________________________________________________
_ PART SECOND. ACT FIFTH. SCENE I.
[The many-candled saloon at the ARCH-CHANCELLOR'S is visible through a draped opening, and a crowd of masked dancers in fantastic costumes revolve, sway, and intermingle to the music that proceeds from an alcove at the further end of the same apartment. The front of the scene is a withdrawing-room of smaller size, now vacant, save for the presence of one sombre figure, that of NAPOLEON, seated and apparently watching the moving masquerade.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Napoleon even now embraces not
From stress of state affairs, which hold him grave
Through revels that might win the King of Spleen
To toe a measure! I would speak with him.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Speak if thou wilt whose speech nor mars nor mends!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES (into Napoleon's ear)
Why thus and thus Napoleon? Can it be
That Wagram with its glories, shocks, and shames,
Still leaves athirst the palate of thy pride?
NAPOLEON (answering as in soliloquy)
The trustless, timorous lease of human life
Warns me to hedge in my diplomacy.
The sooner, then, the safer! Ay, this eve,
This very night, will I take steps to rid
My morrows of the weird contingencies
That vision round and make one hollow-eyed. . . .
The unexpected, lurid death of Lannes--
Rigid as iron, reaped down like a straw--
Tiptoed Assassination haunting round
In unthought thoroughfares, the near success
Of Staps the madman, argue to forbid
The riskful blood of my previsioned line
And potence for dynastic empery
To linger vialled in my veins alone.
Perhaps within this very house and hour,
Under an innocent mask of Love or Hope,
Some enemy queues my ways to coffin me. . . .
When at the first clash of the late campaign,
A bold belief in Austria's star prevailed,
There pulsed quick pants of expectation round
Among the cowering kings, that too well told
What would have fared had I been overthrown!
So; I must send down shoots to future time
Who'll plant my standard and my story there;
And a way opens.--Better I had not
Bespoke a wife from Alexander's house.
Not there now lies my look. But done is done!
[The dance ends and masks enter, BERTHIER among them. NAPOLEON beckons to him, and he comes forward.]
God send you find amid this motley crew
Frivolities enough, friend Berthier--eh?
My thoughts have worn oppressive shades despite such!
What scandals of me do they bandy here?
These close disguises render women bold--
Their shames being of the light, not of the thing--
And your sagacity has garnered much,
I make no doubt, of ill and good report,
That marked our absence from the capital?
BERTHIER
Methinks, your Majesty, the enormous tale
Of your campaign, like Aaron's serpent-rod,
Has swallowed up the smaller of its kind.
Some speak, 'tis true, in counterpoise thereto,
Of English deeds by Talavera town,
Though blurred by their exploit at Walcheren,
And all its crazy, crass futilities.
NAPOLEON
Yet was the exploit well featured in design,
Large in idea, and imaginative;
I had not deemed the blinkered English folk
So capable of view. Their fate contrived
To place an idiot at the helm of it,
Who marred its working, else it had been hard
If things had not gone seriously for us.
--But see, a lady saunters hitherward
Whose gait proclaims her Madame Metternich,
One that I fain would speak with.
[NAPOLEON rises and crosses the room toward a lady-masker who has just appeared in the opening. BERTHIER draws off, and the EMPEROR, unceremoniously taking the lady's arm, brings her forward to a chair, and sits down beside her as dancing is resumed.]
MADAME METTERNICH
In a flash
I recognized you, sire; as who would not
The bearer of such deep-delved charactery?
NAPOLEON
The devil, madame, take your piercing eyes!
It's hard I cannot prosper in a game
That every coxcomb plays successfully.
--So here you are still, though your loving lord
Disports him at Vienna?
MADAME METTERNICH
Paris, true,
Still holds me; though in quiet, save to-night,
When I have been expressly prayed come hither,
Or I had not left home.
NAPOLEON
I sped that Prayer!--
I have a wish to put a case to you,
Wherein a woman's judgment, such as yours,
May be of signal service. (He lapses into reverie.)
MADAME METTERNICH
Well? The case--
NAPOLEON
Is marriage--mine.
MADAME METTERNICH
It is beyond me, sire!
NAPOLEON
You glean that I have decided to dissolve
(Pursuant to monitions murmured long)
My union with the present Empress--formed
Without the Church's due authority?
MADAME METTERNICH
Vaguely. And that light tentatives have winged
Betwixt your Majesty and Russia's court,
To moot that one of their Grand Duchesses
Should be your Empress-wife. Nought else I know.
NAPOLEON
There have been such approachings; more, worse luck.
Last week Champagny wrote to Alexander
Asking him for his sister--yes or no.
MADAME METTERNICH
What "worse luck" lies in that, your Majesty,
If severance from the Empress Josephine
Be fixed unalterably?
NAPOLEON
This worse luck lies there:
If your Archduchess, Marie Louise the fair,
Would straight accept my hand, I'd offer it,
And throw the other over. Faith, the Tsar
Has shown such backwardness in answering me,
Time meanwhile trotting, that I have ample ground
For such withdrawal.--Madame, now, again,
Will your Archduchess marry me of no?
MADAME METTERNICH
Your sudden questions quite confound my sense!
It is impossible to answer them.
NAPOLEON
Well, madame, now I'll put it to you thus:
Were you in the Archduchess Marie's place
Would you accept my hand--and heart therewith?
MADAME METTERNICH
I should refuse you--most assuredly!(17)
NAPOLEON (laughing roughly)
Ha-ha! That's frank. And devilish cruel too!
--Well, write to your husband. Ask him what he thinks,
And let me know.
MADAME METTERNICH
Indeed, sire, why should I?
There goes the Ambassador, Prince Schwarzenberg,
Successor to my spouse. He's now the groove
And proper conduit of diplomacy
Through whom to broach this matter to his Court.
NAPOLEON
Do you, then, broach it through him, madame, pray;
Now, here, to-night.
MADAME METTERNICH
I will, informally,
To humour you, on this recognizance,
That you leave not the business in my hands,
But clothe your project in official guise
Through him to-morrow; so safeguarding me
From foolish seeming, as the babbler forth
Of a fantastic and unheard of dream.
NAPOLEON
I'll send Eugene to him, as you suggest.
Meanwhile prepare him. Make your stand-point this:
Children are needful to my dynasty,
And if one woman cannot mould them for me,
Why, then, another must.
[Exit NAPOLEON abruptly. Dancing continues. MADAME METTERNICH sits on, musing. Enter SCHWARZENBERG.]
MADAME METTERNICH
The Emperor has just left me. We have tapped
This theme and that; his empress and--his next.
Ay, so! Now, guess you anything?
SCHWARZENBERG
Of her?
No more than that the stock of Romanoff
Will not supply the spruce commodity.
MADAME METTERNICH
And that the would-be customer turns toe
To our shop in Vienna.
SCHWARZENBERG
Marvellous;
And comprehensible but as the dream
Of Delaborde, of which I have lately heard.
It will not work!--What think you, madame, on't?
MADAME METTERNICH
That it will work, and is as good as wrought!--
I break it to you thus, at his request.
In brief time Prince Eugene will wait on you,
And make the formal offer in his name.
SCHWARZENBERG
Which I can but receive _ad referendum_,
And shall initially make clear as much,
Disclosing not a glimpse of my own mind!
Meanwhile you make good Metternich aware?
MADAME METTERNICH
I write this midnight, that amaze may pitch
To coolness ere your messenger arrives.
SCHWARZENBERG
This radiant revelation flicks a gleam
On many circling things!--the courtesies
Which graced his bearing toward our officer
Amid the tumults of the late campaign,
His wish for peace with England, his affront
At Alexander's tedious-timed reply . . .
Well, it will thrust a thorn in Russia's side,
If I err not, whatever else betide!
[Exeunt. The maskers surge into the foreground of the scene, and their motions become more and more fantastic. A strange gloom begins and intensifies, until only the high lights of their grinning figures are visible. These also, with the whole ball-room, gradually darken, and the music softens to silence.]
Footnote:
(17)So Madame Metternich to her husband in reporting
this interview. But who shall say! _
Read next: Part 2: Act 5: Scene 2. Paris. The Tuileries
Read previous: Part 2: Act 4: Scene 8. Walcheren
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