The Dynasts

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The observer's vision being still bent on the train of vehicles and
cavalry, the point of sight is withdrawn high into the air, till the
huge procession on the brown road looks no more than a file of ants
crawling along a strip of garden-matting. The spacious terrestrial
outlook now gained shows this to be the great road across Europe from
Vienna to Munich, and from Munich westerly to France.

The puny concatenation of specks being exclusively watched, the
surface of the earth seems to move along in an opposite direction,
and in infinite variety of hill, dale, woodland, and champaign.
Bridges are crossed, ascents are climbed, plains are galloped over,
and towns are reached, among them Saint Polten, where night falls.

Morning shines, and the royal crawl is resumed, and continued through
Linz, where the Danube is reapproached, and the girl looks pleased
to see her own dear Donau still. Presently the tower of Brannau
appears, where the animated dots pause for formalities, this being
the frontier; and MARIA LOUISA becomes MARIE LOUISE and a Frenchwoman,
in the charge of French officials.

After many breaks and halts, during which heavy rains spread their
gauzes over the scene, the roofs and houses of Munich disclose
themselves, suggesting the tesserae of an irregular mosaic. A long
stop is made here.

The tedious advance continues. Vine-circled Stuttgart, flat
Carlsruhe, the winding Rhine, storky Strassburg, pass in panorama
beneath us as the procession is followed. With Nancy and Bar-le-
Duc sliding along, the scenes begin to assume a French character,
and soon we perceive Chalons and ancient Rheims. The last day of
the journey has dawned. Our vision flits ahead of the cortege to
Courcelles, a little place which must be passed through before
Soissons is reached. Here the point of sight descends to earth,
and the Dumb Show ends.

SCENE VI

COURCELLES

[It is now seen to be a quiet roadside village, with a humble
church in its midst, opposite to which stands an inn, the highway
passing between them. Rain is still falling heavily. Not a soul
is visible anywhere.

Enter from the west a plain, lonely carriage, traveling in a
direction to meet the file of coaches that we have watched. It
stops near the inn, and two men muffled in cloaks alight by the
door away from the hostel and towards the church, as if they
wished to avoid observation. Their faces are those of NAPOLEON
and MURAT, his brother-in-law. Crossing the road through the mud
and rain they stand in the church porch, and watch the descending
drifts.]

NAPOLEON (stamping an impatient tattoo)

One gets more chilly in a wet March than in a dry, however cold, the
devil if he don't! What time do you make it now? That clock doesn't
go.

MURAT (drily, looking at his watch)

Yes, it does; and it is right. If clocks were to go as fast as your
wishes just now it would be awkward for the rest of the world.

NAPOLEON (chuckling good-humouredly)

How we have dished the Soissons folk, with their pavilions, and
purple and gold hangings for bride and bridegroom to meet in, and
stately ceremonial to match, and their thousands looking on! Here
we are where there's nobody. Ha, ha!

MURAT

But why should they be dished, sire? The pavilions and ceremonies
were by your own orders.

NAPOLEON

Well, as the time got nearer I couldn't stand the idea of dawdling
about there.

MURAT

The Soissons people will be in a deuce of a taking at being made
such fools of!

NAPOLEON

So let 'em. I'll make it up with them somehow.--She can't be far
off now, if we have timed her rightly. (He peers out into the rain
and listens.)

MURAT

I don't quite see how you are going to manage when she does come.
Do we go before her toward Soissons when you have greeted her here,
or follow in her rear? Or what do we do?

NAPOLEON

Heavens, I know no more than you! Trust to the moment and see what
happens. (A silence.) Hark--here she comes! Good little girl; up
to time!

[The distant squashing in the mud of a multitude of hoofs and
wheels is succeeded by the appearance of outriders and carriages,
horses and horsemen, splashed with sample clays of the districts
traversed. The vehicles slow down to the inn. NAPOLEON'S face
fires up, and, followed by MURAT, he rushes into the rain towards
the coach that is drawn by eight horses, containing the blue-eyed
girl. He holds off his hat at the carriage-window.]

MARIE LOUISE (shrinking back inside)

Ah, Heaven! Two highwaymen are upon us!

THE EQUERRY D'AUDENARDE (simultaneously)

The Emperor!

[The steps of the coach are hastily lowered, NAPOLEON, dripping,
jumps in and embraces her. The startled ARCHDUCHESS, with much
blushing and confusion recognizes him.]

MARIE LOUISE (tremulously, as she recovers herself)

You are so much--better looking than your portraits--that I hardly
knew you! I expected you at Soissons. We are not at Soissons yet?

NAPOLEON

No, my dearest spouse, but we are together! (Calling out to the
equerry.) Drive through Soissons--pass the pavilion of reception
without stopping, and don't halt till we reach Compiegne.

[He sits down in the coach and is shut in, MURAT laughing silently
at the scene. Exeunt carriages and riders toward Soissons.]

CHORUS OF THE IRONIC SPIRITS (aerial music)

First 'twas a finished coquette,
And now it's a raw ingenue.--
Blond instead of brunette,
An old wife doffed for a new.
She'll bring him a baby,
As quickly as maybe,
And that's what he wants her to do,
Hoo-hoo!
And that's what he wants her to do!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

What lewdness lip those wry-formed phantoms there!

IRONIC SPIRITS

Nay, Showman Years! With holy reverent air
We hymn the nuptials of the Imperial pair.

[The scene thickens to mist and obscures the scene.]

SCENE VII

PETERSBURG. THE PALACE OF THE EMPRESS-MOTHER

[One of the private apartments is disclosed, in which the Empress-
mother and Alexander are seated.]

EMPRESS-MOTHER

So one of Austrian blood his pomp selects
To be his bride and bulwark--not our own.
Thus are you coolly shelved!

ALEXANDER

Me, mother dear?
You, faith, if I may say it dutifully!
Had all been left to me, some time ere now
He would have wedded Kate.

EMPRESS-MOTHER

How so, my son?
Catharine was plighted, and it could not be.

ALEXANDER

Rather you swiftly pledged and married her,
To let Napoleon have no chance that way.
But Anne remained.

EMPRESS-MOTHER

How Anne?--so young a girl!
Sane Nature would have cried indecency
At such a troth.

ALEXANDER

Time would have tinkered that,
And he was well-disposed to wait awhile;
But the one test he had no temper for
Was the apparent slight of unresponse
Accorded his impatient overtures
By our suspensive poise of policy.

EMPRESS-MOTHER

A backward answer is our country's card--
The special style and mode of Muscovy.
We have grown great upon it, my dear son,
And may such practice rule our centuries through!
The necks of those who rate themselves our peers
Are cured of stiffness by its potency.

ALEXANDER

The principle in this case, anyhow,
Is shattered by the facts: since none can doubt
Your policy was counted an affront,
And drove my long ally to Austria's arms,
With what result to us must yet be seen!

EMPRESS-MOTHER

May Austria win much joy of the alliance!
Marrying Napoleon is a midnight leap
For any Court in Europe, credit me,
If ever such there were! What he may carve
Upon the coming years, what murderous bolt
Hurl at the rocking Constitutions round,
On what dark planet he may land himself
In his career through space, no sage can say.

ALEXANDER

Well--possibly! . . . And maybe all is best
That he engrafts his lineage not on us.--
But, honestly, Napoleon none the less
Has been my friend, and I regret the dream
And fleeting fancy of a closer tie!

EMPRESS-MOTHER

Ay; your regrets are sentimental ever.
That he'll be writ no son-in-law of mine
Is no regret to me! But an affront
There is, no less, in his evasion on't,
Wherein the bourgeois quality of him
Veraciously peeps out. I would be sworn
He set his minions parleying with the twain--
Yourself and Francis--simultaneously,
Else no betrothal could have speeded so!

ALEXANDER

Despite the hazard of offence to one?

EMPRESS-MOTHER

More than the hazard; the necessity.

ALEXANDER

There's no offence to me.

EMPRESS-MOTHER

There should be, then.
I am a Romanoff by marriage merely,
But I do feel a rare belittlement
And loud laconic brow-beating herein!

ALEXANDER

No, mother, no! I am the Tsar--not you,
And I am only piqued in moderateness.
Marriage with France was near my heart--I own it--
What then? It has been otherwise ordained.

[A silence.]

EMPRESS-MOTHER

Here comes dear Anne Speak not of it before her.

[Enter the GRAND-DUCHESS, a girl of sixteen.]

ANNE

Alas! the news is that poor Prussia's queen,
Spirited Queen Louisa, once so fair,
Is slowly dying, mother! Did you know?

ALEXANDER (betraying emotion)

Ah!--such I dreaded from the earlier hints.
Poor soul--her heart was slain some time ago.

ANNE

What do you mean by that, my brother dear?

EMPRESS-MOTHER

He means, my child, that he as usual spends
Much sentiment upon the foreign fair,
And hence leaves little for his folk at home.

ALEXANDER

I mean, Anne, that her country's overthrow
Let death into her heart. The Tilsit days
Taught me to know her well, and honour her.
She was a lovely woman even then! . . .
Strangely, the present English Prince of Wales
Was wished to husband her. Had wishes won,
They might have varied Europe's history.

ANNE

Napoleon, I have heard, admired her once;
How he must grieve that soon she'll be no more!

EMPRESS-MOTHER

Napoleon and your brother loved her both.

[Alexander shows embarrassment.]

But whatsoever grief be Alexander's,
His will be none who feels but for himself.

ANNE

O mother, how can you mistake him so!
He worships her who is to be his wife,
The fair Archduchess Marie.

EMPRESS-MOTHER

Simple child,
As yet he has never seen her, or but barely.
That is a tactic suit, with love to match!

ALEXANDER (with vainly veiled tenderness)

High-souled Louisa;--when shall I forget
Those Tilsit gatherings in the long-sunned June!
Napoleon's gallantries deceived her quite,
Who fondly felt her pleas for Magdeburg
Had won him to its cause; the while, alas!
His cynic sense but posed in cruel play!

EMPRESS-MOTHER

Bitterly mourned she her civilities
When time unlocked the truth, that she had choked
Her indignation at his former slights
And slanderous sayings for a baseless hope,
And wrought no tittle for her country's gain.
I marvel why you mourn a frustrate tie
With one whose wiles could wring a woman so!

ALEXANDER (uneasily)

I marvel also, when I think of it!

EMPRESS-MOTHER

Don't listen to us longer, dearest Anne.

[Exit Anne.]

--You will uphold my judging by and by,
That as a suitor we are quit of him,
And that blind Austria will rue the hour
Wherein she plucks for him her fairest flower!

[The scene shuts.]

SCENE VIII

PARIS. THE GRAND GALLERY OF THE LOUVRE AND THE SALON-CARRE ADJOINING

[The view is up the middle of the Gallery, which is now a spectacle
of much magnificence. Backed by the large paintings on the walls
are double rows on each side of brightly dressed ladies, the pick
of Imperial society, to the number of four thousand, one thousand
in each row; and behind these standing up are two rows on each side
of men of privilege and fashion. Officers of the Imperial Guard
are dotted about as marshals.

Temporary barriers form a wide passage up the midst, leading to the
Salon-Carre, which is seen through the opening to be fitted up as
a chapel, with a gorgeous altar, tall candles, and cross. In front
of the altar is a platform with a canopy over it. On the platform
are two gilt chairs and a prie-dieu.

The expectant assembly does not continuously remain in the seats,
but promenades and talks, the voices at times rising to a din amid
the strains of the orchestra, conducted by the EMPEROR'S Director
of Music. Refreshments in profusion are handed round, and the
extemporized cathedral resolves itself into a gigantic cafe of
persons of distinction under the Empire.]

SPIRIT SINISTER

All day have they been waiting for their galanty-show, and now the
hour of performance is on the strike. It may be seasonable to muse
on the sixteenth Louis and the bride's great-aunt, as the nearing
procession is, I see, appositely crossing the track of the tumbril
which was the last coach of that respected lady. . . . It is now
passing over the site of the scaffold on which she lost her head.
. . . Now it will soon be here.

[Suddenly the heralds enter the Gallery at the end towards the
Tuileries, the spectators ranging themselves in their places.
In a moment the wedding procession of the EMPEROR and EMPRESS
becomes visible. The civil marriage having already been performed,
Napoleon and Marie Louise advance together along the vacant pathway
towards the Salon-Carre, followed by the long suite of illustrious
personages, and acclamations burst from all parts of the Grand
Gallery.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Whose are those forms that pair in pompous train
Behind the hand-in-hand half-wedded ones,
With faces speaking sense of an adventure
Which may close well, or not so?

RECORDING ANGEL (reciting)

First there walks
The Emperor's brother Louis, Holland's King;
Then Jerome of Westphalia with his spouse;
The mother-queen, and Julie Queen of Spain,
The Prince Borghese and the Princess Pauline,
Beauharnais the Vice-King of Italy,
And Murat King of Naples, with their Queens;
Baden's Grand-Duke, Arch-Chancellor Cambaceres,
Berthier, Lebrun, and, not least, Talleyrand.
Then the Grand Marshal and the Chamberlain,
The Lords-in-Waiting, the Grand Equerry,
With waiting-ladies, women of the chamber,
An others called by office, rank, or fame.

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

New, many, to Imperial dignities;
Which, won by character and quality
In those who now enjoy them, will become
The birthright of their sons in aftertime.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

It fits thee not to augur, quick-eared Shade.
Ephemeral at the best all honours be,
These even more ephemeral than their kind,
So random-fashioned, swift, perturbable!

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Napoleon looks content--nay, shines with joy.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Yet see it pass, as by a conjuror's wand.

[Thereupon Napoleon's face blackens as if the shadow of a winter
night had fallen upon it. Resentful and threatening, he stops the
procession and looks up and down the benches.]

SPIRIT SINISTER

This is sound artistry of the Immanent Will: it relieves the monotony
of so much good-humour.

NAPOLEON (to the Chapel-master)

Where are the Cardinals? And why not here? (He speaks so loud that
he is heard throughout the Gallery.)

ABBE DE PRADT (trembling)

Many are present here, your Majesty;
But some are feebled by infirmities
Too common to their age, and cannot come.

NAPOLEON

Tell me no nonsense! Half absent themselves
Because they WILL not come. The factious fools!
Well, be it so. But they shall flinch for it!

[MARIE LOUISE looks frightened. The procession moves on.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

I seem to see the thin and headless ghost
Of the yet earlier Austrian, here, too, queen,
Walking beside the bride, with frail attempts
To pluck her by the arm!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Nay, think not so.
No trump unseals earth's sepulchre's to-day:
We are the only phantoms now abroad
On this mud-moulded ball! Through sixteen years
She has decayed in a back-garden yonder,
Dust all the showance time retains of her,
Senseless of hustlings in her former house,
Lost to all count of crowns and bridalry--
Even of her Austrian blood. No: what thou seest
Springs of the quavering fancy, stirred to dreams
By yon tart phantom's phrase.

MARIE LOUISE (sadly to Napoleon)

I know not why,
I love not this day's doings half so well
As our quaint meeting-time at Compiegne.
A clammy air creeps round me, as from vaults
Peopled with looming spectres, chilling me
And angering you withal!

NAPOLEON

O, it is nought
To trouble you: merely, my cherished one,
Those devils of Italian Cardinals!--
Now I'll be bright as ever--you must, too.

MARIE LOUISE

I'll try.

[Reaching the entrance to the Salon-Carre amid strains of music
the EMPEROR and EMPRESS are received and incensed by the CARDINAL
GRAND ALMONERS. They take their seats under the canopy, and the
train of notabilities seat themselves further back, the persons-
in-waiting stopping behind the Imperial chairs.

The ceremony of the religious marriage now begins. The choir
intones a hymn, the EMPEROR and EMPRESS go to the altar, remove
their gloves, and make their vows.]

SPIRIT IRONIC

The English Church should return thanks for this wedding, seeing
how it will purge of coarseness the picture-sheets of that artistic
nation, which will hardly be able to caricature the new wife as it
did poor plebeian Josephine. Such starched and ironed monarchists
cannot sneer at a woman of such a divinely dry and crusted line like
the Hapsburgs!

[Mass is next celebrated, after which the TE DEUM is chanted in
harmonies that whirl round the walls of the Salon-Carre and quiver
down the long Gallery. The procession then re-forms and returns,
amid the flutterings and applause of the dense assembly. But
Napoleon's face has not lost the sombre expression which settled
on it. The pair and their train pass out by the west door, and
the congregation disperses in the other direction, the cloud-
curtain closing over the scene as they disappear.

ACT SIXTH

SCENE I

THE LINES OF TORRES VEDRAS

[A bird's-eye perspective is revealed of the peninsular tract of
Portuguese territory lying between the shining pool of the Tagus on
the east, and the white-frilled Atlantic lifting rhythmically on
the west. As thus beheld the tract features itself somewhat like a
late-Gothic shield, the upper edge from the dexter to the sinister
chief being the lines of Torres Vedras, stretching across from the
mouth of the Zezambre on the left to Alhandra on the right, and
the south or base point being Fort S. Julian. The roofs of Lisbon
appear at the sinister base, and in a corresponding spot on the
opposite side Cape Roca.

It is perceived in a moment that the northern verge of this nearly
coast-hemmed region is the only one through which access can be
gained to it by land, and a close scrutiny of the boundary there
reveals that means are being adopted to effectually prevent such
access.

From east to west along it runs a chain of defences, dotted at
intervals by dozens of circular and square redoubts, either made
or in the making, two of the latter being of enormous size.
Between these stretch unclimbable escarpments, stone walls, and
other breastworks, and in front of all a double row of abatis,
formed of the limbs of trees.

Within the outer line of defence is a second, constructed on the
same shield-shaped tract of country; and is not more than a twelfth
of the length of the others. It is a continuous entrenchment of
ditches and ramparts, and its object--that of covering a forced
embarkation--is rendered apparent by some rocking English
transports off the shore hard by.]

DUMB SHOW

Innumerable human figures are busying themselves like cheese-mites
all along the northernmost frontage, undercutting easy slopes into
steep ones, digging ditches, piling stones, felling trees, dragging
them, and interlacing them along the front as required.

On the second breastwork, which is completed, only a few figures move.

On the third breastwork, which is fully matured and equipped, minute
red sentinels creep backwards and forwards noiselessly.

As time passes three reddish-grey streams of marching men loom out
to the north, advancing southward along three roads towards three
diverse points in the first defence. These form the English army,
entering the lines for shelter. Looked down upon, their motion
seems peristaltic and vermicular, like that of three caterpillars.
The division on the left is under Picton, in the centre under Leith
and Cole, and on the extreme right, by Alhandra, under Hill. Beside
one of the roads two or three of the soldiers are dangling from a
tree by the neck, probably for plundering.

The Dumb Show ends, and the point of view sinks to the earth.

SCENE II

THE SAME. OUTSIDE THE LINES

[The winter day has gloomed to a stormful evening, and the road
outside the first line of defence forms the foreground of the stage.

Enter in the dusk from the hills to the north of the entrenchment,
near Calandrix, a group of horsemen, which includes MASSENA in
command of the French forces, FOY, LOISON, and other officers of
his staff.

They ride forward in the twilight and tempest, and reconnoitre,
till they see against the sky the ramparts blocking the road they
pursue. They halt silently. MASSENA, puzzled, endeavours with his
glass to make out the obstacle.]

MASSENA

Something stands here to peril our advance,
Or even prevent it!

FOY

These are the English lines--
Their outer horns and tusks--whereof I spoke,
Constructed by Lord Wellington of late
To keep his foothold firm in Portugal.

MASSENA

Thrusts he his burly, bossed disfigurements
So far to north as this? I had pictured me
The lay much nearer Lisbon. Little strange
Lord Wellington rode placid at Busaco
With this behind his back! Well, it is hard
But that we turn them somewhere, I assume?
They scarce can close up every southward gap
Between the Tagus and the Atlantic Sea.

FOY

I hold they can, and do; although, no doubt,
By searching we shall spy some raggedness
Which customed skill may force.

MASSENA

Plain 'tis, no less,
We may heap corpses vainly hereabout,
And crack good bones in waste. By human power
This passes mounting! What say you's behind?

LOISON

Another line exactly like the first,
But more matured. Behind its back a third.

MASSENA

How long have these prim ponderosities
Been rearing up their foreheads to the moon?

LOISON

Some months in all. I know not quite how long.
They are Lord Wellington's select device,
And, like him, heavy, slow, laborious, sure.

MASSENA

May he enjoy their sureness. He deserves to.
I had no inkling of such barriers here.
A good road runs along their front, it seems,
Which offers us advantage. . . . What a night!

[The tempest cries dismally about the earthworks above them, as
the reconnoitrers linger in the slight shelter the lower ground
affords. They are about to turn back.

Enter from the cross-road to the right JUNOT and some more
officers. They come up at a signal that the others are those
they lately parted from.]

JUNOT

We have ridden along as far as Calandrix,
Favoured therein by this disordered night,
Which tongues its language to the disguise of ours;
And find amid the vale an open route
That, well manoeuvred, may be practicable.

MASSENA

I'll look now at it, while the weather aids.
If it may serve our end when all's prepared
So good. If not, some other to the west.

[Exeunt MASSENA, JUNOT, LOISON, FOY, and the rest by the paved
crossway to the right.

The wind continues to prevail as the spot is left desolate, the
darkness increases, rain descends more heavily, and the scene is
blotted out.]

SCENE III

PARIS. THE TUILERIES

[The anteroom to the EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE'S bed-chamber, in which
are discovered NAPOLEON in his dressing-gown, the DUCHESS OF
MONTEBELLO, and other ladies-in-waiting. CORVISART the first
physician, and the second physician BOURDIER.

The time is before dawn. The EMPEROR walks up and down, throws
himself on a sofa, or stands at the window. A cry of anguish comes
occasionally from within.

NAPOLEON opens the door and speaks into the bed-chamber.]

NAPOLEON

How now, Dubois?

VOICE OF DUBOIS THE ACCOUCHEUR (nervously)

Less well, sire, than I hoped;
I fear no skill can save them both.

NAPOLEON (agitated)

Good god!

[Exit CORVISART into the bed-room. Enter DUBOIS.]

DUBOIS (with hesitation)

Which life is to be saved? The Empress, sire,
Lies in great jeopardy. I have not known
In my long years of many-featured practice
An instance in a thousand fall out so.

NAPOLEON

Then save the mother, pray! Think but of her;
It is her privilege, and my command.--
Don't lose you head, Dubois, at this tight time:
Your furthest skill can work but what it may.
Fancy that you are merely standing by
A shop-wife's couch, say, in the Rue Saint Denis;
Show the aplomb and phlegm that you would show
Did such a bed receive your ministry.

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