The Dynasts

T >> Thomas Hardy >> The Dynasts

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35

NAPOLEON

Upon my soul you are childish, Josephine:
A woman of your years to pout it so!--
I say it's not the Tsar's Grand-Duchess Anne.

JOSEPHINE

Some other Fair, then. You whose name can nod
The flower of all the world's virginity
Into your bed, will well take care of that!
(Spitefully.) She may not have a child, friend, after all.

NAPOLEON (drily)

You hope she won't, I know!--But don't forget
Madame Walewska did, and had she shown
Such cleverness as yours, poor little fool,
Her withered husband might have been displaced,
And her boy made my heir.--Well, let that be.
The severing parchments will be signed by us
Upon the fifteenth, prompt.

JOSEPHINE

What--I have to sign
My putting away upon the fifteenth next?

NAPOLEON

Ay--both of us.

JOSEPHINE (falling on her knees)

So far advanced--so far!
Fixed?--for the fifteenth? O I do implore you,
My very dear one, by our old, old love,
By my devotion, don't cast me off
Now, after these long years!

NAPOLEON

Heavens, how you jade me!
Must I repeat that I don't cast you off;
We merely formally arrange divorce--
We live and love, but call ourselves divided.

[A silence.]

JOSEPHINE (with sudden calm)

Very well. Let it be. I must submit! (Rises.)

NAPOLEON

And this much likewise you must promise me,
To act in the formalities thereof
As if you shaped them of your own free will.

JOSEPHINE

How can I--when no freewill's left in me?

NAPOLEON

You are a willing party--do you hear?

JOSEPHINE (quivering)

I hardly--can--bear this!--It is--too much
For a poor weak and broken woman's strength!
But--but I yield!--I am so helpless now:
I give up all--ay, kill me if you will,
I won't cry out!

NAPOLEON

And one thing further still,
You'll help me in my marriage overtures
To win the Duchess--Austrian Marie she,--
Concentrating all your force to forward them.

JOSEPHINE

It is the--last humiliating blow!--
I cannot--O, I will not!

NAPOLEON (fiercely)

But you SHALL!
And from your past experience you may know
That what I say I mean!

JOSEPHINE (breaking into sobs)

O my dear husband--do not make me--don't!
If you but cared for me--the hundredth part
Of how--I care for you, you could not be
So cruel as to lay this torture on me.
It hurts me so!--it cuts me like a sword.
Don't make me, dear! Don't, will you! O,O,O!
(She sinks down in a hysterical fit.)

NAPOLEON (calling)

Bausset!

[Enter DE BAUSSET, Chamberlain-in-waiting.]

Bausset, come in and shut the door.
Assist me here. The Empress has fallen ill.
Don't call for help. We two can carry her
By the small private staircase to her rooms.
Here--I will take her feet.

[They lift JOSEPHINE between them and carry her out. Her moans
die away as they recede towards the stairs. Enter two servants,
who remove coffee-service, readjust chairs, etc.]

FIRST SERVANT

So, poor old girl, she's wailed her _Missere Mei_, as Mother Church
says. I knew she was to get the sack ever since he came back.

SECOND SERVANT

Well, there will be a little civil huzzaing, a little crowing and
cackling among the Bonapartes at the downfall of the Beauharnais
family at last, mark me there will! They've had their little hour,
as the poets say, and now 'twill be somebody else's turn. O it is
droll! Well, Father Time is a great philosopher, if you take him
right. Who is to be the new woman?

FIRST SERVANT

She that contains in her own corporation the necessary particular.

SECOND SERVANT

And what may they be?

FIRST SERVANT

She must be young.

SECOND SERVANT

Good. She must. The country must see to that.

FIRST SERVANT

And she must be strong.

SECOND SERVANT

Good again. She must be strong. The doctors will see to that.

FIRST SERVANT
And she must be fruitful as the vine.

SECOND SERVANT

Ay, by God. She must be fruitful as the vine. That, Heaven help
him, he must see to himself, like the meanest multiplying man in
Paris.

[Exeunt servant. Re-enter NAPOLEON with his stepdaughter, Queen
Hortense.]

NAPOLEON
Your mother is too rash and reasonless--
Wailing and fainting over statesmanship
Which is no personal caprice of mine,
But policy most painful--forced on me
By the necessities of this country's charge.
Go to her; see if she be saner now;
Explain it to her once and once again,
And bring me word what impress you may make.

[HORTENSE goes out. CHAMPAGNY is shown in.]

Champagny, I have something clear to say
Now, on our process after the divorce.
The question of the Russian Duchess Anne
Was quite inept for further toying with.
The years rush on, and I grow nothing younger.
So I have made up my mind--committed me
To Austria and the Hapsburgs--good or ill!
It was the best, most practicable plunge,
And I have plunged it.

CHAMPAGNY

Austria say you, sire?
I reckoned that but a scurrying dream!

NAPOLEON

Well, so it was. But such a pretty dream
That its own charm transfixed it to a notion,
That showed itself in time a sanity,
Which hardened in its turn to a resolve
As firm as any built by mortal mind.--
The Emperor's consent must needs be won;
But I foresee no difficulty there.
The young Archduchess is a bright blond thing
By general story; and considering, too,
That her good mother childed seventeen times,
It will be hard if she can not produce
The modest one or two that I require.

[Enter DE BAUSSET with dispatches.]

DE BAUSSET

The courier, sire, from Petersburg is here,
And brings these letters for your Majesty.

[Exit DE BAUSSET.]

NAPOLEON (after silently reading)

Ha-ha! It never rains unless it pours:
Now I can have the other readily.
The proverb hits me aptly: "Well they do
Who doff the old love ere they don the new!"
(He glances again over the letter.)
Yes, Caulaincourt now writes he has every hope
Of quick success in settling the alliance!
The Tsar is willing--even anxious for it,
His sister's youth the single obstacle.
The Empress-mother, hitherto against me,
Ambition-fired, verges on suave consent,
Likewise the whole Imperial family.
What irony is all this to me now!
Time lately was when I had leapt thereat.

CHAMPAGNY

You might, of course, sire, give th' Archduchess up,
Seeing she looms uncertainly as yet,
While this does so no longer.

NAPOLEON

No--not I.
My sense of my own dignity forbids
My watching the slow clocks of Muscovy!
Why have they dallied with my tentatives
In pompous silence since the Erfurt day?
--And Austria, too, affords a safer hope.
The young Archduchess is much less a child
Than is the other, who, Caulaincourt says,
Will be incapable of motherhood
For six months yet or more--a grave delay.

CHAMPAGNY

Your Majesty appears to have trimmed your sail
For Austria; and no more is to be said!

NAPOLEON

Except that there's the house of Saxony
If Austria fail.--then, very well, Champagny,
Write you to Caulaincourt accordingly.

CHAMPAGNY

I will, your Majesty.

[Exit CHAMPAGNY. Re-enter QUEEN HORTENSE.]

NAPOLEON

Ah, dear Hortense,
How is your mother now?

HORTENSE

Calm; quite calm, sire.
I pledge me you need have no further fret
From her entreating tears. She bids me say
That now, as always, she submits herself
With chastened dignity to circumstance,
And will descend, at notice, from your throne--
As in days earlier she ascended it--
In questionless obedience to your will.
It was your hand that crowned her; let it be
Likewise your hand that takes her crown away.
As for her children, we shall be but glad
To follow and withdraw ourselves with her,
The tenderest mother children ever knew,
From grandeurs that have brought no happiness!

NAPOLEON (taking her hand)

But, Hortense, dear, it is not to be so!
You must stay with me, as I said before.
Your mother, too, must keep her royal state,
Since no repudiation stains this need.
Equal magnificence will orb her round
In aftertime as now. A palace here,
A palace in the country, wealth to match,
A rank in order next my future wife's,
And conference with me as my truest friend.
Now we will seek her--Eugene, you, and I--
And make the project clear.

[Exeunt NAPOLEON and HORTENSE. The scene darkens and shuts.]

SCENE III

VIENNA. A PRIVATE APARTMENT IN THE IMPERIAL PALACE

[The EMPEROR FRANCIS discovered, paler than usual, and somewhat
flurried. Enter METTERNICH the Prime Minister--a thin-lipped,
long-nosed man with inquisitive eyes.]

FRANCIS

I have been expecting you some minutes here,
The thing that fronts us brooking brief delay.--
Well, what say you by now on this strange offer?

METTERNICH

My views remain the same, your Majesty:
The policy of peace that I have upheld,
Both while in Paris and of late time here,
Points to this step as heralding sweet balm
And bandaged veins for our late crimsoned realm.

FRANCIS

Agreed. As monarch I perceive therein
A happy doorway for my purposings.
It seems to guarantee the Hapsburg crown
A quittance of distractions such as those
That leave their shade on many a backward year!--
There is, forsooth, a suddenness about it,
And it would aid us had we clearly keyed
The cryptologues of which the world has heard
Between Napoleon and the Russian Court--
Begun there with the selfsame motiving.

METTERNICH

I would not, sire, one second ponder it.
It was an obvious first crude cast-about
In the important reckoning of means
For his great end, a strong monarchic line.
The more advanced the more it profits us;
For sharper, then, the quashing of such views,
And wreck of that conjunction in the aims
Of France and Russia, marked so much of late
As jeopardizing quiet neighbours' thrones.

FRANCIS

If that be so, on the domestic side
There seems no bar. Speaking as father solely,
I see secured to her the proudest fate
That woman can daydream. And I could hope
That private bliss would not be wanting her!

METTERNICH

A hope well seated, sire. The Emperor,
Imperious and determined in his rule,
Is easy-natured in domestic life,
As my long time in Paris amply proved.
Moreover, the accessories of his glory
Have been, and will be, admirably designed
To fire the fancy of a young princess.

FRANCIS

Thus far you satisfy me. . . . So, to close,
Or not to close with him, is now the thing.

METTERNICH

Your Majesty commands the issue quite:
The father of his people can alone
In such a case give answer--yes or no.
Vagueness and doubt have ruined Russia's chance;
Let not, then, such be ours.

FRANCIS

You mean, if I,
You'd answer straight. What would that answer be?

METTERNICH

In state affairs, sire, as in private life,
Times will arise when even the faithfullest squire
Finds him unfit to jog his chieftain's choice,
On whom responsibility must lastly rest.
And such times are pre-eminently, sire,
Those wherein thought alone is not enough
To serve the head as guide. As Emperor,
As father, both, to you, to you in sole
Must appertain the privilege to pronounce
Which track stern duty bids you tread herein.

FRANCIS

Affection is my duty, heart my guide.--
Without constraint or prompting I shall leave
The big decision in my daughter's hands.
Before my obligations to my people
Must stand her wish. Go, find her, Metternich,
Take her the tidings. She is free with you,
And will speak out. (Looking forth from the terrace.)
She's here at hand, I see:
I'll call her in. Then tell me what's her mind.

[He beckons from the window, and goes out in another direction.]

METTERNICH

So much for form's sake! Can the river-flower
The current drags, direct its face up-stream?
What she must do she will; nought else at all.

[Enter through one of the windows MARIA LOUISA in garden-costume,
fresh-coloured, girlish, and smiling. METTERNICH bends.]

MARIA LOUISA

O how, dear Chancellor, you startled me!
Please pardon my so brusquely bursting in.
I saw you not.--Those five poor little birds
That haunt out there beneath the pediment,
Snugly defended from the north-east wind,
Have lately disappeared. I sought a trace
Of scattered feathers, which I dread to find!

METTERNICH

They are gone, I ween, the way of tender flesh
At the assaults of winter, want, and foes.

MARIA LOUISA

It is too melancholy thinking, that!
Don't say it.--But I saw the Emperor here?
Surely he beckoned me?

METTERNICH

Sure, he did,
Your gracious Highness; and he has left me here
To break vast news that will make good his call.

MARIA LOUISA

Then do. I'll listen. News from near or far?

[She seats herself.]

METTERNICH

From far--though of such distance-dwarfing might
That far may read as near eventually.
But, dear Archduchess, with your kindly leave
I'll speak straight out. The Emperor of the French
Has sent to-day to make, through Schwarzenberg,
A formal offer of his heart and hand,
His honours, dignities, imperial throne,
To you, whom he admires above all those
The world can show elsewhere.

MARIA LOUISA (frightened)

My husband--he?
What, an old man like him!

METTERNICH (cautiously)

He's scarcely old,
Dear lady. True, deeds densely crowd in him;
Turn months to years calendaring his span;
Yet by Time's common clockwork he's but young.

MARIA LOUISA

So wicked, too!

METTERNICH (nettled)

Well-that's a point of view.

MARIA LOUISA

But, Chancellor, think what things I have said to him!
Can women marry where they have taunted so?

METTERNICH

Things? Nothing inexpungeable, I deem,
By time and true good humour.

MARIA LOUISA

O I have!
Horrible things. Why--ay, a hundred times--
I have said I wished him dead! At that strained hour
When the first voicings of the late war came,
Thrilling out how the French were smitten sore
And Bonaparte retreating, I clapped hands
And answered that I hoped he'd lose his head
As well as lose the battle!

METTERNICH

Words. But words!
Born like the bubbles of a spring that come
Of zest for springing--aimless in their shape.

MARIA LOUISA

It seems indecent, mean, to wed a man
Whom one has held such fierce opinions of!

METTERNICH

My much beloved Archduchess, and revered,
Such things have been! In Spain and Portugal
Like enmities have led to intermarriage.
In England, after warring thirty years
The Red and White Rose wedded.

MARIA LOUISA (after a silence)

Tell me, now,
What does my father wish?

METTERNICH

His wish is yours.
Whatever your Imperial Highness feels
On this grave verdict of your destiny,
Home, title, future sphere, he bids you think
Not of himself, but of your own desire.

MARIA LOUISA (reflecting)

My wish is what my duty bids me wish.
Where a wide Empire's welfare is in poise,
That welfare must be pondered, not my will.
I ask of you, then, Chancellor Metternich,
Straightway to beg the Emperor my father
That he fulfil his duty to the realm,
And quite subordinate thereto all thought
Of how it personally impinge on me.

[A slight noise as of something falling is heard in the room. They
glance momentarily, and see that a small enamel portrait of MARIE
ANTOINETTE, which was standing on a console-table, has slipped down
on its face.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

What mischief's this? The Will must have its way.

SPIRIT SINISTER

Perhaps Earth shivered at the lady's say?

SHADE OF THE EARTH

I own hereto. When France and Austria wed
My echoes are men's groans, my dews are red;
So I have reason for a passing dread!

METTERNICH

Right nobly phrased, Archduchess; wisely too.
I will acquaint your sire the Emperor
With these your views. He waits them anxiously. (Going.)

MARIA LOUISA

Let me go first. It much confuses me
To think--But I would fain let thinking be!

[She goes out trembling. Enter FRANCIS by another door.]

METTERNICH

I was about to seek your Majesty.
The good Archduchess luminously holds
That in this weighty question you regard
The Empire. Best for it is best for her.

FRANCIS (moved)

My daughter's views thereon do not surprise me.
She is too staunch to pit a private whim
Against the fortunes of a commonwealth.
During your speech with her I have taken thought
To shape decision sagely. An assent
Would yield the Empire many years of peace,
And leave me scope to heal those still green sores
Which linger from our late unhappy moils.
Therefore, my daughter not being disinclined,
I know no basis for a negative.
Send, then, a courier prompt to Paris: say
The offer made for the Archduchess' hand
I do accept--with this defined reserve,
That no condition, treaty, bond, attach
To such alliance save the tie itself.
There are some sacrifices whose grave rites
No bargain must contaminate. This is one--
This personal gift of a beloved child!

METTERNICH (leaving)

I'll see to it this hour, your Majesty,
And cant the words in keeping with your wish.
To himself as he goes.)
Decently done! . . . He slipped out "sacrifice,"
And scarce could hide his heartache for his girl.
Well ached it!--But when these things have to be
It is as well to breast them stoically.

[Exit METTERNICH. The clouds draw over.]

SCENE IV

LONDON. A CLUB IN ST. JAMES'S STREET

[A winter midnight. Two members are conversing by the fire, and
others are seen lolling in the background, some of them snoring.]

FIRST MEMBER

I learn from a private letter that it was carried out in the
Emperor's Cabinet at the Tuileries--just off the throne-room, where
they all assembled in the evening,--Boney and the wife of his bosom
(In pure white muslin from head to foot, they say), the Kings and
Queens of Holland, Whestphalia, and Naples, the Princess Pauline,
and one or two more; the officials present being Cambaceres the
Chancellor, and Count Regnaud. Quite a small party. It was over
in minutes--short and sweet, like a donkey's gallop.

SECOND MEMBER

Anything but sweet for her. How did she stand it?

FIRST MEMBER

Serenely, I believe, while the Emperor was making his speech
renouncing her; but when it came to her turn to say she renounced
him she began sobbing mightily, and was so completely choked up that
she couldn't get out a word.

SECOND MEMBER

Poor old dame! I pity her, by God; though she had a rattling good
spell while it lasted.

FIRST MEMBER

They say he was a bit upset, too, at sight of her tears But I
dare vow that was put on. Fancy Boney caring a curse what a woman
feels. She had learnt her speech by heart, but that did not help
her: Regnaud had to finish it for her, the ditch that overturned
her being where she was made to say that she no longer preserved
any hope of having children, and that she was pleased to show her
attachment by enabling him to obtain them by another woman. She
was led off fainting. A turning of the tables, considering how
madly jealous she used to make him by her flirtations!

[Enter a third member.]

SECOND MEMBER

How is the debate going? Still braying the Government in a mortar?

THIRD MEMBER

They are. Though one thing every body admits: young Peel has
made a wonderful first speech in seconding the address. There
has been nothing like it since Pitt. He spoke rousingly of
Austria's misfortunes--went on about Spain, of course, showing
that we must still go on supporting her, winding up with a
brilliant peroration about--what were the words--"the fiery eyes
of the British soldier!"--Oh, well: it was all learnt before-hand,
of course.

SECOND MEMBER

I wish I had gone down. But the wind soon blew the other way.

THIRD MEMBER

Then Gower rapped out his amendment. That was good, too, by God.

SECOND MEMBER

Well, the war must go on. And that being the general conviction
this censure and that censure are only so many blank cartridges.

THIRD MEMBER

Blank? Damn me, were they! Gower's was a palpable hit when he said
that Parliament had placed unheard-of resources in the hands of the
Ministers last year, to make this year's results to the country
worse than if they had been afforded no resources at all. Every
single enterprise of theirs had been a beggarly failure.

SECOND MEMBER

Anybody could have said it, come to that.

THIRD MEMBER

Yes, because it is so true. However, when he began to lay on with
such rhetoric as "the treasures of the nation lavished in wasteful
thoughtlessness,"--"thousands of our troops sacrificed wantonly in
pestilential swamps of Walcheren," and gave the details we know so
well, Ministers wriggled a good one, though 'twas no news to 'em.
Castlereagh kept on starting forward as if he were going to jump up
and interrupt, taking the strictures entirely as a personal affront.

[Enter a fourth member.]

SEVERAL MEMBERS

Who's speaking now?

FOURTH MEMBER

I don't know. I have heard nobody later than Ward.

SECOND MEMBER

The fact is that, as Whitbread said to me to-day, the materials for
condemnation are so prodigious that we can scarce marshal them into
argument. We are just able to pour 'em out one upon t'other.

THIRD MEMBER

Ward said, with the blandest air in the world: "Censure? Do his
Majesty's Ministers expect censure? Not a bit. They are going
about asking in tremulous tones if anybody has heard when their
impeachment is going to begin."

SEVERAL MEMBERS

Haw--haw--haw!

THIRD MEMBER

Then he made another point. After enumerating our frightful
failures--Spain, Walcheren, and the rest--he said: "But Ministers
have not failed in everything. No; in one thing they have been
strikingly successful. They have been successful in their attack
upon Copenhagen--because it was directed against an ally!" Mighty
fine, wasn't it?

SECOND MEMBER

How did Castlereagh stomach that?

THIRD MEMBER

He replied then. Donning his air of injured innocence he proved the
honesty of his intentions--no doubt truly enough. But when he came
to Walcheren nothing could be done. The case was hopeless, and he
knew it, and foundered. However, at the division, when he saw what
a majority was going out on his side he was as frisky as a child.
Canning's speech was grave, with bits of shiny ornament stuck on--
like the brass nails on a coffin, Sheridan says.

[Fifth and sixth members stagger in, arm-and-arm.]

FIFTH MEMBER

The 'vision is---'jority of ninety-six againsht--Gov'ment--I mean--
againsht us. Which is it--hey? (To his companion.)

SIXTH MEMBER

Damn majority of--damn ninety-six--against damn amendment! (They
sink down on a sofa.)

SECOND MEMBER

Gad, I didn't expect the figure would have been quite so high!

THIRD MEMBER

The one conviction is that the war in the Peninsula is to go on, and
as we are all agreed upon that, what the hell does it matter what
their majority was?

[Enter SHERIDAN. They all look inquiringly.]

SHERIDAN

Have ye heard the latest?

SECOND MEMBER

Ninety-six against us.

SHERIDAN

O no-that's ancient history. I'd forgot it.

THIRD MEMBER

A revolution, because Ministers are not impeached and hanged?

SHERIDAN

That's in contemplation, when we've got their confessions. But what
I meant was from over the water--it is a deuced sight more serious
to us than a debate and division that are only like the Liturgy on
a Sunday--known beforehand to all the congregation. Why, Bonaparte
is going to marry Austria forthwith--the Emperor's daughter Maria
Louisa.

THIRD MEMBER

The Lord look down! Our late respected crony of Austria! Why, in
this very night's debate they have been talking about the laudable
principles we have been acting upon in affording assistance to the
Emperor Francis in his struggle against the violence and ambition
of France!

SECOND MEMBER

Boney safe on that side, what may not befall!

THIRD MEMBER

We had better make it up with him, and shake hands all round.

SECOND MEMBER

Shake heads seems most natural in the case. O House of Hapsburg,
how hast thou fallen!

[Enter WHITBREAD, LORD HUTCHINSON, LORD GEORGE CAVENDISH, GEORGE
PONSONBY, WINDHAM, LORD GREY, BARING, ELLIOT, and other members,
some drunk. The conversation becomes animated and noisy; several
move off to the card-room, and the scene closes.]

SCENE V

THE OLD WEST HIGHWAY OUT OF VIENNA

[The spot is where the road passes under the slopes of the Wiener
Wald, with its beautiful forest scenery.]

DUMB SHOW

A procession of enormous length, composed of eighty carriages--
many of them drawn by six horses and one by eight--and escorted
by detachments of cuirassiers, yeomanry, and other cavalry, is
quickening its speed along the highway from the city.

The six-horse carriages contain a multitude of Court officials,
ladies of the Court, and other Austrian nobility. The eight-horse
coach contains a rosy, blue-eyed girl of eighteen, with full red
lips, round figure, and pale auburn hair. She is MARIA LOUISA, and
her eyes are red from recent weeping. The COUNTESS DE LAZANSKY,
Grand Mistress of the Household, in the carriage with her, and the
other ladies of the Palace behind, have a pale, proud, yet resigned
look, as if conscious that upon their sex had been laid the burden
of paying for the peace with France. They have been played out of
Vienna with French marches, and the trifling incident has helped on
their sadness.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35