Part 11
The aforesaid tidings fro the minister, spokesman in England's cause to states afar,
II
Traverse the waters borne by one of such; and thereto Bonaparte's responses are:
I
“The principles of honour and of truth which ever actuate the sender's mind
II
“Herein are written largely! Take our thanks: we read that this conjuncture undesigned
I
“Unfolds felicitous means of showing you that still our eyes are set, as yours, on peace,
II
“To which great end the Treaty of Amiens must be the ground- work of our amities.”
I
From London then: “The path to amity the King of England studies to pursue;
II
“With Russia hand in hand he is yours to close the long convulsions thrilling Europe through.”
I
Still fare the shadowy missioners across, by Dover-road and Calais Channel-track,
II
From Thames-side towers to Paris palace-gates; from Paris leisurely to London back.
I
Till thus speaks France: “Much grief it gives us that, being pledged to treat, one Emperor with one King,
II
“You yet have struck a jarring counternote and tone that keys not with such promising.
I
“In these last word, then, of this pregnant parle; I trust I may persuade your Excellency
II
“That in no circumstance, on no pretence, a party to our pact can Russia be.”
SPIRIT SINISTER
Fortunately for the manufacture of corpses by machinery Napoleon sticks to this veto, and so wards off the awkward catastrophe of a general peace descending upon Europe. Now England.
RUMOURS [continuing]
I
Thereon speeds down through Kent and Picardy, evenly as some southing sky-bird's shade:
II
“We gather not from your Imperial lines a reason why our words should be reweighed.
I
“We hold Russia not as our ally that is to be: she stands fully- plighted so;
II
“Thus trembles peace upon this balance-point: will you that Russia be let in or no?”
I
Then France rolls out rough words across the strait: “To treat with you confederate with the Tsar,
II
“Presumes us sunk in sloughs of shamefulness from which we yet stand gloriously afar!
I
“The English army must be Flanders-fed, and entering Picardy with pompous prance,
II
“To warrant such! Enough. Our comfort is, the crime of further strife lies not with France.”
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Alas! what prayer will save the struggling lands, Whose lives are ninepins to these bowling hands?
CHORUS OF RUMOURS
France secretly with--Russia plights her troth! Britain, that lonely isle, is slurred by both.
SPIRIT SINISTER
It is as neat as an uncovered check at chess! You may now mark Fox's blank countenance at finding himself thus rewarded for the good turn done to Bonaparte, and at the extraordinary conduct of his chilly friend the Muscovite.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
His hand so trembles it can scarce retain The quill wherewith he lets Lord Yarmouth know Reserve is no more needed!
SPIRIT IRONIC
Now enters another character of this remarkable little piece--Lord Lauderdale--and again the messengers fly!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
But what strange figure, pale and noiseless, comes, By us perceived, unrecognized by those, Into the very closet and retreat Of England's Minister?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
The Tipstaff he Of the Will, the Many-masked, my good friend Death.-- The statesman's feeble form you may perceive Now hustled into the Invisible, And the unfinished game of Dynasties Left to proceed without him!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Here, then, ends My hope for Europe's reason-wrought repose! He was the friend of peace--did his great best To shed her balms upon humanity; And now he's gone! No substitute remains.
SPIRIT IRONIC
Ay; the remainder of the episode is frankly farcical. Negotiations are again affected; but finally you discern Lauderdale applying for passports; and the English Parliament declares to the nation that peace with France cannot be made.
RUMOURS [concluding]
I
The smouldering dudgeon of the Prussian king, meanwhile, upon the horizon's rim afar
II
Bursts into running flame, that all his signs of friendliness were met by moves for war.
I
Attend and hear, for hear ye faintly may, his manifesto made at Erfurt town,
II
That to arms only dares he now confide the safety and the honour of his crown!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Draw down the curtain, then, and overscreen This too-protracted verbal fencing-scene; And let us turn to clanging foot and horse, Ordnance, and all the enginry of Force!
[Clouds close over the perspective.]
## SCENE III
THE STREETS OF BERLIN
[It is afternoon, and the thoroughfares are crowded with citizens in an excited and anxious mood. A central path is left open for some expected arrival.
There enters on horseback a fair woman, whose rich brown curls stream flutteringly in the breeze, and whose long blue habit flaps against the flank of her curvetting white mare. She is the renowned LOUISA, QUEEN OF PRUSSIA, riding at the head of a regiment of hussars and wearing their uniform. As she prances along the thronging citizens acclaim her enthusiastically.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Who is this fragile fair, in fighting trim?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
She is the pride of Prussia, whose resolve Gives ballast to the purpose of her spouse, And holds him to what men call governing.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Queens have engaged in war; but war's loud trade Rings with a roar unnatural, fitful, forced, Practised by woman's hands!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Of her view The enterprise is that of scores of men, The strength but half-a-ones.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Would fate had ruled The valour had been his, hers but the charm!
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
But he has nothing on't, and she has all. The shameless satires of the bulletins dispatched to Paris, thence the wide world through, Disturb the dreams of her by those who love her, And thus her brave adventurers for the realm Have blurred her picture, soiled her gentleness, And wrought her credit harm.
FIRST CITIZEN [vociferously]
Yes, by God: send and ultimatum to Paris, by God; that's what we'll do, by God. The Confederation of the Rhine was the evil thought of an evil man bent on ruining us!
SECOND CITIZEN
This country double-faced and double-tongued, This France, or rather say, indeed, this Man-- [Peoples are honest dealers in the mass]-- This man, to sign a stealthy scroll with Russia That shuts us off from all indemnities, While swearing faithful friendship with our King, And, still professing our safe wardenry, To fatten other kingdoms at our cost, Insults us grossly, and makes Europe clang With echoes of our wrongs. The little states Of this antique and homely German land Are severed from their blood-allies and kin-- Hereto of one tradition, interest, hope-- In calling lord this rank adventurer, Who'll thrust them as a sword against ourselves.-- Surely Great Frederick sweats within his tomb!
THIRD CITIZEN
Well, we awake, though we have slumbered long, And She is sent by Heaven to kindle us.
[The QUEEN approaches to pass back again with her suite. The vociferous applause is repeated. They regard her as she nears.]
To cry her Amazon, a blusterer, A brazen comrade of the bold dragoons Whose uniform she dons! Her, whose each act Shows but a mettled modest woman's zeal, Without a hazard of her dignity Or moment's sacrifice of seemliness, To fend off ill from home!
FOURTH CITIZEN [entering]
The tidings fly that Russian Alexander Declines with emphasis to ratify The pact of his ambassador with France, And that the offer made the English King To compensate the latter at our cost Has not been taken.
THIRD CITIZEN
And it never will be! Thus evil does not always flourish, faith. Throw down the gage while god is fair to us; He may be foul anon!
[A pause.]
FIFTH CITIZEN [entering]
Our ambassador Lucchesini is already leaving Paris. He could stand the Emperor no longer, so the Emperor takes his place, has decided to order his snuff by the ounce and his candles by the pound, lest he should not be there long enough to use more.
[The QUEEN goes by, and they gaze at here and at the escort of soldiers.]
Haven't we soldiers? Haven't we the Duke of Brunswick to command 'em? Haven't we provisions, hey? Haven't we fortresses and an Elbe, to bar the bounce of an invader?
[The cavalcade passes out of sight and the crowd draws off.]
FIRST CITIZEN
By God, I must to beer and 'bacco, to soften my rage!
[Exeunt citizens.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
So doth the Will objectify Itself In likeness of a sturdy people's wrath, Which takes no count of the new trends of time, Trusting ebbed glory in a present need.-- What if their strength should equal not their fire, And their devotion dull their vigilance?-- Uncertainly, by fits, the Will doth work In Brunswick's blood, their chief, as in themselves; It ramifies in streams that intermit And make their movement vague, old-fashioned, slow To foil the modern methods counterposed!
[Evening descends on the city, and it grows dusk. The soldiers being dismissed from duty, some young officers in a frolic of defiance halt, draw their swords and whet them on the steps of the FRENCH AMBASSADOR'S residence as they pass. The noise of whetting is audible through the street.]
CHORUS OF THE PITIES [aerial music]
The soul of a nation distrest Is aflame, And heaving with eager unrest In its aim To assert its old prowess, and stouten its chronicled fame!
SEMICHORUS I
It boils in a boisterous thrill Through the mart, Unconscious well-nigh as the Will Of its part: Would it wholly might be so, and feel not the forthcoming smart!
SEMICHORUS II
In conclaves no voice of reflection Is heard, King, Councillors, grudge circumspection A word, And victory is visioned, and seemings as facts are averred.
CHORUS
Yea, the soul of a nation distrest Is aflame, And heaving with eager unrest In its aim At supreme desperations to blazon the national name!
[Midnight strikes, lights are extinguished one by one, and the
## scene disappears.]
## SCENE IV
THE FIELD OF JENA
[Day has just dawned through a grey October haze. The French, with their backs to the nebulous light, loom out and show themselves to be already under arms; LANNES holding the centre, NEY the right, SOULT the extreme right, and AUGEREAU the left. The Imperial Guard and MURAT'S cavalry are drawn up on the Landgrafenberg, behind the centre of the French position. In a valley stretching along to the rear of this height flows northward towards the Elbe the little river Saale, on which the town of Jena stands.
On the irregular plateaux in front of the French lines, and almost close to the latter, are the Prussians un TAUENZIEN; and away on their right rear towards Weimar the bulk of the army under PRINCE HOHENLOHE. The DUKE OF BRUNSWICK [father of the Princess of Wales] is twelve miles off with his force at Auerstadt, in the valley of the Ilm.
Enter NAPOLEON, and men bearing torches who escort him. He moves along the front of his troops, and is lost to view behind the mist and surrounding objects. But his voice is audible.]
NAPOLEON
Keep you good guard against their cavalry, In past repute the formidablest known, And such it may be now; so asks our heed. Receive it, then, in square, unflinchingly.-- Remember, men, last year you captured Ulm, So make no doubt that you will vanquish these!
SOLDIERS
Long live the Emperor! Advance, advance!
DUMB SHOW
Almost immediately glimpses reveal that LANNES' corps is moving forward, and amid an unbroken clatter of firelocks spreads out further and wider upon the stretch of country in front of the Landgrafenberg. The Prussians, surprised at discerning in the fog such masses of the enemy close at hand, recede towards the Ilm.
From PRINCE HOHENLOHE, who is with the body of the Prussians on the Weimar road to the south, comes perspiring the bulk of the infantry to rally the retreating regiments of TAUENZIEN, and he hastens up himself with the cavalry and artillery. The action is renewed between him and NEY as the clocks of Jena strike ten.
But AUGEREAU is seen coming to Ney's assistance on one flank of the Prussians, SOULT bearing down on the other, while NAPOLEON on the Landgrafenberg orders the Imperial Guard to advance. The doomed Prussians are driven back, this time more decisively, falling in great numbers and losing many as prisoners as they reel down the sloping land towards the banks of the Ilm behind them. GENERAL RUCHEL, in a last despairing effort to rally, faces the French onset in person and alone. He receives a bullet through the chest and falls dead.
The crisis of the struggle is reached, though the battle is not over. NAPOLEON, discerning from the Landgrafenberg that the decisive moment has come, directs MURAT to sweep forward with all his cavalry. It engages the shattered Prussians, surrounds them, and cuts them down by thousands.
From behind the horizon, a dozen miles off, between the din of guns in the visible battle, there can be heard an ominous roar, as of a second invisible battle in progress there. Generals and other officers look at each other and hazard conjectures between whiles, the French with exultation, the Prussians gloomily.
HOHENLOHE
That means the Duke of Brunswick, I conceive, Impacting on the enemy's further force Led by, they say, Davout and Bernadotte. God grant his star less lurid rays then ours, Or this too pregnant, hoarsely-groaning day Shall, ere its loud delivery be done, Have twinned disasters to the fatherland That fifty years will fail to sepulchre!
Enter a straggler on horseback.
STRAGGLER
Prince, I have circuited by Auerstadt, And bring ye dazzling tidings of the fight, Which, if report by those who saw't be true, Has raged thereat from clammy day-dawn on, And left us victors!
HOHENLOHE
Thitherward go I, And patch the mischief wrought upon us here!
Enter a second and then a third straggler.
Well, wet-faced men, whence come ye? What d'ye bring?
STRAGGLER II
Your Highness, I rode straight from Hassenhausen, Across the stream of battle as it boiled Betwixt that village and the banks of Saale, And such the turmoil that no man could speak On what the issue was!
HOHENLOHE [To Straggler III]
Can you add aught?
STRAGGLER III
Nothing that's clear, your Highness.
HOHENLOHE
Man, your mien Is that of one who knows, but will not say. Detain him here.
STRAGGLER III
The blackness of my news, Your Highness, darks my sense!... I saw this much: His charging grenadiers, received in the face A grape-shot stroke that gouged out half of it, Proclaiming then and there his life fordone.
HOHENLOHE
Fallen? Brunswick! Reed in council, rock in fire... Ah, this he looked for. Many a time of late Has he, by some strange gift of foreknowing, Declared his fate was hovering in such wise!
STRAGGLER III
His aged form being borne beyond the strife, The gallant Moellendorf, in flushed despair, Swore he would not survive; and, pressing on, He, too, was slaughtered. Patriotic rage Brimmed marshals' breasts and men's. The King himself Fought like the commonest. But nothing served. His horse is slain; his own doom yet unknown. Prince William, too, is wounded. Brave Schmettau Is broke; himself disabled. All give way, And regiments crash like trees at felling-time!
HOHENLOHE
No more. We match it here. The yielding lines Still sweep us backward. Backward we must go!
[Exeunt HOHENLOHE, Staff, stragglers, etc.]
The Prussian retreat from Jena quickens to a rout, many thousands taken prisoners by MURAT, who pursues them to Weimar, where the inhabitants fly shrieking through the streets.
The October day closes in to evening. By this time the troops retiring with the King of Prussia from the second battlefield of Auerstadt have intersected RUCHEL'S and HOHENLOHE'S flying battalions from Jena. The crossing streams of fugitives strike panic into each other, and the tumult increases with the thickening darkness till night renders the scene invisible, and nothing remains but a confused diminishing noise, and fitful lights here and there.
## SCENE V
BERLIN. A ROOM OVERLOOKING A PUBLIC PLACE
[A fluttering group of ladies is gathered at the window, gazing out and conversing anxiously. The time draws towards noon, when the clatter of a galloping horse's hoofs is heard echoing up the long Potsdamer-Strasse, and presently turning into the Leipziger- Strasse reaches the open space commanded by the ladies' outlook. It ceases before a Government building opposite them, and the rider disappears into the courtyard.]
FIRST LADY
Yes: surely he is a courier from the field!
SECOND LADY
Shall we not hasten down, and take from him The doom his tongue may deal us?
THIRD LADY
We shall catch As soon by watching here as hastening hence The tenour of his new. [They wait.] Ah, yes: see--see The bulletin is straightway to be nailed! He was, then, from the field....
[They wait on while the bulletin is affixed.]
SECOND LADY
I cannot scan the words the scroll proclaims; Peer as I will, these too quick-thronging dreads Bring water to the eyes. Grant us, good Heaven, That victory be where she is needed most To prove Thy goodness!... What do you make of it?
THIRD LADY [reading, through a glass]
“The battle strains us sorely; but resolve May save us even now. Our last attack Has failed, with fearful loss. Once more we strive.”
[A long silence in the room. Another rider is heard approaching, above the murmur of the gathering citizens. The second lady looks out.]
SECOND LADY
A straggler merely he.... But they decide, At last, to post his news, wild-winged or no.
THIRD LADY [reading again through her glass]
“The Duke of Brunswick, leading on a charge, Has met his death-doom. Schmettau, too, is slain; Prince William wounded. But we stand as yet, Engaging with the last of our reserves.”
[The agitation in the street communicates itself to the room. Some of the ladies weep silently as they wait, much longer this time. Another horseman is at length heard clattering into the Platz, and they lean out again with painful eagerness.]
SECOND LADY
An adjutant of Marshal Moellendorf's If I define him rightly. Read--O read!-- Though reading draw them from their socket-holes Use your eyes now!
THIRD LADY [glass up]
As soon as 'tis affixed.... Ah--this means much! The people's air and gait Too well betray disaster. [Reading.] “Berliners, The King has lost the battle! Bear it well. The foremost duty of a citizen Is to maintain a brave tranquillity. This is what I, the Governor, demand Of men and women now.... The King lives still.”
[They turn from the window and sit in a silence broken only by monosyllabic words, hearing abstractedly the dismay without that has followed the previous excitement and hope.
The stagnation is ended by a cheering outside, of subdued emotional quality, mixed with sounds of grief. They again look forth. QUEEN LOUISA is leaving the city with a very small escort, and the populace seem overcome. They strain their eyes after her as she disappears. Enter fourth lady.]
FIRST LADY
How does she bear it? Whither does she go?
FOURTH LADY
She goes to join the King at Custrin, there To abide events--as we. Her heroism So schools her sense of her calamities As out of grief to carve new queenliness, And turn a mobile mien to statuesque, Save for a sliding tear.
[The ladies leave the window severally.]
SPIRIT IRONIC
So the Will plays at flux and reflux still. This monarchy, one-half whose pedestal Is built of Polish bones, has bones home-made! Let the fair woman bear it. Poland did.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Meanwhile the mighty Emperor nears apace, And soon will glitter at the city gates With palpitating drums, and breathing brass, And rampant joyful-jingling retinue.
[An evening mist cloaks the scene.]
## SCENE VI
THE SAME
[It is a brilliant morning, with a fresh breeze, and not a cloud. The open Platz and the adjoining streets are filled with dense crowds of citizens, in whose upturned faces curiosity has mastered consternation and grief.
Martial music is heard, at first faint, then louder, followed by a trampling of innumerable horses and a clanking of arms and accoutrements. Through a street on the right hand of the view from the windows come troops of French dragoons heralding the arrival of BONAPARTE.
Re-enter the room hurriedly and cross to the windows several ladies as before, some in tears.]
FIRST LADY
The kingdom late of Prussia, can it be That thus it disappears?--a patriot-cry, A battle, bravery, ruin; and no more?
SECOND LADY
Thank God the Queen's gone!
THIRD LADY
To what sanctuary? From earthquake shocks there is no sheltering cell! --Is this what men call conquest? Must it close As historied conquests do, or be annulled By modern reason and the urbaner sense?-- Such issue none would venture to predict, Yet folly 'twere to nourish foreshaped fears And suffer in conjecture and in deed.-- If verily our country be dislimbed, Then at the mercy of his domination The face of earth will lie, and vassal kings Stand waiting on himself the Overking, Who ruling rules all; till desperateness Sting and excite a bonded last resistance, And work its own release.
SECOND LADY
He comes even now From sacrilege. I learn that, since the fight, In marching here by Potsdam yesterday, Sans-Souci Palace drew his curious feet, Where even great Frederick's tomb was bared to him.
FOURTH LADY
All objects on the Palace--cared for, kept Even as they were when our arch-monarch died-- The books, the chair, the inkhorn, and the pen He quizzed with flippant curiosity; And entering where our hero's bones are urned He seized the sword and standards treasured there, And with a mixed effrontery and regard Declared they should be all dispatched to Paris As gifts to the Hotel des Invalides.
THIRD LADY
Such rodomontade is cheap: what matters it!
[A galaxy of marshals, forming Napoleon's staff, now enters the Platz immediately before the windows. In the midst rides the EMPEROR himself. The ladies are silent. The procession passes along the front until it reaches the entrance to the Royal Palace. At the door NAPOLEON descends from his horse and goes into the building amid the resonant trumpetings of his soldiers and the silence of the crowd.]
SECOND LADY [impressed]
O why does such a man debase himself By countenancing loud scurrility Against a queen who cannot make reprise! A power so ponderous needs no littleness-- The last resort of feeble desperates!
[Enter fifth lady.]
FIFTH LADY [breathlessly]
Humiliation grows acuter still. He placards rhetoric to his soldiery On their distress of us and our allies, Declaring he'll not stack away his arms Till he has choked the remaining foes of France In their own gainful glut.--Whom means he, think you?
FIRST LADY
Us?
THIRD LADY
Russia? Austria?
FIFTH LADY
Neither: England.--Yea, Her he still holds the master mischief-mind, And marrer of the countries' quietude, By exercising untold tyranny Over all the ports and seas.
SECOND LADY
Then England's doomed! When he has overturned the Russian rule, England comes next for wrack. They say that know!... Look--he has entered by the Royal doors And makes the Palace his.--Now let us go!-- Our course, alas! is--whither?
[Exeunt ladies. The curtain drops temporarily.]
SEMICHORUS I OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music]
Deeming himself omnipotent With the Kings of the Christian continent, To warden the waves was his further bent.
SEMICHORUS II
But the weaving Will from eternity, [Hemming them in by a circling sea] Evolved the fleet of the Englishry.
SEMICHORUS I
The wane of his armaments ill-advised, At Trafalgar, to a force despised, Was a wound which never has cicatrized.
SEMICHORUS II
This, O this is the cramp that grips! And freezes the Emperor's finger-tips From signing a peace with the Land of Ships.
CHORUS