The Dynasts

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ROUSTAN

Well, as you propose going this evening I will go with you, to lend
a symmetry to the drama of our departure. Would that I had served
a more sensitive master! He sleeps there quite indifferent to the
dishonour of remaining alive!

[NAPOLEON shows signs of waking. CONSTANT and ROUSTAN disappear.
NAPOLEON slowly sits up.]

NAPOLEON

Here the scene lingers still! Here linger I! . . .
Things could not have gone on as they were going;
I am amazed they kept their course so long.
But long or short they have ended now--at last!
(Footsteps are heard passing through the court without.)
Hark at them leaving me! So politic rats
Desert the ship that's doomed. By morrow-dawn
I shall not have a man to shake my bed
Or say good-morning to!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Herein behold
How heavily grinds the Will upon his brain,
His halting hand, and his unlighted eye.

SPIRIT IRONIC

A picture this for kings and subjects too!

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Yet is it but Napoleon who has failed.
The pale pathetic peoples still plod on
Through hoodwinkings to light!

NAPOLEON (rousing himself)

This now must close.
Roustan misunderstood me, though his hint
Serves as a fillip to a flaccid brain. . . .
--How gild the sunset sky of majesty
Better than by the act esteemed of yore?
Plutarchian heroes outstayed not their fame,
And what nor Brutus nor Themistocles
Nor Cato nor Mark Antony survived,
Why, why should I? Sage Canabis, you primed me!

[He unlocks a case, takes out a little bag containing a phial, pours
from it a liquid into a glass, and drinks. He then lies down and
falls asleep again.

Re-enter CONSTANT softly with a bunch of keys in his hand. On
his way to the cabinet he turns and looks at NAPOLEON. Seeing
the glass and a strangeness in the EMPEROR, he abandons his
object, rushes out, and is heard calling.

Enter MARET and BERTRAND.]

BERTRAND (shaking the Emperor)

What is the matter, sire? What's this you've done?

NAPOLEON (with difficulty)

Why did you interfere!--But it is well;
Call Caulaincourt. I'd speak with him a trice
Before I pass.

[MARET hurries out. Enter IVAN the physician, and presently
CAULAINCOURT.]

Ivan, renew this dose;
'Tis a slow workman, and requires a fellow;
Age has impaired its early promptitude.

[Ivan shakes his head and rushes away distracted. CAULAINCOURT
seizes NAPOLEON'S hand.]

CAULAINCOURT

Why should you bring this cloud upon us now!

NAPOLEON

Restrain your feelings. Let me die in peace.--
My wife and son I recommend to you;
Give her this letter, and the packet there.
Defend my memory, and protect their lives.
(They shake him. He vomits.)

CAULAINCOURT

He's saved--for good or ill-as may betide!

NAPOLEON

God--here how difficult it is to die:
How easy on the passionate battle-plain!

[They open a window and carry him to it. He mends.]

Fate has resolved what man could not resolve.
I must live on, and wait what Heaven may send!

[MACDONALD and other marshals re-enter. A letter is brought from
MARIE LOUISE. NAPOLEON reads it, and becomes more animated.

They are well; and they will join me in my exile.
Yes: I will live! The future who shall spell?
My wife, my son, will be enough for me.--
And I will give my hours to chronicling
In stately words that stir futurity
The might of our unmatched accomplishments;
And in the tale immortalize your names
By linking them with mine.

[He soon falls into a convalescent sleep. The marshals, etc. go
out. The room is left in darkness.]

SCENE V

BAYONNE. THE BRITISH CAMP

[The foreground is an elevated stretch of land, dotted over in rows
with the tents of the peninsular army. On a parade immediately
beyond the tents the infantry are drawn up, awaiting something.
Still farther back, behind a brook, are the French soldiery, also
ranked in the same manner of reposeful expectation. In the middle-
distance we see the town of Bayonne, standing within its zigzag
fortifications at the junction of the river Adour with the Nive.

On the other side of the Adour rises the citadel, a fortified
angular structure standing detached. A large and brilliant
tricolor flag is waving indolently from a staff on the summit.
The Bay of Biscay, into which the Adour flows, is seen on the
left horizon as a level line.

The stillness observed by the soldiery of both armies, and by
everything else in the scene except the flag, is at last broken
by the firing of a signal-gun from a battery in the town-wall.
The eyes of the thousands present rivet themselves on the citadel.
Its waving tricolor moves down the flagstaff and disappears.]

THE REGIMENTS (unconsciously)

Ha-a-a-a!

[In a few seconds there shoots up the same staff another flag--one
intended to be white; but having apparently been folded away a long
time, it is mildewed and dingy.

From all the guns on the city fortifications a salute peals out.
This is responded to by the English infantry and artillery with a
feu-de-joie.]

THE REGIMENTS

Hurrah-h-h-h!

[The various battalions are then marched away in their respective
directions and dismissed to their tents. The Bourbon standard is
hoisted everywhere beside those of England, Spain, and Portugal.
The scene shuts.]

SCENE VI

A HIGHWAY IN THE OUTSKIRTS OF AVIGNON

[The Rhone, the old city walls, the Rocher des Doms and its
edifices, appear at the back plane of the scene under the
grey light of dawn. In the foreground several postillions
and ostlers with relays of horses are waiting by the roadside,
gazing northward and listening for sounds. A few loungers
have assembled.]

FIRST POSTILLION

He ought to be nigh by this time. I should say he'd be very glad
to get this here Isle of Elba, wherever it may be, if words be true
that he's treated to such ghastly compliments on's way!

SECOND POSTILLION

Blast-me-blue, I don't care what happens to him! Look at Joachim
Murat, him that's made King of Naples; a man who was only in the
same line of life as ourselves, born and bred in Cahors, out in
Perigord, a poor little whindling place not half as good as our
own. Why should he have been lifted up to king's anointment, and
we not even have had a rise in wages? That's what I say.

FIRST POSTILLION

But now, I don't find fault with that dispensation in particular.
It was one of our calling that the Emperor so honoured, after all,
when he might have anointed a tinker, or a ragman, or a street
woman's pensioner even. Who knows but that we should have been
king's too, but for my crooked legs and your running pole-wound?

SECOND POSTILLION

We kings? Kings of the underground country, then, by this time, if
we hadn't been too rotten-fleshed to follow the drum. However, I'll
think over your defence, and I don't mind riding a stage with him,
for that matter, to save him from them that mean mischief here.
I've lost no sons by his battles, like some others we know.

[Enter a TRAVELLER on horseback.]

Any tidings along the road, sir of the Emperor Napoleon that was?

TRAVELLER

Tidings verily! He and his escort are threatened by the mob at
every place they come to. A returning courier I have met tells me
that at an inn a little way beyond here they have strung up his
effigy to the sign-post, smeared it with blood, and placarded it
"The Doom that awaits Thee!" He is much delayed by such humorous
insults. I have hastened ahead to escape the uproar.

SECOND POSTILLION

I don't know that you have escaped it. The mob has been waiting
up all night for him here.

MARKET-WOMAN (coming up)

I hope by the Virgin, as 'a called herself, that there'll be no
riots here! Though I have not much pity for a man who could treat
his wife as he did, and that's my real feeling. He might at least
have kept them both on, for half a husband is better than none for
poor women. But I'd show mercy to him, that's true, rather than
have my stall upset, and messes in the streets wi' folks' brains,
and stabbings, and I don't know what all!

FIRST POSTILLION

If we can do the horsing quietly out here, there will be none of
that. He'll dash past the town without stopping at the inn where
they expect to waylay him.--Hark, what's this coming?

[An approaching cortege is heard. Two couriers enter; then a
carriage with NAPOLEON and BERTRAND; then others with the
Commissioners of the Powers,--all on the way to Elba.

The carriages halt, and the change of horses is set about instantly.
But before it is half completed BONAPARTE'S arrival gets known, and
throngs of men and women armed with sticks and hammers rush out of
Avignon and surround the carriages.]

POPULACE

Ogre of Corsica! Odious tyrant! Down with Nicholas!

BERTRAND (looking out of carriage)

Silence, and doff your hats, you ill-mannered devils!

POPULACE (scornfully)

Listen to him! Is that the Corsican? No; where is he? Give him up;
give him up! We'll pitch him into the Rhone!

[Some cling to the wheels of NAPOLEON'S carriage, while others,
more distant, throw stones at it. A stone breaks the carriage
window.]

OLD WOMAN (shaking her fist)

Give me back my two sons, murderer! Give me back my children, whose
flesh is rotting on the Russian plains!

POPULACE

Ay; give us back our kin--our fathers, our brothers, our sons--
victims to your curst ambition!

[One of the mob seizes the carriage door-handle and tries to
unfasten it. A valet of BONAPARTE'S seated on the box draws his
sword and threatens to cut the man's arm off. The doors of the
Commissioners' coaches open, and SIR NEIL CAMPBELL, GENERAL
KOLLER, and COUNT SCHUVALOFF--The English, Austrian, and Russian
Commissioners--jump out and come forward.]

CAMPBELL

Keep order, citizens! Do you not know
That the ex-Emperor is wayfaring
To a lone isle, in the Allies' sworn care,
Who have given a pledge to Europe for his safety?
His fangs being drawn, he is left powerless now
To do you further harm.

SCHUVALOFF

People of France
Can you insult so miserable a being?
He who gave laws to a cowed world stands now
At that world's beck, and asks its charity.
Cannot you see that merely to ignore him
Is the worst ignominy to tar him with,
By showing him he's no longer dangerous?

OLD WOMAN

How do we know the villain mayn't come back?
While there is life, my faith, there's mischief in him!

[Enter an officer with the Town-guard.]

OFFICER

Citizens, I am a zealot for the Bourbons,
As you well know. But wanton breach of faith
I will not brook. Retire!

[The soldiers drive back the mob and open a passage forward. The
Commissioners re-enter their carriages. NAPOLEON puts his head
out of his window for a moment. He is haggard, shabbily dressed,
yellow-faced, and wild-eyed.]

NAPOLEON

I thank you, captain;
Also your soldiery: a thousand thanks!
(To Bertrand within) My God, these people of Avignon here
Are headstrong fools, like all the Provencal fold,
--I won't go through the town!

BERTRAND

We'll round it, sire;
And then, as soon as we get past the place,
You must disguise for the remainder miles.

NAPOLEON

I'll mount the white cockade if they invite me!
What does it matter if I do or don't?
In Europe all is past and over with me. . . .
Yes--all is lost in Europe for me now!

BERTRAND

I fear so, sire.

NAPOLEON (after some moments)

But Asia waits a man,
And--who can tell?

OFFICER OF GUARD (to postillions)

Ahead now at full speed,
And slacken not till you have slipped the town.

[The postillions urge the horses to a gallop, and the carriages
are out of sight in a few seconds. The scene shuts.]

SCENE VII

MALMAISON. THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE'S BEDCHAMBER

[The walls are in white panels, with gilt mouldings, and the
furniture is upholstered in white silk with needle-worked flowers.
The long windows and the bed are similarly draped, and the toilet
service is of gold. Through the panes appears a broad flat lawn
adorned with vases and figures on pedestals, and entirely
surrounded by trees--just now in their first fresh green under
the morning rays of Whitsunday. The notes of an organ are audible
from a chapel below, where the Pentecostal Mass is proceeding.

JOSEPHINE lies in the bed in an advanced stage of illness, the
ABBE BERTRAND standing beside her. Two ladies-in-waiting are
seated near. By the door into the ante-room, which is ajar,
HOREAU the physician-in-ordinary and BOURDOIS the consulting
physician are engaged in a low conversation.]

HOREAU

Lamoureux says that leeches would have saved her
Had they been used in time, before I came.
In that case, then, why did he wait for me?

BOURDOIS

Such whys are now too late! She is past all hope.
I doubt if aught had helped her. Not disease,
But heart-break and repinings are the blasts
That wither her long bloom. Soon we must tell
The Queen Hortense the worst, and the Viceroy.

HOREAU

Her death was made the easier task for grief
(As I regarded more than probable)
By her rash rising from a sore-sick bed
And donning thin and dainty May attire
To hail King Frederick-William and the Tsar
As banquet-guests, in the old regnant style.
A woman's innocent vanity!--but how dire.
She argued that amenities of State
Compelled the effort, since they had honoured her
By offering to come. I stood against it,
Pleaded and reasoned, but to no account.
Poor woman, what she did or did not do
Was of small moment to the State by then!
The Emperor Alexander has been kind
Throughout his stay in Paris. He came down
But yester-eve, of purpose to inquire.

BOURDOIS

Wellington is in Paris, too, I learn,
After his wasted battle at Toulouse.

HOREAU

Has his Peninsular army come with him?

BOURDOIS

I hear they have shipped it to America,
Where England has another war on hand.
We have armies quite sufficient here already--
Plenty of cooks for Paris broth just now!
--Come, call we Queen Hortense and Prince Eugene.

[Exeunt physicians. The ABBE BERTRAND also goes out. JOSEPHINE
murmurs faintly.]

FIRST LADY (going to the bedside)

I think I heard you speak, your Majesty?

JOSEPHINE

I asked what hour it was---if dawn or eve?

FIRST LADY

Ten in the morning, Madame. You forget
You asked the same but a brief while ago.

JOSEPHINE

Did I? I thought it was so long ago! . . .
I wish to go to Elba with him so much,
But the Allies prevented me. And why?
I would not have disgraced him, or themselves!
I would have gone to him at Fontainebleau,
With my eight horses and my household train
In dignity, and quitted him no more. . . .
Although I am his wife no longer now,
I think I should have gone in spite of them,
Had I not feared perversions might be sown
Between him and the woman of his choice
For whom he sacrificed me.

SECOND LADY

It is more
Than she thought fit to do, your Majesty.

JOSEPHINE

Perhaps she was influenced by her father's ire,
Or diplomatic reasons told against her.
And yet I was surprised she should allow
Aught secondary on earth to hold her from
A husband she has outwardly, at least,
Declared attachment to.

FIRST LADY

Especially,
With ever one at hand--his son and hers--
Reminding her of him.

JOSEPHINE

Yes. . . . Glad am I
I saw that child of theirs, though only once.
But--there was not full truth--not quite, I fear--
In what I told the Emperor that day
He led him to me at Bagatelle,
That 'twas the happiest moment of my life.
I ought not to have said it. No! Forsooth
My feeling had too, too much gall in it
To let truth shape like that!--I also said
That when my arms were round him I forgot
That I was not his mother. So spoke I,
But oh me,--I remembered it too well!--
He was a lovely child; in his fond prate
His father's voice was eloquent. One might say
I am well punished for my sins against him!

SECOND LADY

You have harmed no creature, madame; much less him!

JOSEPHINE

O but you don't quite know! . . . My coquetries
In our first married years nigh racked him through.
I cannot think how I could wax so wicked! . . .
He begged me come to him in Italy,
But I liked flirting in fair Paris best,
And would not go. The independent spouse
At that time was myself; but afterwards
I grew to be the captive, he the free.
Always 'tis so: the man wins finally!
My faults I've ransomed to the bottom sou
If ever a woman did! . . . I'll write to him--
I must--again, so that he understands.
Yes, I'll write now. Get me a pen and paper.

FIRST LADY (to Second Lady)

'Tis futile! She is too far gone to write;
But we must humour her.

[They fetch writing materials. On returning to the bed they find
her motionless. Enter EUGENE and QUEEN HORTENSE. Seeing the state
their mother is in, they fall down on their knees by her bed.
JOSEPHINE recognizes them and smiles. Anon she is able to speak
again.]

JOSEPHINE (faintly)

I am dying, dears;
And do not mind it--notwithstanding that
I feel I die regretted. You both love me!--
And as for France, I ever have desired
Her welfare, as you know--have wrought all things
A woman's scope could reach to forward it. . . .
And to you now who watch my ebbing here,
Declare I that Napoleon's first-chose wife
Has never caused her land a needless tear.
Tell him--these things I have said--bear him my love--
Tell him--I could not write!

[An interval. She spasmodically flings her arms over her son and
daughter, lets them fall, and becomes unconscious. They fetch a
looking-glass, and find that her breathing has ceased. The clock
of the Chateau strikes noon. The scene is veiled.]

SCENE VIII

LONDON. THE OPERA HOUSE

[The house is lighted up with a blaze of wax candles, and a State
performance is about to begin in honour of the Allied sovereigns
now on a visit to England to celebrate the Peace. Peace-devices
adorn the theatre. A band can be heard in the street playing
"The White Cockade."

An extended Royal box has been formed by removing the partitions
of adjoining boxes. It is empty as yet, but the other parts of
the house are crowded to excess, and somewhat disorderly, the
interior doors having been broken down by besiegers, and many
people having obtained admission without payment. The prevalent
costume of the ladies is white satin and diamonds, with a few in
lilac.

The curtain rises on the first act of the opera of "Aristodemo,"
MADAME GRASSINI and SIGNOR TRAMEZZINI being the leading voices.
Scarcely a note of the performance can be heard amid the exclamations
of persons half suffocated by the pressure.

At the end of the first act there follows a divertissement. The
curtain having fallen, a silence of expectation succeeds. It is
a little past ten o'clock.

Enter the Royal box the PRINCE REGENT, accompanied by the EMPEROR
OF RUSSIA, demonstrative in manner now as always, the KING OF
PRUSSIA, with his mien of reserve, and many minor ROYAL PERSONAGES
of Europe. There are moderate acclamations. At their back and in
neighbouring boxes LORD LIVERPOOL, LORD CASTLEREAGH, officers in
the suite of the sovereigns, interpreters, and others take their
places.

The curtain rises again, and the performers are discovered drawn
up in line on the stage. They sing "God save the King." The
sovereigns stand up, bow, and resume their seats amid more
applause.]

A VOICE (from the gallery)

Prinny, where's your wife? (Confusion.)

EMPEROR OF RUSSIA (to Regent)

To which of us is the inquiry addressed, Prince?

PRINCE REGENT

To you, sire, depend upon't--by way of compliment.

[The second act of the Opera proceeds.]

EMPEROR OF RUSSIA

Any later news from Elba, sir?

PRINCE REGENT

Nothing more than rumours, which, 'pon my honour, I can hardly
credit. One is that Bonaparte's valet has written to say the
ex-Emperor is becoming imbecile, and is an object of ridicule to
the inhabitants of the island.

KING OF PRUSSIA

A blessed result, sir, if true. If he is not imbecile he is worse
--planning how to involve Europe in another way. It was a short-
sighted policy to offer him a home so near as to ensure its becoming
a hot-bed of intrigue and conspiracy in no long time!

PRINCE REGENT

The ex-Empress, Marie-Louise, hasn't joined him after all, I learn.
Has she remained at Schonbrunn since leaving France, sires?

EMPEROR OF RUSSIA

Yes, sir; with her son. She must never go back to France. Metternich
and her father will know better than let her do that. Poor young
thing, I am sorry for her all the same. She would have joined
Napoleon if she had been left to herself.--And I was sorry for the
other wife, too. I called at Malmaison a few days before she died.
A charming woman! SHE would have gone to Elba or to the devil with
him. Twenty thousand people crowded down from Paris to see her lying
in state last week.

PRINCE REGENT

Pity she didn't have a child by him, by God.

KING OF PRUSSIA

I don't think the other one's child is going to trouble us much.
But I wish Bonaparte himself had been sent farther away.

PRINCE REGENT

Some of our Government wanted to pack him off to St. Helena--an
island somewhere in the Atlantic, or Pacific, or Great South Sea.
But they were over-ruled. 'Twould have been a surer game.

EMPEROR OF RUSSIA

One hears strange stories of his saying and doings. Some of my
people were telling me to-day that he says it is to Austria that
he really owes his fall, and that he ought to have destroyed her
when he had her in his power.

PRINCE REGENT

Dammy, sire, don't ye think he owes his fall to his ambition to
humble England by rupture of the Peace of Amiens, and trying to
invade us, and wasting his strength against us in the Peninsula?

EMPEROR OF RUSSIA

I incline to think, with the greatest deference, that it was Moscow
that broke him.

KING OF PRUSSIA

The rejection of my conditions in the terms of peace at Prague, sires,
was the turning-point towards his downfall.

[Enter a box on the opposite side of the house the PRINCESS OF
WALES, attended by LADY CHARLOTTE CAMPBELL, SIR W. GELL, and
others. Louder applause now rings through the theatre, drowning
the sweet voice of the GRASSINI in "Aristodemo."]

LADY CHARLOTTE CAMPBELL

It is meant for your Royal Highness!

PRINCESS OF WALES

I don't think so, my dear. Punch's wife is nobody when Punch himself
is present.

LADY CHARLOTTE CAMPBELL

I feel convinced that it is by their looking this way.

SIR W. GELL

Surely ma'am you will acknowledge their affection? Otherwise we may
be hissed.

PRINCESS OF WALES

I know my business better than to take that morsel out of my husband's
mouth. There--you see he enjoys it! I cannot assume that it is
meant for me unless they call my name.

[The PRINCE REGENT rises and bows, the TSAR and the KING OF PRUSSIA
doing the same.]

LADY CHARLOTTE CAMPBELL

He and the others are bowing for you, ma'am!

PRINCESS OF WALES

Mine God, then; I will bow too! (She rises and bends to them.)

PRINCE REGENT

She thinks we rose on her account.--A damn fool. (Aside.)

EMPEROR OF RUSSIA

What--didn't we? I certainly rose in homage to her.

PRINCE REGENT

No, sire. We were supposed to rise to the repeated applause of the
people.

EMPEROR OF RUSSIA

H'm. Your customs sir, are a little puzzling. . . . (To the King of
Prussia.) A fine-looking woman! I must call upon the Princess of
Wales to-morrow.

KING OF PRUSSIA

I shall, at any rate, send her my respects by my chamberlain.

PRINCE REGENT (stepping back to Lord Liverpool)

By God, Liverpool, we must do something to stop 'em! They don't
know what a laughing-stock they'll make of me if they go to her.
Tell 'em they had better not.

LIVERPOOL

I can hardly tell them now, sir, while we are celebrating the Peace
and Wellington's victories.

PRINCE REGENT

Oh, damn the peace, and damn the war, and damn Boney, and damn
Wellington's victories!--the question is, how am I to get over this
infernal woman!--Well, well,--I must write, or send Tyrwhitt to-
morrow morning, begging them to abandon the idea of visiting her
for politic reasons.

[The Opera proceeds to the end, and is followed by a hymn and
chorus laudatory to peace. Next a new ballet by MONSIEUR VESTRIS,
in which M. ROZIER and MADAME ANGIOLINI dance a pas-de-deux. Then
the Sovereigns leave the theatre amid more applause.

The pit and gallery now call for the PRINCESS OF WALES unmistakably.
She stand up and is warmly acclaimed, returning three stately
curtseys.]

A VOICE

Shall we burn down Carlton House, my dear, and him in it?

PRINCESS OF WALES

No, my good folks! Be quiet. Go home to your beds, and let me do
the same.

[After some difficulty she gets out of the house. The people thin
away. As the candle-snuffers extinguish the lights a shouting is
heard without.]

VOICES OF CROWD

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