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George Meredith - "The Tragic Comedians, v2"

William M. Thayer - "From Boyhood to Manhood"

George Meredith - "Lord Ormont and his Aminta, v3"

David Widger - "Widger's Quotations from The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau"

The Dynasts

T >> Thomas Hardy >> The Dynasts





RICHMOND

God knows! They will be ridden over, I suppose. Though it is
extraordinary how they do contrive to escape destruction while
hanging so close to the rear of an action! They are moving,
however. Well, we will move too.

[Exeunt DUKE OF RICHMOND, sons, and MR. LEGH. The point of view
shifts.]



SCENE VI

THE SAME. THE FRENCH POSITION

[NEY'S charge of cavalry against the opposite upland has been
three times renewed without success. He collects the scattered
squadrons to renew it a fourth time. The glittering host again
ascends the confronting slopes over the bodies of those previously
left there, and amid horses wandering about without riders, or
crying as they lie with entrails trailing or limbs broken.]

NAPOLEON (starting up)

A horrible dream has gripped me--horrible!
I saw before me Lannes--just as he looked
That day at Aspern: mutilated, bleeding!
"What--blood again?" he said to me. "Still blood?"

[He further arouses himself, takes snuff vehemently, and looks
through his glass.]

What time is it?--Ah, these assaults of Ney's!
They are a blunder; they've been enterprised
An hour too early! . . . There Lheritier goes
Onward with his division next Milhaud;
Now Kellermann must follow up with his.
So one mistake makes many. Yes; ay; yes!


SOULT

I fear that Ney has compromised us here
Just as at Jena; even worse!


NAPOLEON

No less
Must we support him now he is launched on it. . . .
The miracle is that he is still alive!

[NEY and his mass of cavalry again pass the English batteries
and disappear amid the squares beyond.]

Their cannon are abandoned; and their squares
Again environed--see! I would to God
Murat could be here! Yet I disdained
His proffered service. . . . All my star asks now
Is to break some half-dozen of those blocks
Of English yonder. He was the man to do it.

[NEY and D'ERLON'S squadrons are seen emerging from the English
squares in a disorganized state, the attack having failed like
the previous ones. An aide-de-camp enters to NAPOLEON.]


AIDE

The Prussians have debouched on our right rear
From Paris-wood; and Losthin's infantry
Appear by Plancenoit; Hiller's to leftwards.
Two regiments of their horse protect their front,
And three light batteries.

[A haggard shade crosses NAPOLEON'S face.]


NAPOLEON

What then! That's not a startling force as yet.
A counter-stroke by Domon's cavalry
Must shatter them. Lobau must bring his foot
Up forward, heading for the Prussian front,
Unrecking losses by their cannonade.

[Exit aide. The din of battle continues. DOMON'S horse are soon
seen advancing towards and attacking the Prussian hussars in front
of the infantry; and he next attempts to silence the Prussian
batteries playing on him by leading up his troops and cutting
down the gunners. But he has to fall back upon the infantry
of LOBAU. Enter another aide-de-camp.]


AIDE

These tiding I report, your Majesty:--
Von Ryssel's and von Hacke's Prussian foot
Have lately sallied from the Wood of Paris,
Bearing on us; no vast array as yet;
But twenty thousand loom not far behind
These vanward marchers!


NAPOLEON

Ah! They swarm thus thickly?
But be they hell's own legions we'll defy them!--
Lobau's men will stand firm.

[He looks in the direction of the English lines, where NEY'S
cavalry-assaults still linger furiously on.]

But who rides hither,
Spotting the sky with clods in his high haste?


SOULT

It looks like Colonel Heymes--come from Ney.


NAPOLEON (sullenly)

And his face shows what clef his music's in!

[Enter COLONEL HEYMES, blood-stained, muddy, and breathless.]


HEYMES

The Prince of Moscow, sire, the Marshal Ney,
Bids me implore that infantry be sent
Immediately, to further his attack.
They cannot be dispensed with, save we fail!


NAPOLEON (furiously)

Infantry! Where the sacred God thinks he
I can find infantry for him! Forsooth,
Does he expect me to create them--eh?
Why sends he such a message, seeing well
How we are straitened here!


HEYMES

Such was the prayer
Of my commission, sire. And I say
That I myself have seen his strokes must waste
Without such backing.


NAPOLEON

Why?


HEYMES

Our cavalry
Lie stretched in swathes, fronting the furnace-throats
Of the English cannon as a breastwork built
Of reeking copses. Marshal Ney's third horse
Is shot. Besides the slain, Donop, Guyot,
Lheritier, Piquet, Travers, Delort, more,
Are vilely wounded. On the other hand
Wellington has sought refuge in a square,
Few of his generals are not killed or hit,
And all is tickle with him. But I see,
Likewise, that I can claim no reinforcement,
And will return and say so.

[Exit HEYMES]


NAPOLEON (to Soult, sadly)

Ney does win me!
I fain would strengthen him.--Within an ace
Of breaking down the English as he is,
'Twould write upon the sunset "Victory!"--
But whom may spare we from the right here now?
So single man!

[An interval.]

Life's curse begins, I see,
With helplessness! . . . All I can compass is
To send Durutte to fall on Papelotte,
And yet more strongly occupy La Haye,
To cut off Bulow's right from bearing up
And checking Ney's attack. Further than this
None but the Gods can scheme!

[SOULT hastily begins writing orders to that effect. The point
of view shifts.]



SCENE VII

THE SAME. THE ENGLISH POSITION

[The din of battle continues. WELLINGTON, UXBRIDGE, HILL, DE
LANCEY, GORDON, and others discovered near the middle of the line.]


SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

It is a moment when the steadiest pulse
Thuds pit-a-pat. The crisis shapes and nears
For Wellington as for his counter-chief.


SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

The hour is shaking him, unshakeable
As he may seem!


SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

Know'st not at this stale time
That shaken and unshaken are alike
But demonstrations from the Back of Things?
Must I again reveal It as It hauls
The halyards of the world?

[A transparency as in earlier scenes again pervades the spectacle,
and the ubiquitous urging of the Immanent Will becomes visualized.
The web connecting all the apparently separate shapes includes
WELLINGTON in its tissue with the rest, and shows him, like them,
as acting while discovering his intention to act. By the lurid
light the faces of every row, square, group, and column of men,
French and English, wear the expression of that of people in a
dream.]


SPIRIT OF THE PITIES (tremulously)

Yea, sire; I see.
Disquiet me, pray, no more!

[The strange light passes, and the embattled hosts on the field
seem to move independently as usual.]


WELLINGTON (to Uxbridge)

Manoeuvring does not seem to animate
Napoleon's methods now. Forward he comes,
And pounds away on us in the ancient style,
Till he is beaten back in the ancient style;
And so the see-saw sways!

[The din increases. WELLINGTON'S aide-de-camp, Sir A. GORDON,
a little in his rear, falls mortally wounded. The DUKE turns
quickly.]

But where is Gordon?
Ah--hit is he! That's bad, that's bad, by God.

[GORDON is removed. An aide enters.]


AIDE

Your Grace, the Colonel Ompteda has fallen,
And La Haye Sainte is now a bath of blood.
Nothing more can be done there, save with help.
The Rifles suffer sharply!

[An aide is seen coming from KEMPT.]


WELLINGTON

What says he?


DE LANCEY

He says that Kempt, being riddled through and thinned,
Sends him for reinforcements.


WELLINGTON (with heat)

Reinforcements?
And where am I to get him reinforcements
In Heaven's name! I've no reinforcements here,
As he should know.


AIDE (hesitating)

What's to be done, your Grace?


WELLINGTON

Done? Those he has left him, be they many or few,
Fight till they fall, like others in the field!

[Exit aide. The Quartermaster-General DE LANCEY, riding by
WELLINGTON, is struck by a lobbing shot that hurls him over
the head of his horse. WELLINGTON and others go to him.]


DE LANCEY (faintly)

I may as well be left to die in peace!


WELLINGTON

He may recover. Take him to the rear,
And call the best attention up to him.

[DE LANCEY is carried off. The next moment a shell bursts close
to WELLINGTON.]


HILL (approaching)

I strongly feel you stand too much exposed!


WELLINGTON

I know, I know. It matters not one damn!
I may as well be shot as not perceive
What ills are raging here.


HILL

Conceding such,
And as you may be ended momently,
A truth there is no blinking, what commands
Have you to leave me, should fate shape it so?


WELLINGTON

These simply: to hold out unto the last,
As long as one man stands on one lame leg
With one ball in his pouch!--then end as I.

[He rides on slowly with the others. NEY'S charges, though
fruitless so far, are still fierce. His troops are now reduced
to one-half. Regiments of the BACHELU division, and the JAMIN
brigade, are at last moved up to his assistance. They are partly
swept down by the Allied batteries, and partly notched away by
the infantry, the smoke being now so thick that the position of
the battalions is revealed only by the flashing of the priming-
pans and muzzles, and by the furious oaths heard behind the cloud.
WELLINGTON comes back. Enter another aide-de-camp.]


AIDE

We bow to the necessity of saying
That our brigade is lessened to one-third,
Your Grace. And those who are left alive of it
Are so unmuscled by fatigue and thirst
That some relief, however temporary,
Becomes sore need.


WELLINGTON

Inform your general
That his proposal asks the impossible!
That he, I, every Englishman afield,
Must fall upon the spot we occupy,
Our wounds in front.


AIDE

It is enough, your Grace.
I answer for't that he, those under him,
And I withal, will bear us as you say.

[Exit aide. The din of battle goes on. WELLINGTON is grave but
calm. Like those around him, he is splashed to the top of his hat
with partly dried mire, mingled with red spots; his face is grimed
in the same way, little courses showing themselves where the sweat
has trickled down from his brow and temples.]


CLINTON (to Hill)

A rest would do our chieftain no less good,
In faith, than that unfortunate brigade!
He is tried damnably; and much more strained
Than I have ever seen him.


HILL

Endless risks
He's running likewise. What the hell would happen
If he were shot, is more than I can say!


WELLINGTON (calling to some near)

At Talavera, Salamanca, boys,
And at Vitoria, we saw smoke together;
And though the day seems wearing doubtfully,
Beaten we must not be! What would they say
Of us at home, if so?


A CRY (from the French)

Their centre breaks!
Vive l'Empereur!

[It comes from the FOY and BACHELU divisions, which are rushing
forward. HALKETT'S and DUPLAT'S brigades intercept. DUPLAT
falls, shot dead; but the venturesome French regiments, pierced
with converging fires, and cleft with shells, have to retreat.]


HILL (joining Wellington)

The French artillery-fire
To the right still renders regiments restive there
That have to stand. The long exposure galls them.


WELLINGTON

They must be stayed as our poor means afford.
I have to bend attention steadfastly
Upon the centre here. The game just now
Goes all against us; and if staunchness fail
But for one moment with these thinning foot,
Defeat succeeds!

[The battle continues to sway hither and thither with concussions,
wounds, smoke, the fumes of gunpowder, and the steam from the hot
viscera of grape-torn horses and men. One side of a Hanoverian
square is blown away; the three remaining sides form themselves
into a triangle. So many of his aides are cut down that it is
difficult for WELLINGTON to get reports of what is happening
afar. It begins to be discovered at the front that a regiment of
hussars, and others without ammunition, have deserted, and that
some officers in the rear, honestly concluding the battle to be
lost, are riding quietly off to Brussels. Those who are left
unwounded of WELLINGTON'S staff show gloomy misgivings at such
signs, despite their own firmness.]


SPIRIT SINISTER

One needs must be a ghost
To move here in the midst 'twixt host and host!
Their balls scream brisk and breezy tunes through me
As I were an organ-stop. It's merry so;
What damage mortal flesh must undergo!

[A Prussian officer enters to MUFFLING, who has again rejoined
the DUKE'S suite. MUFFLING hastens forward to WELLINGTON.]


MUFFLING

Blucher has just begun to operate;
But owing to Gneisenau's stolid stagnancy
The body of our army looms not yet!
As Zieten's corps still plod behind Smohain
Their coming must be late. Blucher's attack
Strikes the remote right rear of the enemy,
Somewhere by Plancenoit.


WELLINGTON

A timely blow;
But would that Zieten sped! Well, better late
Than never. We'll still stand.

[The point of observation shifts.]



SCENE VIII

THE SAME. LATER

[NEY'S long attacks on the centre with cavalry having failed,
those left of the squadrons and their infantry-supports fall
back pell-mell in broken groups across the depression between
the armies.

Meanwhile BULOW, having engaged LOBAU'S Sixth Corps, carries
Plancenoit.

The artillery-fire between the French and the English continues.
An officer of the Third Foot-guards comes up to WELLINGTON and
those of his suite that survive.]


OFFICER

Our Colonel Canning--coming I know not whence--


WELLINGTON

I lately sent him with important words
To the remoter lines.


OFFICER

As he returned
A grape-shot struck him in the breast; he fell,
At once a dead man. General Halkett, too,
Has had his cheek shot through, but still keeps going.


WELLINGTON

And how proceeds De Lancey?


OFFICER

I am told
That he forbids the surgeons waste their time
On him, who well can wait till worse are eased.


WELLINGTON

A noble fellow.

[NAPOLEON can now be seen, across the valley, pushing forward a
new scheme of some sort, urged to it obviously by the visible
nearing of further Prussian corps. The EMPEROR is as critically
situated as WELLINGTON, and his army is now formed in a right
angle ("en potence"), the main front to the English, the lesser
to as many of the Prussians as have yet arrived. His gestures
show him to be giving instructions of desperate import to a
general whom he has called up.]


SPIRIT IRONIC

He bids La Bedoyere to speed away
Along the whole sweep of the surging line,
And there announce to the breath-shotten bands
Who toil for a chimaera trustfully,
With seventy pounds of luggage on their loins,
That the dim Prussian masses seen afar
Are Grouchy's three-and-thirty thousand, come
To clinch a victory.


SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

But Ney demurs!


SPIRIT IRONIC

Ney holds indignantly that such a feint
Is not war-worthy. Says Napoleon then,
Snuffing anew, with sour sardonic scowl,
That he is choiceless.


SPIRIT SINISTER

Excellent Emperor!
He tops all human greatness; in that he
To lesser grounds of greatness adds the prime,
Of being without a conscience.

[LA BEDOYERE and orderlies start on their mission. The false
intelligence is seen to spread, by the excited motion of the
columns, and the soldiers can be heard shouting as their spirits
revive.

WELLINGTON is beginning to discern the features of the coming
onset, when COLONEL FRASER rides up.]


FRASER

We have just learnt from a deserting captain,
One of the carabineers who charged of late,
That an assault which dwarfs all instances--
The whole Imperial Guard in welded weight--
Is shortly to be made.


WELLINGTON

For your smart speed
My thanks. My observation is confirmed.
We'll hasten now along the battle-line (to Staff),
As swiftest means for giving orders out
Whereby to combat this.

[The speaker, accompanied by HILL, UXBRIDGE, and others--all now
looking as worn and besmirched as the men in the ranks--proceed
along the lines, and dispose the brigades to meet the threatened
shock. The infantry are brought out of the shelter they have
recently sought, the cavalry stationed in the rear, and the
batteries of artillery hitherto kept in reserve are moved to the
front.

The last Act of the battle begins.

There is a preliminary attack by DONZELOT'S columns, combined
with swarms of sharpshooters, to the disadvantage of the English
and their Allies. WELLINGTON has scanned it closely. FITZROY
SOMERSET, his military secretary, comes up.]


WELLINGTON

What casualty has thrown its shade among
The regiments of Nassau, to shake them so?


SOMERSET

The Prince of Orange has been badly struck--
A bullet through his shoulder--so they tell;
And Kielmansegge has shown some signs of stress.
Kincaird's tried line wanes leaner and more lean--
Whittled to a weak skein of skirmishers;
The Twenty-seventh lie dead.


WELLINGTON

Ah yes--I know!

[While they watch developments a cannon-shot passes and knocks
SOMERSET'S right arm to a mash. He is assisted to the rear.

NEY and FRIANT now lead forward the last and most desperate
assault of the day, in charges of the Old and Middle Guard,
the attack by DONZELOT and ALLIX further east still continuing as
a support. It is about a quarter-past eight, and the midsummer
evening is fine after the wet night and morning, the sun approaching
its setting in a sky of gorgeous colours.

The picked and toughened Guard, many of whom stood in the ranks
at Austerlitz and Wagram, have been drawn up in three or four
echelons, the foremost of which now advances up the slopes to
the Allies' position. The others follow at intervals, the
drummers beating the "pas de charge."]


CHORUS OF RUMOURS (aerial music)

Twice thirty throats of couchant cannonry--
Ranked in a hollow curve, to close their blaze
Upon the advancing files--wait silently
Like to black bulls at gaze.

The Guard approaches nearer and more near:
To touch-hole moves each match of smoky sheen:
The ordnance roars: the van-ranks disappear
As if wiped off the scene.

The aged Friant falls as it resounds;
Ney's charger drops--his fifth on this sore day--
Its rider from the quivering body bounds
And forward foots his way.

The cloven columns tread the English height,
Seize guns, repulse battalions rank by rank,
While horse and foot artillery heavily bite
Into their front and flank.

It nulls the power of a flesh-built frame
To live within that zone of missiles. Back
The Old Guard, staggering, climbs to whence it came.
The fallen define its track.

[The second echelon of the Imperial Guard has come up to the
assault. Its columns have borne upon HALKETT'S right. HALKETT,
desperate to keep his wavering men firm, himself seizes and
waves the flag of the Thirty-third, in which act he falls wounded.
But the men rally. Meanwhile the Fifty-second, covered by the
Seventy-first, has advanced across the front, and charges the
Imperial Guard on the flank.

The third echelon next arrives at the English lines and squares;
rushes through the very focus of their fire, and seeing nothing
more in front, raises a shout.


IMPERIAL GUARD

The Emperor! It's victory!


WELLINGTON

Stand up, Guards!
Form line upon the front face of the square!

[Two thousand of MAITLAND'S Guards, hidden in the hollow roadway,
thereupon spring up, form as ordered, and reveal themselves as a
fence of leveled firelocks four deep. The flints click in a
multitude, the pans flash, and volley after volley is poured into
the bear-skinned figures of the massed French, who kill COLONEL
D'OYLEY in returning fire.]


WELLINGTON

Now drive the fellows in! Go on; go on!
You'll do it now!

[COLBORNE converges on the French guard with the Fifty-second, and
The former splits into two as the climax comes. ADAM, MAITLAND,
and COLBORNE pursue their advantage. The Imperial columns are
broken, and their confusion is increased by grape-shot from
BOLTON'S battery.]

Campbell, this order next:
Vivian's hussars are to support, and bear
Against the cavalry towards Belle Alliance.
Go--let him know.

[Sir C. CAMPBELL departs with the order. Soon VIVIAN'S and
VANDELEUR'S light horse are seen advancing, and in due time the
French cavalry are rolled back.

WELLINGTON goes in the direction of the hussars with UXBRIDGE. A
cannon-shot hisses past.]


UXBRIDGE (starting)

I have lost my leg, by God!


WELLINGTON

By God, and have you! Ay--the wind o' the shot
Blew past the withers of my Copenhagen
Like the foul sweeping of a witch's broom.--
Aha--they are giving way!

[While UXBRIDGE is being helped to the rear, WELLINGTON makes a
sign to SALTOUN, Colonel of the First Footguards.]


SALTOUN (shouting)

Boys, now's your time;
Forward and win!


FRENCH VOICES

The Guard gives way--we are beaten!

[They recede down the hill, carrying confusion into NAPOLEON'S
centre just as the Prussians press forward at a right angle from
the other side of the field. NAPOLEON is seen standing in the
hollow beyond La Haye Sainte, alone, except for the presence of
COUNT FLAHAULT, his aide-de-camp. His lips move with sudden
exclamation.


SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

He says "Now all is lost! The clocks of the world
Strike my last empery-hour."

[Towards La Haye Sainte the French of DONZELOT and ALLIX, who
are fighting KEMPT, PACK, KRUSE, and LAMBERT, seeing what has
happened to the Old and Middle Guard, lose heart and recede
likewise; so that the whole French line rolls back like a tide.
Simultaneously the Prussians are pressing forward at Papelotte
and La Haye. The retreat of the French grows into a panic.]


FRENCH VOICES (despairingly)

We are betrayed!

[WELLINGTON rides at a gallop to the most salient point of the
English position, halts, and waves his hat as a signal to all
the army. The sign is answered by a cheer along the length of
the line.]


WELLINGTON

No cheering yet, my lads; but bear ahead,
Before the inflamed face of the west out there
Dons blackness. So you'll round your victory!

[The few aides that are left unhurt dart hither and thither with
this message, and the whole English host and it allies advance
in an ordered mass down the hill except some of the artillery,
who cannot get their wheels over the bank of corpses in front.
Trumpets, drums, and bugles resound with the advance.

The streams of French fugitives as they run are cut down and shot
by their pursuers, whose clothes and contracted features are
blackened by smoke and cartridge-biting, and soiled with loam
and blood. Some French blow out their own brains as they fly.
The sun drops below the horizon while the slaughter goes on.]


SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Is this the last Esdraelon of a moil
For mortal man's effacement?


SPIRIT IRONIC

Warfare, mere,
Plied by the Managed for the Managers;
To wit: by frenzied folks who profit nought
For those who profit all!


SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Between the jars
Of these who live, I hear uplift and move
The bones of those who placidly have lain
Within the sacred garths of yon grey fanes--
Nivelles, and Plancenoit, and Braine l'Alleud--
Beneath the unmemoried mounds through deedless years
Their dry jaws quake: "What Sabaoath is this,
That shakes us in our unobtrusive shrouds,
As though our tissues did not yet abhor
The fevered feats of life?"


SPIRIT IRONIC

Mere fancy's feints!
How know the coffined what comes after them,
Even though it whirl them to the Pleiades?--
Turn to the real.


SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

That hatless, smoke-smirched shape
There in the vale, is still the living Ney,
His sabre broken in his hand, his clothes
Slitten with ploughing ball and bayonet,
One epaulette shorn away. He calls out "Follow!"
And a devoted handful follow him
Once more into the carnage. Hear his voice.


NEY (calling afar)

My friends, see how a Marshal of France can die!


SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Alas, not here in battle, something hints,
But elsewhere! . . . Who's the sworded brother-chief
Swept past him in the tumult?


SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

D'Erlon he.
Ney cries to him:


NEY

Be sure of this, my friend,
If we don't perish here at English hands,
Nothing is left us but the halter-noose
The Bourbons will provide!


SPIRIT IRONIC

A caustic wit,
And apt, to those who deal in adumbrations!

[The brave remnant of the Imperial Guard repulses for a time the
English cavalry under Vivian, in which MAJOR HOWARD and LIEUTENANT
GUNNING of the Tenth Hussars are shot. But the war-weary French
cannot cope with the pursuing infantry, helped by grape-shot from
the batteries.

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