone.—But there’s some work for us to do here yet:The dawn must find us fording the Nivelle![Exeunt WELLINGTON and officers. The room darkens.]