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Madame D'Arblay - "The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2"

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The Dynasts

T >> Thomas Hardy >> The Dynasts





FIRST SPY

Somebody must ride like hell to let our Cabinet know!


SECOND SPY

I have written it down in cipher, not to trust to memory, and to
guard against accidents.--They also agree that France should have
the Pope's dominions, Malta, and Egypt; that Napoleon's brother
Joseph should have Sicily as well as Naples, and that they would
partition the Ottoman Empire between them.


FIRST SPY

Cutting up Europe like a plum-pudding. Par nobile fratrum!


SECOND SPY

Then they worthy pair came to poor Prussia, whom Alexander, they
say, was anxious about, as he is under engagements to her. It
seems that Napoleon agrees to restore to the King as many of his
states as will cover Alexander's promise, so that the Tsar may
feel free to strike out in this new line with his new friend.


FIRST SPY

Surely this is but surmise?


SECOND SPY

Not at all. One of the suite overheard, and I got round him. There
was much more, which I did not learn. But they are going to soothe
and flatter the unfortunate King and Queen by asking them to a banquet
here.


FIRST SPY

Such a spirited woman will never come!


SECOND SPY

We shall see. Whom necessity compels needs must: and she has gone
through an Iliad of woes!


FIRST SPY

It is this Spanish business that will stagger England, by God! And
now to let her know it.


FRENCH SUBALTERN (looking out above)

What are those townspeople talking about so earnestly, I wonder? The
lingo of this place has an accent akin to English.


SECOND SUBALTERN

No doubt because the races are both Teutonic.

[The spies observe that they are noticed, and disappear in the
crowd. The curtain drops.]



SCENE VIII

THE SAME

[The midsummer sun is low, and a long table in the aforeshown
apartment is laid out for a dinner, among the decorations being
bunches of the season's roses.

At the vacant end of the room (divided from the dining end by
folding-doors, now open) there are discovered the EMPEROR NAPOLEON,
the GRAND-DUKE CONSTANTINE, PRINCE HENRY OF PRUSSIA, the PRINCE
ROYAL OF BAVARIA, the GRAND DUKE OF BERG, and attendant officers.

Enter the TSAR ALEXANDER. NAPOLEON welcomes him, and the twain
move apart from the rest. BONAPARTE placing a chair for his
visitor and flinging himself down on another.]


NAPOLEON

The comforts I can offer are not great,
Nor is the accommodation more than scant
That falls to me for hospitality;
But, as it is, accept.


ALEXANDER

It serves well.
And to unbrace the bandages of state
Is as clear air to incense-stifled souls.
What of the Queen?


NAPOLEON

She's coming with the King.
We have some quarter-hour to spare or more
Before their Majesties are timed for us.


ALEXANDER

Good. I would speak of them. That she should show here
After the late events, betokens much!
Abasement in so proud a woman's heart (His voice grows tremulous.)
Is not without a dash of painfulness.
And I beseech you, sire, that you hold out
Some soothing hope for her?


NAPOLEON

I have, already!--
Now, sire, to those affairs we entered on:
Strong friendship, grown secure, bids me repeat
That you have been much duped by your allies.

[ALEXANDER shows mortification.]

Prussia's a shuffler, England a self-seeker,
Nobility has shone in you alone.
Your error grew of over-generous dreams,
And misbeliefs by dullard ministers.
By treating personally we speed affairs
More in an hour than they in blundering months.
Between us two, henceforth, must stand no third.
There's peril in it, while England's mean ambition
Still works to get us skewered by the ears;
And in this view your chiefs-of-staff concur.


ALEXANDER

The judgment of my officers I share.


NAPOLEON

To recapitulate. Nothing can greaten you
Like this alliance. Providence has flung
My good friend Sultan Selim from his throne,
Leaving me free in dealings with the Porte;
And I discern the hour as one to end
A rule that Time no longer lets cohere.
If I abstain, its spoils will go to swell
The power of this same England, our annoy;
That country which enchains the trade of towns
With such bold reach as to monopolize,
Among the rest, the whole of Petersburg's--
Ay!--through her purse, friend, as the lender there!--
Shutting that purse, she may incite to--what?
Muscovy's fall, its ruler's murdering.
Her fleet at any minute can encoop
Yours in the Baltic; in the Black Sea, too;
And keep you snug as minnows in a glass!

Hence we, fast-fellowed by our mutual foes,
Seaward the British, Germany by land,
And having compassed, for our common good,
The Turkish Empire's due partitioning,
As comrades can conjunctly rule the world
To its own gain and our eternal fame!


ALEXANDER (stirred and flushed)

I see vast prospects opened!--yet, in truth,
Ere you, sire, broached these themes, their outlines loomed
Not seldom in my own imaginings;
But with less clear a vision than endows
So great a captain, statesman, philosoph,
As centre in yourself; whom had I known
Sooner by some few years, months, even weeks,
I had been spared full many a fault of rule.
--Now as to Austria. Should we call her in?


NAPOLEON

Two in a bed I have slept, but never three.


ALEXANDER

Ha-ha! Delightful. And, then nextly, Spain?


NAPOLEON

I lighted on some letters at Berlin,
Wherein King Carlos offered to attack me.
A Bourbon, minded thus, so near as Spain,
Is dangerous stuff. He must be seen to soon! . . .
A draft, then, of our treaty being penned,
We will peruse it later. If King George
Will not, upon the terms there offered him,
Conclude a ready peace, he can be forced.
Trumpet yourself as France's firm ally,
And Austria will fain to do the same:
England, left nude to such joint harassment,
Must shiver--fall.


ALEXANDER (with naive enthusiasm)

It is a great alliance!


NAPOLEON

Would it were one in blood as well as brain--
Of family hopes, and sweet domestic bliss!


ALEXANDER

Ah--is it to my sister you refer?


NAPOLEON

The launching of a lineal progeny
Has been much pressed upon me, much, of late,
For reasons which I will not dwell on now.
Staid counsellors, my brother Joseph, too,
Urge that I loose the Empress by divorce,
And re-wive promptly for the country's good.
Princesses even have been named for me!--
However this, to-day, is premature,
And 'twixt ourselves alone. . . .

The Queen of Prussia must ere long be here:
Berthier escorts her. And the King, too, comes.
She's one whom you admire?


ALEXANDER (reddening ingenuously)

Yes. . . . Formerly
I had--did feel that some faint fascination
Vaguely adorned her form. And, to be plain,
Certain reports have been calumnious,
And wronged an honest woman.


NAPOLEON

As I knew!
But she is wearing thready: why, her years
Must be full one-and-thirty, if she's one.


ALEXANDER (quickly)

No, sire. She's twenty-nine. If traits teach more
It means that cruel memory gnaws at her
As fair inciter to that fatal war
Which broke her to the dust! . . . I do confess
(Since now we speak on't) that this sacrifice
Prussia is doomed to, still disquiets me.
Unhappy King! When I recall the oaths
Sworn him upon great Frederick's sepulchre,
And--and my promises to his sad Queen,
It pricks me that his realm and revenues
Should be stript down to the mere half they were!


NAPOLEON (cooly)

Believe me, 'tis but my regard for you
Which lets me leave him that! Far easier 'twere
To leave him none at all.

[He rises and goes to the window.]

But here they are.
No; it's the Queen alone, with Berthier
As I directed. Then the King will follow.


ALEXANDER

Let me, sire, urge your courtesy to bestow
Some gentle words on her?


NAPOLEON

Ay, ay; I will.

[Enter QUEEN LOUISA OF PRUSSIA on the arm of BERTHIER. She
appears in majestic garments and with a smile on her lips, so
that her still great beauty is impressive. But her eyes bear
traces of tears. She accepts NAPOLEON'S attentions with the
stormily sad air of a wounded beauty. Whilst she is being
received the KING arrives. He is a plain, shy, honest-faced,
awkward man, with a wrecked and solitary look. His manner to
NAPOLEON is, nevertheless, dignified, and even stiff.

The company move into the inner half of the room, where the
tables are, and the folding-doors being shut, they seat themselves
at dinner, the QUEEN taking a place between NAPOLEON and ALEXANDER.]


NAPOLEON

Madame, I love magnificent attire;
But in the present instance can but note
That each bright knot and jewel less adorns
The brighter wearer than the wearer it!


QUEEN (with a sigh)

You praise one, sire, whom now the wanton world
Has learnt to cease from praising! But such words
From such a quarter are of worth no less.


NAPOLEON

Of worth as candour, madame; not as gauge.
Your reach in rarity outsoars my scope.
Yet, do you know, a troop of my hussars,
That last October day, nigh captured you?


QUEEN

Nay! Never a single Frenchman did I see.


NAPOLEON

Not less it was that you exposed yourself,
And should have been protected. But at Weimar,
Had you but sought me, 'twould have bettered you.


QUEEN

I had no zeal to meet you, sire, alas!


NAPOLEON (after a silence)

And how at Memel do you sport with time?


QUEEN

Sport? I!--I pore on musty chronicles,
And muse on usurpations long forgot,
And other historied dramas of high wrong!


NAPOLEON

Why con not annals of your own rich age?
They treasure acts well fit for pondering.


QUEEN

I am reminded too much of my age
By having had to live in it. May Heaven
Defend me now, and my wan ghost anon,
From conning it again!


NAPOLEON

Alas, alas!
Too grievous, this, for one who is yet a queen!


QUEEN

No; I have cause for vials more of grief.--
Prussia was blind in blazoning her power
Against the Mage of Earth! . . .
The embers of great Frederick's deeds inflamed her:
His glories swelled her to her ruining.
Too well has she been punished! (Emotion stops her.)


ALEXANDER (in a low voice, looking anxiously at her)

Say not so.
You speak as all were lost. Things are not thus!
Such desperation has unreason in it,
And bleeds the hearts that crave to comfort you.


NAPOLEON (to the King)

I trust the treaty, further pondered, sire,
Has consolations?


KING (curtly)

I am a luckless man;
And muster strength to bear my lucklessness
Without vain hope of consolations now.
One thing, at least, I trust I have shown you, sire
That _I_ provoked not this calamity!
At Anspach first my feud with you began--
Anspach, my Eden, violated and shamed
By blushless tramplings of your legions there!


NAPOLEON

It's rather late, methinks, to talk thus now.


KING (with more choler)

Never too late for truth and plainspeaking!


NAPOLEON (blandly)

To your ally, the Tsar, I must refer you.
He was it, and not I, who tempted you
To push for war, when Eylau must have shown
Your every profit to have lain in peace.--
He can indemn; yes, much or small; and may.


KING (with a head-shake)

I would make up, would well make up, my mind
To half my kingdom's loss, could in such limb
But Magdeburg not lie. Dear Magdeburg,
Place of my heart-hold; THAT I would retain!


NAPOLEON

Our words take not such pattern as is wont
To grace occasions of festivity.

[He turns brusquely from the King. The banquet proceeds with a
more general conversation. When finished a toast is proposed:
"The Freedom of the Seas," and drunk with enthusiasm.]


SPIRIT SINISTER

Another hit at England and her tubs!
I hear harsh echoes from her chalky chines.


SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

O heed not England now! Still read the Queen.
One grieves to see her spend her pretty spells
Upon the man who has so injured her.

[They rise from table, and the folding-doors being opened they pass
into the adjoining room.

Here are now assembled MURAT, TALLEYRAND, KOURAKIN, KALKREUTH,
BERTHIER, BESSIERES, CAULAINCOURT, LABANOFF, BENNIGSEN, and others.
NAPOLEON having spoken a few words here and there resumes his
conversation with QUEEN LOUISA, and parenthetically offers snuff
to the COUNTESS VOSS, her lady-in-waiting. TALLEYRAND, who has
observed NAPOLEON'S growing interest in the QUEEN, contrives to
get near him.]


TALLEYRAND (in a whisper)

Sire, is it possible that you can bend
To let one woman's fairness filch from you
All the resplendent fortune that attends
The grandest victory of your grand career?

[The QUEEN'S quick eye observes and flashes at the whisper, and
she obtains a word with the minister.]


QUEEN (sarcastically)

I should infer, dear Monsieur Talleyrand,
Only two persons in the world regret
My having come to Tilsit.


TALLEYRAND

Madame, two?
Can any!--who may such sad rascals be?


QUEEN

You, and myself, Prince. (Gravely.) Yes! myself and you.

[TALLEYRAND'S face becomes impassive, and he does not reply.
Soon the QUEEN prepares to leave, and NAPOLEON rejoins her.]


NAPOLEON (taking a rose from a vase)

Dear Queen, do pray accept this little token
As souvenir of me before you go?

[He offers her the rose, with his hand on his heart. She
hesitates, but accepts it.]


QUEEN (impulsively, with waiting tears)

Let Magdeburg come with it, sire! O yes!


NAPOLEON (with sudden frigidity)

It is for you to take what I can give.
And I give this--no more.(15)

[She turns her head to hide her emotion, and withdraws. NAPOLEON
steps up to her, and offers his arm. She takes it silently, and
he perceives the tears on her cheeks. They cross towards the ante-
room, away from the other guests.]


NAPOLEON (softly)

Still weeping, dearest lady! Why is this?


QUEEN (seizing his hand and pressing it)

Your speeches darn the tearings of your sword!--
Between us two, as man and woman now,
Is't even possible you question why!
O why did not the Greatest of the Age--
Of future ages--of the ages past,
This one time win a woman's worship--yea,
For all her little life!


NAPOLEON (gravely)

Know you, my Fair
That I--ay, I--in this deserve your pity.--
Some force within me, baffling mine intent,
Harries me onward, whether I will or no.
My star, my star is what's to blame--not I.
It is unswervable!


QUEEN

Then now, alas!
My duty's done as mother, wife, and queen.--
I'll say no more--but that my heart is broken!

[Exeunt NAPOLEON, QUEEN, and LADY-IN-WAITING.]


SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

He spoke thus at the Bridge of Lodi. Strange,
He's of the few in Europe who discern
The working of the Will.


SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

If that be so,
Better for Europe lacked he such discerning!

[NAPOLEON returns to the room and joins TALLEYRAND.]


NAPOLEON (aside to his minister)

My God, it was touch-and-go that time, Talleyrand! She was within
an ace of getting over me. As she stepped into the carriage she
said in her pretty way, "O I have been cruelly deceived by you!"
And when she sank down inside, not knowing I heard, she burst into
sobs fit to move a statue. The Devil take me if I hadn't a good
mind to stop the horses, jump in, give her a good kissing, and
agree to all she wanted. Ha-ha, well; a miss is as good as a mile.
Had she come sooner with those sweet, beseeching blue eyes of hers,
who knows what might not have happened! But she didn't come sooner,
and I have kept in my right mind.

[The RUSSIAN EMPEROR, the KING OF PRUSSIA, and other guests advance
to bid adieu. They depart severally. When they are gone NAPOLEON
turns to TALLEYRAND.]

Adhere, then, to the treaty as it stands:
Change not therein a single article,
But write it fair forthwith.

[Exeunt NAPOLEON, TALLEYRAND, and other ministers and officers in
waiting.[


SHADE OF THE EARTH

Some surly voice afar I heard now
Of an enisled Britannic quality;
Wots any of the cause?


SPIRIT IRONIC

Perchance I do!
Britain is roused, in her slow, stolid style,
By Bonaparte's pronouncement at Berlin
Against her cargoes, commerce, life itself;
And now from out her water citadel
Blows counterblasting "Orders." Rumours tell.


RUMOUR I

"From havens of fierce France and her allies,
With poor or precious freight of merchandize
Whoso adventures, England pounds as prize!"


RUMOUR II

Thereat Napoleon names her, furiously,
Curst Oligarch, Arch-pirate of the sea,
Who shall lack room to live while liveth he!


CHORUS OF THE PITIES (aerial music)

And peoples are enmeshed in new calamity!

[Curtain of Evening Shades.]




ACT SECOND


SCENE I

THE PYRENEES AND VALLEYS ADJOINING

[The view is from upper air, immediately over the region that
lies between Bayonne on the north, Pampeluna on the south, and
San Sebastian on the west, including a portion of the Cantabrian
mountains. The month is February, and snow covers not only the
peaks but the lower slopes. The roads over the passes are well
beaten.]


DUMB SHOW

At various elevations multitudes of NAPOLEON'S soldiery, to the
number of about thirty thousand, are discerned in a creeping
progress across the frontier from the French to the Spanish side.
The thin long columns serpentine along the roads, but are sometimes
broken, while at others they disappear altogether behind vertical
rocks and overhanging woods. The heavy guns and the whitey-brown
tilts of the baggage-waggons seem the largest objects in the
procession, which are dragged laboriously up the incline to the
watershed, their lumbering being audible as high as the clouds.

Simultaneously the river Bidassoa, in a valley to the west, is
being crossed by a train of artillery and another thirty thousand
men, all forming part of the same systematic advance.

Along the great highway through Biscay the wondering native
carters draw their sheep-skinned ox-teams aside, to let the
regiments pass, and stray groups of peaceable field-workers
in Navarre look inquiringly at the marching and prancing
progress.

Time passes, and the various northern strongholds are approached
by these legions. Their governors emerge at a summons, and when
seeming explanations have been given the unwelcome comers are
doubtfully admitted.

The chief places to which entrance is thus obtained are Pampeluna
and San Sebastian at the front of the scene, and far away towards
the shining horizon of the Mediterranean, Figueras, and Barcelona.

Dumb Show concludes as the mountain mists close over.



SCENE II

ARANJUEZ, NEAR MADRID. A ROOM IN THE PALACE OF GODOY, THE "PRINCE
OF PEACE"

[A private chamber is disclosed, richly furnished with paintings,
vases, mirrors, silk hangings, gilded lounges, and several lutes
of rare workmanship. The hour is midnight, the room being lit
by screened candelabra. In the centre at the back of the scene
is a large window heavily curtained.

GODOY and the QUEEN MARIA LUISA are dallying on a sofa. THE
PRINCE OF PEACE is a fine handsome man in middle life, with
curled hair and a mien of easy good-nature. The QUEEN is older,
but looks younger in the dim light, from the lavish use of
beautifying arts. She has pronounced features, dark eyes, low
brows, black hair bound by a jewelled bandeau, and brought forward
in curls over her forehead and temples, long heavy ear-rings, an
open bodice, and sleeves puffed at the shoulders. A cloak and
other mufflers lie on a chair beside her.]


GODOY

The life-guards still insist, Love, that the King
Shall not leave Aranjuez.


QUEEN

Let them insist.
Whether we stay, or whether we depart,
Napoleon soon draws hither with his host!


GODOY

He says he comes pacifically. . . . But no!


QUEEN

Dearest, we must away to Andalusia,
Thence to America when time shall serve.


GODOY

I hold seven thousand men to cover us,
And ships in Cadiz port. But then--the Prince
Flatly declines to go. He lauds the French
As true deliverers.


QUEEN

Go Fernando MUST! . . .
O my sweet friend, that we--our sole two selves--
Could but escape and leave the rest to fate,
And in a western bower dream out our days!--
For the King's glass can run but briefly now,
Shattered and shaken as his vigour is.--
But ah--your love burns not in singleness!
Why, dear, caress Josefa Tudo still?
She does not solve her soul in yours as I.
And why those others even more than her? . . .
How little own I in thee!


GODOY

Such must be.
I cannot quite forsake them. Don't forget
The same scope has been yours in former years.


QUEEN

Yes, Love; I know. I yield! You cannot leave them;
But if you ever would bethink yourself
How long I have been yours, how truly all
Those other pleasures were my desperate shifts
To soften sorrow at your absences,
You would be faithful to me!


GODOY

True, my dear.--
Yet I do passably keep troth with you,
And fond you with fair regularity;--
A week beside you, and a week away.
Such is not schemed without some risk and strain.--
And you agreed Josefa should be mine,
And, too, Thereza without jealousy! (A noise is heard without.)
Ah, what means that?

[He jumps up from her side and crosses the room to a window,
where he lifts the curtain cautiously. The Queen follows him
with a scared look.


QUEEN

A riot can it be?


GODOY

Let me put these out ere they notice them;
They think me at the Royal Palace yonder.

[He hastily extinguishes the candles except one taper, which
he places in a recess, so that the room is in shade. He then
draws back the curtains, and she joins him at the window, where,
enclosing her with his arm, he and she look out together.

In front of the house a guard of hussars is stationed, beyond
them spreading the Plaza or Square. On the other side rises in
the lamplight the white front of the Royal Palace. On the flank
of the Palace is a wall enclosing gardens, bowered alleys, and
orange groves, and in the wall a small door.

A mixed multitude of soldiery and populace fills the space in
front of the King's Palace, and they shout and address each other
vehemently. During a lull in their vociferations is heard the
peaceful purl of the Tagus over a cascade in the Palace grounds.]


QUEEN

Lingering, we've risked too long our chance of flight!
The Paris Terror will repeat it here.
Not for myself I fear. No, no; for thee! (She clings to him.)
If they should hurt you, it would murder me
By heart-bleedings and stabs intolerable!


GODOY (kissing her)

The first thought now is how to get you back
Within the Palace walls. Why would you risk
To come here on a night so critical?


QUEEN (passionately)

I could not help it--nay, I WOULD not help!
Rather than starve my soul I venture all.--
Our last love-night--last, maybe, of long years,
Why do you chide me now?


GODOY

Dear Queen, I do not:
I shape these sharp regrets but for your sake.
Hence you must go, somehow, and quickly too.
They think not yet of you in threatening thus,
But of me solely. . . . Where does your lady wait?


QUEEN

Below. One servant with her. They are true,
And can be let know all. But you--but you! (Uproar continues.)


GODOY

I can escape. Now call them. All three cloak
And veil as when you came.

[They retreat into the room. QUEEN MARIA LUISA'S lady-in-waiting
and servant are summoned. Enter both. All three then muffle
themselves up, and GODOY prepares to conduct the QUEEN downstairs.]


QUEEN

Nay, now! I will not have it. We are safe;
Think of yourself. Can you get out behind?


GODOY

I judge so--when I have done what's needful here.--
The mob knows not the bye-door--slip across;
Thence around sideways.--All's clear there as yet.

[The QUEEN, her lady-in-waiting, and the servant go out
hurriedly.

GODOY looks again from the window. The mob is some way off, the
immediate front being for the moment nearly free of loiterers; and
the three muffled figures are visible, crossing without hindrance
towards the door in the wall of the Palace Gardens. The instant
they reach it a sentinel springs up, challenging them.]


GODOY

Ah--now they are doomed! My God, why did she come!

[A parley takes place. Something, apparently a bribe, is handed
to the sentinel, and the three are allowed to slip in, the QUEEN
having obviously been unrecognized. He breathes his relief.]

Now for the others. Then--ah, then Heaven knows!

[He sounds a bell and a servant enters.

Where is the Countess of Castillofiel?


SERVANT

She's looking for you, Prince.


GODOY

Find her at once.
Ah--here she is.--That's well.--Go watch the Plaza (to servant).

[GODOY'S mistress, the DONA JOSEFA TUDO, enters. She is a young
and beautiful woman, the vivacity of whose large dark eyes is
now clouded. She is wrapped up for flight. The servant goes out.]


JOSEFA (breathlessly)

I should have joined you sooner, but I knew
The Queen was fondling with you. She must needs
Come hampering you this night of all the rest,
As if not gorged with you at other times!


GODOY

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