The Dynasts

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[Exit DUBOIS.]

VOICE OF MARIE LOUISE (within)

O pray, pray don't! Those ugly things terrify me! Why should I be
tortured even if I am but a means to an end! Let me die! It was
cruel of him to bring this upon me!

[Exit NAPOLEON impatiently to the bed-room.]

VOICE OF MADAME DE MONTESQUIOU (within)

Keep up your spirits, madame! I have been through it myself and I
assure you there is no danger to you. It is going on all right, and
I am holding you.

VOICE OF NAPOLEON (within)

Heaven above! Why did you not deep those cursed sugar-tongs out of
her sight? How is she going to get through it if you frighten her
like this?

VOICE OF DUBOIS (within)

If you will pardon me, your Majesty,
I must implore you not to interfere!
I'll not be scapegoat for the consequence
If, sire, you do! Better for her sake far
Would you withdraw. The sight of your concern
But agitates and weakens her endurance.
I will inform you all, and call you back
If things should worsen here.

[Re-enter NAPOLEON from the bed-chamber. He half shuts the door,
and remains close to it listening, pale and nervous.]

BOURDIER

I ask you, sire,
To harass yourself less with this event,
Which may amend anon: I much regret
The honoured mother of your Majesty,
And sister too, should both have left ere now,
Whose solace would have bridged these anxious hours.

NAPOLEON (absently)

As we were not expecting it so soon
I begged they would sit up no longer here. . . .
She ought to get along; she has help enough
With that half-dozen of them at hand within--
Skilled Madame Blaise the nurse, and two besides,
Madame de Montesquiou and Madame Ballant---

DUBOIS (speaking through the doorway)

Past is the question, sire, of which to save!
The child is dead; the while her Majesty
Is getting through it well.

NAPOLEON

Praise Heaven for that!
I'll not grieve overmuch about the child. . . .
Never shall She go through this strain again
To lay down a dynastic line for me.

DUCHESS OF MONTEBELLO (aside to the second lady)

He only says that now. In cold blood it would be far otherwise.
That's how men are.

VOICE OF MADAME BLAISE (within)

Doctor, the child's alive! (The cry of an infant is heard.)

VOICE OF DUBOIS (calling from within)

Sire, both are saved.

[NAPOLEON rushes into the chamber, and is heard kissing MARIE
LOUISE.]

VOICE OF MADAME BLAISE (within)

A vigorous boy, your Imperial Majesty. The brandy and hot napkins
brought him to.

DUCHESS OF MONTEBELLO

It is as I expected. A healthy young woman of her build had every
chance of doing well, despite the doctors.

[An interval.]

NAPOLEON (re-entering radiantly)

We have achieved a healthy heir, good dames,
And in the feat the Empress was most brave,
Although she suffered much--so much, indeed,
That I would sooner father no more sons
Than have so fair a fruit-tree undergo
Another wrenching of such magnitude.

[He walks to the window, pulls aside the curtains, and looks out.
It is a joyful spring morning. The Tuileries' gardens are thronged
with an immense crowd, kept at a little distance off the Palace by
a cord. The windows of the neighbouring houses are full of gazers,
and the streets are thronged with halting carriages, their inmates
awaiting the event.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS (whispering to Napoleon)

At this high hour there broods a woman nigh,
Ay, here in Paris, with her child and thine,
Who might have played this part with truer eye
To thee and to thy contemplated line!

NAPOLEON (soliloquizing)

Strange that just now there flashes on my soul
That little one I loved in Warsaw days,
Marie Walewska, and my boy by her!--
She was shown faithless by a foul intrigue
Till fate sealed up her opportunity. . . .
But what's one woman's fortune more or less
Beside the schemes of kings!--Ah, there's the new!

[A gun is heard from the Invalides.]

CROWD (excitedly)

One!

[Another report of the gun, and another, succeed.]

Two! Three! Four!

[The firing and counting proceed to twenty-one, when there is great
suspense. The gun fires again, and the excitement is doubled.]

Twenty-two! A boy!

[The remainder of the counting up to a hundred-and-one is drowned
in the huzzas. Bells begin ringing, and from the Champ de Mars a
balloon ascends, from which the tidings are scattered in hand-bills
as it floats away from France.

Enter the PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE, CAMBACERES, BERTHIER, LEBRUN,
and other officers of state. NAPOLEON turns from the window.]

CAMBACERES

Unstinted gratulations and goodwill
We bring to your Imperial Majesty,
While still resounds the superflux of joy
With which your people welcome this live star
Upon the horizon of history!

PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE

All blessings at their goodliest will grace
The advent of this New Messiah, sire,
Of fairer prospects than the former one,
Whose coming at so apt an hour endues
The widening glory of your high exploits
With permanence, and flings the dimness far
That cloaked the future of our chronicle!

NAPOLEON

My thanks; though, gentlemen, upon my soul
You might have drawn the line at the Messiah.
But I excuse you.--Yes, the boy has come;
He took some coaxing, but he's here at last.--
And what news brings the morning from without?
I know of none but this the Empress now
Trumps to the world from the adjoining room.

PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE

Nothing in Europe, sire, that can compare
In magnitude therewith to more effect
Than with an eagle some frail finch or wren.
To wit: the ban on English trade prevailing,
Subjects our merchant-houses to such strain
That many of the best see bankruptcy
Like a grim ghost ahead. Next week, they say
In secret here, six of the largest close.

NAPOLEON

It shall not be! Our burst of natal joy
Must not be sullied by so mean a thing:
Aid shall be rendered. Much as we may suffer,
England must suffer more, and I am content.
What has come in from Spain and Portugal?

BERTHIER

Vaguely-voiced rumours, sire, but nothing more,
Which travel countries quick as earthquake thrills,
No mortal knowing how.

NAPOLEON

Of Massena?

BERTHIER

Yea. He retreats for prudence' sake, it seems,
Before Lord Wellington. Dispatches soon
Must reach your Majesty, explaining all.

NAPOLEON

Ever retreating! Why declines he so
From all his olden prowess? Why, again,
Did he give battle at Busaco lately,
When Lisbon could be marched on without strain?
Why has he dallied by the Tagus bank
And shunned the obvious course? I gave him Ney,
Soult, and Junot, and eighty thousand men,
And he does nothing. Really it might seem
As though we meant to let this Wellington
Be even with us there!

BERTHIER

His mighty forts
At Torres Vedras hamper Massena,
And quite preclude advance.

NAPOLEON

O well--no matter:
Why should I linger on these haps of war
Now that I have a son!

[Exeunt NAPOLEON by one door and by another the PRESIDENT OF THE
SENATE, CAMBACERES, LEBRUN, BERTHIER, and officials.]

CHORUS OF IRONIC SPIRITS (aerial music)

The Will Itself is slave to him,
And holds it blissful to obey!--
He said, "Go to; it is my whim

"To bed a bride without delay,
Who shall unite my dull new name
With one that shone in Caesar's day.

"She must conceive--you hear my claim?--
And bear a son--no daughter, mind--
Who shall hand on my form and fame

"To future times as I have designed;
And at the birth throughout the land
Must cannon roar and alp-horns wind!"

The Will grew conscious at command,
And ordered issue as he planned.

[The interior of the Palace is veiled.]

SCENE IV

SPAIN. ALBUERA

[The dawn of a mid-May day in the same spring shows the village
of Albuera with the country around it, as viewed from the summit
of a line of hills on which the English and their allies are ranged
under Beresford. The landscape swept by the eye includes to the
right foreground a hill loftier than any, and somewhat detached
from the range. The green slopes behind and around this hill are
untrodden--though in a few hours to be the sanguinary scene of the
most murderous struggle of the whole war.

The village itself lies to the left foreground, with its stream
flowing behind it in the distance on the right. A creeping brook
at the bottom of the heights held by the English joins the stream
by the village. Behind the stream some of the French forces are
visible. Away behind these stretches a great wood several miles
in area, out of which the Albuera stream emerges, and behind the
furthest verge of the wood the morning sky lightens momently. The
birds in the wood, unaware that this day is to be different from
every other day they have known there, are heard singing their
overtures with their usual serenity.]

DUMB SHOW

As objects grow more distinct it can be perceived that some strategic
dispositions of the night are being completed by the French forces,
which the evening before lay in the woodland to the front of the
English army. They have emerged during the darkness, and large
sections of them--infantry, cuirassiers, and artillery--have crept
round to BERESFORD'S right without his suspecting the movement, where
they lie hidden by the great hill aforesaid, though not more than
half-a-mile from his right wing.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

A hot ado goes forward here to-day,
If I may read the Immanent Intent
From signs and tokens blent
With weird unrest along the firmament
Of causal coils in passionate display.
--Look narrowly, and what you witness say.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

I see red smears upon the sickly dawn,
And seeming drops of gore. On earth below
Are men--unnatural and mechanic-drawn--
Mixt nationalities in row and row,
Wheeling them to and fro
In moves dissociate from their souls' demand,
For dynasts' ends that few even understand!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Speak more materially, and less in dream.

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

I'll do it. . . . The stir of strife grows well defined
Around the hamlet and the church thereby:
Till, from the wood, the ponderous columns wind,
Guided by Godinot, with Werle nigh.
They bear upon the vill. But the gruff guns
Of Dickson's Portuguese
Punch spectral vistas through the maze of these! . . .
More Frenchmen press, and roaring antiphons
Of cannonry contuse the roofs and walls and trees.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Wrecked are the ancient bridge, the green spring plot,
the blooming fruit-tree, the fair flower-knot!

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

Yet the true mischief to the English might
Is meant to fall not there. Look to the right,
And read the shaping scheme by yon hill-side,
Where cannon, foot, and brisk dragoons you see,
With Werle and Latour-Maubourg to guide,
Waiting to breast the hill-brow bloodily.

BERESFORD now becomes aware of this project on his flank, and sends
orders to throw back his right to face the attack. The order is not
obeyed. Almost at the same moment the French rush is made, the
Spanish and Portuguese allies of the English are beaten beck, and
the hill is won. But two English divisions bear from the centre of
their front, and plod desperately up the hill to retake it.

SPIRIT SINISTER

Now he among us who may wish to be
A skilled practitioner in slaughtery,
Should watch this hour's fruition yonder there,
And he will know, if knowing ever were,
How mortals may be freed their fleshly cells,
And quaint red doors set ope in sweating fells,
By methods swift and slow and foul and fair!

The English, who have plunged up the hill, are caught in a heavy
mist, that hides from them an advance in their rear of the lancers
and hussars of the enemy. The lines of the Buffs, the Sixty-sixth,
and those of the Forty-eighth, who were with them, in a chaos of
smoke, steel, sweat, curses, and blood, are beheld melting down
like wax from an erect position to confused heaps. Their forms
lie rigid, or twitch and turn, as they are trampled over by the
hoofs of the enemy's horse. Those that have not fallen are taken.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

It works as you, uncanny Phantom, wist! . . .
Whose is that towering form
That tears across the mist
To where the shocks are sorest?--his with arm
Outstretched, and grimy face, and bloodshot eye,
Like one who, having done his deeds, will die?

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

He is one Beresford, who heads the fight
For England here to-day.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

He calls the sight
Despite itself!--parries yon lancer's thrust,
And with his own sword renders dust to dust!

The ghastly climax of the strife is reached; the combatants are
seen to be firing grape and canister at speaking distance, and
discharging musketry in each other's faces when so close that
their complexions may be recognized. Hot corpses, their mouths
blackened by cartridge-biting, and surrounded by cast-away
knapsacks, firelocks, hats, stocks, flint-boxes, and priming
horns, together with red and blue rags of clothing, gaiters,
epaulettes, limbs and viscera accumulate on the slopes, increasing
from twos and threes to half-dozens, and from half-dozens to heaps,
which steam with their own warmth as the spring rain falls gently
upon them.

The critical instant has come, and the English break. But a
comparatively fresh division, with fusileers, is brought into the
turmoil by HARDINGE and COLE, and these make one last strain to
save the day, and their names and lives. The fusileers mount the
incline, and issuing from the smoke and mist startle the enemy by
their arrival on a spot deemed won.

SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES (aerial music)

They come, beset by riddling hail;
They sway like sedges is a gale;
The fail, and win, and win, and fail. Albuera!

SEMICHORUS II

They gain the ground there, yard by yard,
Their brows and hair and lashes charred,
Their blackened teeth set firm and hard.

SEMICHORUS I

Their mad assailants rave and reel,
And face, as men who scorn to feel,
The close-lined, three-edged prongs of steel.

SEMICHORUS II

Till faintness follows closing-in,
When, faltering headlong down, they spin
Like leaves. But those pay well who win Albuera.

SEMICHORUS I

Out of six thousand souls that sware
To hold the mount, or pass elsewhere,
But eighteen hundred muster there.

SEMICHORUS II

Pale Colonels, Captains, ranksmen lie,
Facing the earth or facing sky;--
They strove to live, they stretch to die.

SEMICHORUS I

Friends, foemen, mingle; heap and heap.--
Hide their hacked bones, Earth!--deep, deep, deep,
Where harmless worms caress and creep.

CHORUS

Hide their hacked bones, Earth!--deep, deep, deep,
Where harmless worms caress and creep.--
What man can grieve? what woman weep?
Better than waking is to sleep! Albuera!

The night comes on, and darkness covers the battle-field.

SCENE V

WINDSOR CASTLE. A ROOM IN THE KING'S APARTMENT

[The walls of the room are padded, and also the articles of
furniture, the stuffing being overlaid with satin and velvet, on
which are worked in gold thread monograms and crowns. The windows
are guarded, and the floor covered with thick cork, carpeted. The
time is shortly after the last scene.

The KING is seated by a window, and two of Dr. WILLIS'S attendants
are in the room. His MAJESTY is now seventy-two; his sight is
very defective, but he does not look ill. He appears to be lost
in melancholy thought, and talks to himself reproachfully, hurried
manner on occasion being the only irregular symptom that he
betrays.]

KING

In my lifetime I did not look after her enough--enough--enough!
And now she is lost to me, and I shall never see her more. Had I
but known, had I but thought of it! Gentlemen, when did I lose the
Princess Amelia?

FIRST ATTENDANT

The second of last November, your Majesty.

KING

And what is it now?

FIRST ATTENDANT

Now, sir, it is the beginning of June.

KING

Ah, June, I remember! . . . The June flowers are not for me. I
shall never see them; nor will she. So fond of them as she was.
. . . Even if I were living I would never go where there are flowers
any more! No: I would go to the bleak, barren places that she never
would walk in, and never knew, so that nothing might remind me of
her, and make my heart ache more than I can bear! . . . Why, the
beginning of June?--that's when they are coming to examine me! (He
grows excited.)

FIRST ATTENDANT (to second attendant, aside)

Dr. Reynolds ought not have reminded him of their visit. It only
disquiets him and makes him less fit to see them.

KING

How long have I been confined here?

FIRST ATTENDANT

Since November, sir; for your health's sake entirely, as your Majesty
knows.

KING

What, what? So long? Ah, yes. I must bear it. This is the fourth
great black gulf in my poor life, is it not? The fourth.

[A signal from the door. The second attendant opens it and whispers.
Enter softly SIR HENRY HALFORD, DR. WILLIAM HEBERDEN, DR. ROBERT
WILLIS, DR. MATTHEW BAILLIE, the KING'S APOTHECARY, and one or two
other gentlemen.]

KING (straining his eye to discern them)

What! Are they come? What will they do to me? How dare they! I
am Elector of Hanover! (Finding Dr. Willis is among them he shrieks.)
O, they are going to bleed me--yes, to bleed me! (Piteously.) My
friends, don't bleed me--pray don't! It makes me so weak to take my
blood. And the leeches do, too, when you put so many. You will not
be so unkind, I am sure!

WILLIS (to Baillie)

It is extraordinary what a vast aversion he has to bleeding--that
most salutary remedy, fearlessly practised. He submits to leeches
as yet but I won't say that he will for long without being strait-
jacketed.

KING (catching some of the words)

You will strait-jacket me? O no, no!

WILLIS

Leeches are not effective, really. Dr. Home, when I mentioned it to
him yesterday, said he would bleed him till he fainted if he had
charge of him!

KING

O will you do it, sir, against my will,
And put me, once your king, in needless pain?
I do assure you truly, my good friends,
That I have done no harm! In sunnier years
Ere I was throneless, withered to a shade,
Deprived of my divine authority--
When I was hale, and ruled the English land--
I ever did my utmost to promote
The welfare of my people, body and soul!
Right many a morn and night I have prayed and mused
How I could bring them to a better way.
So much of me you surely know, my friends,
And will not hurt me in my weakness here! (He trembles.)

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

The tears that lie about this plightful scene
Of heavy travail in a suffering soul,
Mocked with the forms and feints of royalty
While scarified by briery Circumstance,
Might drive Compassion past her patiency
To hold that some mean, monstrous ironist
Had built this mistimed fabric of the Spheres
To watch the throbbings of its captive lives,
(The which may Truth forfend), and not thy said
Unmaliced, unimpassioned, nescient Will!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Mild one, be not touched with human fate.
Such is the Drama: such the Mortal state:
No sigh of thine can null the Plan Predestinate!

HALFORD

We have come to do your Majesty no harm.
Here's Dr. Heberden, whom I am sure you like,
And this is Dr. Baillie. We arrive
But to inquire and gather how you are,
Thereon to let the Privy Council know,
And give assurances for you people's good.

[A brass band is heard playing in the distant part of Windsor.]

KING

Ah--what does that band play for here to-day?
She has been dead and I so short a time! . . .
Her little hands are hardly cold as yet;
But they can show such cruel indecency
As to let trumpets play!

HALFORD

They guess not, sir,
That you can hear them, or their chords would cease.
Their boisterous music fetches back to me
That, of our errands to your Majesty,
One was congratulation most sincere
Upon this glorious victory you have won.
The news is just in port; the band booms out
To celebrate it, and to honour you.

KING

A victory? I? Pray where?

HALFORD

Indeed so, sir:
Hard by Albuera--far in harried Spain--
Yes, sir; you have achieved a victory
Of dash unmatched and feats unparalleled!

KING

He says I have won a battle? But I thought
I was a poor afflicted captive here,
In darkness lingering out my lonely days,
Beset with terror of these myrmidons
That suck my blood like vampires! Ay, ay, ay!--
No aims left to me but to quicken death
To quicklier please my son!--And yet he says
That I have won a battle! O God, curse, damn!
When will the speech of the world accord with truth,
And men's tongues roll sincerely!

GENTLEMAN (aside)

Faith, 'twould seem
As if the madman were the sanest here!

[The KING'S face has flushed, and he becomes violent. The
attendants rush forward to him.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Something within me aches to pray
To some Great Heart, to take away
This evil day, this evil day!

CHORUS IRONIC

Ha-ha! That's good. Thou'lt pray to It:--
But where do Its compassions sit?
Yea, where abides the heart of it?

Is it where sky-fires flame and flit,
Or solar craters spew and spit,
Or ultra-stellar night-webs knit?

What is Its shape? Man's counterfeit?
That turns in some far sphere unlit
The Wheel which drives the Infinite?

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Mock on, mock on! Yet I'll go pray
To some Great Heart, who haply may
Charm mortal miseries away!

[The KING'S paroxysm continues. The attendants hold him.]

HALFORD

This is distressing. One can never tell
How he will take things now. I thought Albuera
A subject that would surely solace him.
These paroxysms--have they been bad this week? (To Attendants.)

FIRST ATTENDANT

Sir Henry, no. He has quite often named
The late Princess, as gently as a child
A little bird found starved.

WILLIS (aside to apothecary)

I must increase the opium to-night, and lower him by a double set of
leeches since he won't stand the lancet quietly.

APOTHECARY

You should take twenty ounces, doctor, if a drop--indeed, go on
blooding till he's unconscious. He is too robust by half. And the
watering-pot would do good again--not less than six feet above his
head. See how heated he is.

WILLIS

Curse that town band. It will have to be stopped.

HEBERDEN

The same thing is going on all over England, no doubt, on account of
this victory.

HALFORD

When he is in a more domineering mood he likes such allusions to his
rank as king. . . . If he could resume his walks on the terrace he
might improve slightly. But it is too soon yet. We must consider
what we shall report to the Council. There is little hope of his
being much better. What do you think, Willis?

WILLIS

None. He is done for this time!

HALFORD

Well, we must soften it down a little, so as not to upset the Queen
too much, poor woman, and distract the Council unnecessarily. Eldon
will go pumping up bucketfuls, and the Archbishops are so easily
shocked that a certain conventional reserve is almost forced upon us.

WILLIS (returning from the King)

He is already better. The paroxysm has nearly passed. Your opinion
will be far more favourable before you leave.

[The KING soon grows calm, and the expression of his face changes
to one of dejection. The attendants leave his side: he bends his
head, and covers his face with his hand, while his lips move as if
in prayer. He then turns to them.]

KING (meekly)

I am most truly sorry, gentlemen,
If I have used language that would seem to show
Discourtesy to you for your good help
In this unhappy malady of mine!
My nerves unstring, my friend; my flesh grows weak:
"The good that I do I leave undone,
The evil which I would not, that I do!"
Shame, shame on me!

WILLIS (aside to the others)

Now he will be as low as before he was in the other extreme.

KING

A king should bear him kingly; I of all,
One of so long a line. O shame on me! . . .
--This battle that you speak of?--Spain, of course?
Ah--Albuera! And many fall--eh? Yes?

HALFORD

Many hot hearts, sir, cold, I grieve to say.
There's Major-General Houghton, Captain Bourke,
And Herbert of the Third, Lieutenant Fox,
And Captains Erck and Montague, and more.
With Majors-General Cole and Stewart wounded,
And Quartermaster-General Wallace too:
A total of three generals, colonels five,
Five majors, fifty captains; and to these
Add ensigns and lieutenants sixscore odd,
Who went out, but returned not. Heavily tithed
Were the attenuate battalions there
Who stood and bearded Death by the hour that day!

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