Part 19
A hope well seated, sire. The Emperor, Imperious and determined in his rule, Is easy-natured in domestic life, As my long time in Paris amply proved. Moreover, the accessories of his glory Have been, and will be, admirably designed To fire the fancy of a young princess.
FRANCIS
Thus far you satisfy me.... So, to close, Or not to close with him, is now the thing.
METTERNICH
Your Majesty commands the issue quite: The father of his people can alone In such a case give answer--yes or no. Vagueness and doubt have ruined Russia's chance; Let not, then, such be ours.
FRANCIS
You mean, if I, You'd answer straight. What would that answer be?
METTERNICH
In state affairs, sire, as in private life, Times will arise when even the faithfullest squire Finds him unfit to jog his chieftain's choice, On whom responsibility must lastly rest. And such times are pre-eminently, sire, Those wherein thought alone is not enough To serve the head as guide. As Emperor, As father, both, to you, to you in sole Must appertain the privilege to pronounce Which track stern duty bids you tread herein.
FRANCIS
Affection is my duty, heart my guide.-- Without constraint or prompting I shall leave The big decision in my daughter's hands. Before my obligations to my people Must stand her wish. Go, find her, Metternich, Take her the tidings. She is free with you, And will speak out. [Looking forth from the terrace.] She's here at hand, I see: I'll call her in. Then tell me what's her mind.
[He beckons from the window, and goes out in another direction.]
METTERNICH
So much for form's sake! Can the river-flower The current drags, direct its face up-stream? What she must do she will; nought else at all.
[Enter through one of the windows MARIA LOUISA in garden-costume, fresh-coloured, girlish, and smiling. METTERNICH bends.]
MARIA LOUISA
O how, dear Chancellor, you startled me! Please pardon my so brusquely bursting in. I saw you not.--Those five poor little birds That haunt out there beneath the pediment, Snugly defended from the north-east wind, Have lately disappeared. I sought a trace Of scattered feathers, which I dread to find!
METTERNICH
They are gone, I ween, the way of tender flesh At the assaults of winter, want, and foes.
MARIA LOUISA
It is too melancholy thinking, that! Don't say it.--But I saw the Emperor here? Surely he beckoned me?
METTERNICH
Sure, he did, Your gracious Highness; and he has left me here To break vast news that will make good his call.
MARIA LOUISA
Then do. I'll listen. News from near or far?
[She seats herself.]
METTERNICH
From far--though of such distance-dwarfing might That far may read as near eventually. But, dear Archduchess, with your kindly leave I'll speak straight out. The Emperor of the French Has sent to-day to make, through Schwarzenberg, A formal offer of his heart and hand, His honours, dignities, imperial throne, To you, whom he admires above all those The world can show elsewhere.
MARIA LOUISA [frightened]
My husband--he? What, an old man like him!
METTERNICH [cautiously]
He's scarcely old, Dear lady. True, deeds densely crowd in him; Turn months to years calendaring his span; Yet by Time's common clockwork he's but young.
MARIA LOUISA
So wicked, too!
METTERNICH [nettled]
Well-that's a point of view.
MARIA LOUISA
But, Chancellor, think what things I have said to him! Can women marry where they have taunted so?
METTERNICH
Things? Nothing inexpungeable, I deem, By time and true good humour.
MARIA LOUISA
O I have! Horrible things. Why--ay, a hundred times-- I have said I wished him dead! At that strained hour When the first voicings of the late war came, Thrilling out how the French were smitten sore And Bonaparte retreating, I clapped hands And answered that I hoped he'd lose his head As well as lose the battle!
METTERNICH
Words. But words! Born like the bubbles of a spring that come Of zest for springing--aimless in their shape.
MARIA LOUISA
It seems indecent, mean, to wed a man Whom one has held such fierce opinions of!
METTERNICH
My much beloved Archduchess, and revered, Such things have been! In Spain and Portugal Like enmities have led to intermarriage. In England, after warring thirty years The Red and White Rose wedded.
MARIA LOUISA [after a silence]
Tell me, now, What does my father wish?
METTERNICH
His wish is yours. Whatever your Imperial Highness feels On this grave verdict of your destiny, Home, title, future sphere, he bids you think Not of himself, but of your own desire.
MARIA LOUISA [reflecting]
My wish is what my duty bids me wish. Where a wide Empire's welfare is in poise, That welfare must be pondered, not my will. I ask of you, then, Chancellor Metternich, Straightway to beg the Emperor my father That he fulfil his duty to the realm, And quite subordinate thereto all thought Of how it personally impinge on me.
[A slight noise as of something falling is heard in the room. They glance momentarily, and see that a small enamel portrait of MARIE ANTOINETTE, which was standing on a console-table, has slipped down on its face.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
What mischief's this? The Will must have its way.
SPIRIT SINISTER
Perhaps Earth shivered at the lady's say?
SHADE OF THE EARTH
I own hereto. When France and Austria wed My echoes are men's groans, my dews are red; So I have reason for a passing dread!
METTERNICH
Right nobly phrased, Archduchess; wisely too. I will acquaint your sire the Emperor With these your views. He waits them anxiously. [Going.]
MARIA LOUISA
Let me go first. It much confuses me To think--But I would fain let thinking be!
[She goes out trembling. Enter FRANCIS by another door.]
METTERNICH
I was about to seek your Majesty. The good Archduchess luminously holds That in this weighty question you regard The Empire. Best for it is best for her.
FRANCIS [moved]
My daughter's views thereon do not surprise me. She is too staunch to pit a private whim Against the fortunes of a commonwealth. During your speech with her I have taken thought To shape decision sagely. An assent Would yield the Empire many years of peace, And leave me scope to heal those still green sores Which linger from our late unhappy moils. Therefore, my daughter not being disinclined, I know no basis for a negative. Send, then, a courier prompt to Paris: say The offer made for the Archduchess' hand I do accept--with this defined reserve, That no condition, treaty, bond, attach To such alliance save the tie itself. There are some sacrifices whose grave rites No bargain must contaminate. This is one-- This personal gift of a beloved child!
METTERNICH [leaving]
I'll see to it this hour, your Majesty, And cant the words in keeping with your wish. To himself as he goes.] Decently done!... He slipped out “sacrifice,” And scarce could hide his heartache for his girl. Well ached it!--But when these things have to be It is as well to breast them stoically.
[Exit METTERNICH. The clouds draw over.]
## SCENE IV
LONDON. A CLUB IN ST. JAMES'S STREET
[A winter midnight. Two members are conversing by the fire, and others are seen lolling in the background, some of them snoring.]
FIRST MEMBER
I learn from a private letter that it was carried out in the Emperor's Cabinet at the Tuileries--just off the throne-room, where they all assembled in the evening,--Boney and the wife of his bosom [In pure white muslin from head to foot, they say], the Kings and Queens of Holland, Whestphalia, and Naples, the Princess Pauline, and one or two more; the officials present being Cambaceres the Chancellor, and Count Regnaud. Quite a small party. It was over in minutes--short and sweet, like a donkey's gallop.
SECOND MEMBER
Anything but sweet for her. How did she stand it?
FIRST MEMBER
Serenely, I believe, while the Emperor was making his speech renouncing her; but when it came to her turn to say she renounced him she began sobbing mightily, and was so completely choked up that she couldn't get out a word.
SECOND MEMBER
Poor old dame! I pity her, by God; though she had a rattling good spell while it lasted.
FIRST MEMBER
They say he was a bit upset, too, at sight of her tears But I dare vow that was put on. Fancy Boney caring a curse what a woman feels. She had learnt her speech by heart, but that did not help her: Regnaud had to finish it for her, the ditch that overturned her being where she was made to say that she no longer preserved any hope of having children, and that she was pleased to show her attachment by enabling him to obtain them by another woman. She was led off fainting. A turning of the tables, considering how madly jealous she used to make him by her flirtations!
[Enter a third member.]
SECOND MEMBER
How is the debate going? Still braying the Government in a mortar?
THIRD MEMBER
They are. Though one thing every body admits: young Peel has made a wonderful first speech in seconding the address. There has been nothing like it since Pitt. He spoke rousingly of Austria's misfortunes--went on about Spain, of course, showing that we must still go on supporting her, winding up with a brilliant peroration about--what were the words--“the fiery eyes of the British soldier!”--Oh, well: it was all learnt before-hand, of course.
SECOND MEMBER
I wish I had gone down. But the wind soon blew the other way.
THIRD MEMBER
Then Gower rapped out his amendment. That was good, too, by God.
SECOND MEMBER
Well, the war must go on. And that being the general conviction this censure and that censure are only so many blank cartridges.
THIRD MEMBER
Blank? Damn me, were they! Gower's was a palpable hit when he said that Parliament had placed unheard-of resources in the hands of the Ministers last year, to make this year's results to the country worse than if they had been afforded no resources at all. Every single enterprise of theirs had been a beggarly failure.
SECOND MEMBER
Anybody could have said it, come to that.
THIRD MEMBER
Yes, because it is so true. However, when he began to lay on with such rhetoric as “the treasures of the nation lavished in wasteful thoughtlessness,”--“thousands of our troops sacrificed wantonly in pestilential swamps of Walcheren,” and gave the details we know so well, Ministers wriggled a good one, though 'twas no news to 'em. Castlereagh kept on starting forward as if he were going to jump up and interrupt, taking the strictures entirely as a personal affront.
[Enter a fourth member.]
SEVERAL MEMBERS
Who's speaking now?
FOURTH MEMBER
I don't know. I have heard nobody later than Ward.
SECOND MEMBER
The fact is that, as Whitbread said to me to-day, the materials for condemnation are so prodigious that we can scarce marshal them into argument. We are just able to pour 'em out one upon t'other.
THIRD MEMBER
Ward said, with the blandest air in the world: “Censure? Do his Majesty's Ministers expect censure? Not a bit. They are going about asking in tremulous tones if anybody has heard when their impeachment is going to begin.”
SEVERAL MEMBERS
Haw--haw--haw!
THIRD MEMBER
Then he made another point. After enumerating our frightful failures--Spain, Walcheren, and the rest--he said: “But Ministers have not failed in everything. No; in one thing they have been strikingly successful. They have been successful in their attack upon Copenhagen--because it was directed against an ally!” Mighty fine, wasn't it?
SECOND MEMBER
How did Castlereagh stomach that?
THIRD MEMBER
He replied then. Donning his air of injured innocence he proved the honesty of his intentions--no doubt truly enough. But when he came to Walcheren nothing could be done. The case was hopeless, and he knew it, and foundered. However, at the division, when he saw what a majority was going out on his side he was as frisky as a child. Canning's speech was grave, with bits of shiny ornament stuck on-- like the brass nails on a coffin, Sheridan says.
[Fifth and sixth members stagger in, arm-and-arm.]
FIFTH MEMBER
The 'vision is---'jority of ninety-six againsht--Gov'ment--I mean-- againsht us. Which is it--hey? [To his companion.]
SIXTH MEMBER
Damn majority of--damn ninety-six--against damn amendment! [They sink down on a sofa.]
SECOND MEMBER
Gad, I didn't expect the figure would have been quite so high!
THIRD MEMBER
The one conviction is that the war in the Peninsula is to go on, and as we are all agreed upon that, what the hell does it matter what their majority was?
[Enter SHERIDAN. They all look inquiringly.]
SHERIDAN
Have ye heard the latest?
SECOND MEMBER
Ninety-six against us.
SHERIDAN
O no-that's ancient history. I'd forgot it.
THIRD MEMBER
A revolution, because Ministers are not impeached and hanged?
SHERIDAN
That's in contemplation, when we've got their confessions. But what I meant was from over the water--it is a deuced sight more serious to us than a debate and division that are only like the Liturgy on a Sunday--known beforehand to all the congregation. Why, Bonaparte is going to marry Austria forthwith--the Emperor's daughter Maria Louisa.
THIRD MEMBER
The Lord look down! Our late respected crony of Austria! Why, in this very night's debate they have been talking about the laudable principles we have been acting upon in affording assistance to the Emperor Francis in his struggle against the violence and ambition of France!
SECOND MEMBER
Boney safe on that side, what may not befall!
THIRD MEMBER
We had better make it up with him, and shake hands all round.
SECOND MEMBER
Shake heads seems most natural in the case. O House of Hapsburg, how hast thou fallen!
[Enter WHITBREAD, LORD HUTCHINSON, LORD GEORGE CAVENDISH, GEORGE PONSONBY, WINDHAM, LORD GREY, BARING, ELLIOT, and other members, some drunk. The conversation becomes animated and noisy; several move off to the card-room, and the scene closes.]
## SCENE V
THE OLD WEST HIGHWAY OUT OF VIENNA
[The spot is where the road passes under the slopes of the Wiener Wald, with its beautiful forest scenery.]
DUMB SHOW
A procession of enormous length, composed of eighty carriages-- many of them drawn by six horses and one by eight--and escorted by detachments of cuirassiers, yeomanry, and other cavalry, is quickening its speed along the highway from the city.
The six-horse carriages contain a multitude of Court officials, ladies of the Court, and other Austrian nobility. The eight-horse coach contains a rosy, blue-eyed girl of eighteen, with full red lips, round figure, and pale auburn hair. She is MARIA LOUISA, and her eyes are red from recent weeping. The COUNTESS DE LAZANSKY, Grand Mistress of the Household, in the carriage with her, and the other ladies of the Palace behind, have a pale, proud, yet resigned look, as if conscious that upon their sex had been laid the burden of paying for the peace with France. They have been played out of Vienna with French marches, and the trifling incident has helped on their sadness.
The observer's vision being still bent on the train of vehicles and cavalry, the point of sight is withdrawn high into the air, till the huge procession on the brown road looks no more than a file of ants crawling along a strip of garden-matting. The spacious terrestrial outlook now gained shows this to be the great road across Europe from Vienna to Munich, and from Munich westerly to France.
The puny concatenation of specks being exclusively watched, the surface of the earth seems to move along in an opposite direction, and in infinite variety of hill, dale, woodland, and champaign. Bridges are crossed, ascents are climbed, plains are galloped over, and towns are reached, among them Saint Polten, where night falls.
Morning shines, and the royal crawl is resumed, and continued through Linz, where the Danube is reapproached, and the girl looks pleased to see her own dear Donau still. Presently the tower of Brannau appears, where the animated dots pause for formalities, this being the frontier; and MARIA LOUISA becomes MARIE LOUISE and a Frenchwoman, in the charge of French officials.
After many breaks and halts, during which heavy rains spread their gauzes over the scene, the roofs and houses of Munich disclose themselves, suggesting the tesserae of an irregular mosaic. A long stop is made here.
The tedious advance continues. Vine-circled Stuttgart, flat Carlsruhe, the winding Rhine, storky Strassburg, pass in panorama beneath us as the procession is followed. With Nancy and Bar-le- Duc sliding along, the scenes begin to assume a French character, and soon we perceive Chalons and ancient Rheims. The last day of the journey has dawned. Our vision flits ahead of the cortege to Courcelles, a little place which must be passed through before Soissons is reached. Here the point of sight descends to earth, and the Dumb Show ends.
## SCENE VI
COURCELLES
[It is now seen to be a quiet roadside village, with a humble church in its midst, opposite to which stands an inn, the highway passing between them. Rain is still falling heavily. Not a soul is visible anywhere.
Enter from the west a plain, lonely carriage, traveling in a direction to meet the file of coaches that we have watched. It stops near the inn, and two men muffled in cloaks alight by the door away from the hostel and towards the church, as if they wished to avoid observation. Their faces are those of NAPOLEON and MURAT, his brother-in-law. Crossing the road through the mud and rain they stand in the church porch, and watch the descending drifts.]
NAPOLEON [stamping an impatient tattoo]
One gets more chilly in a wet March than in a dry, however cold, the devil if he don't! What time do you make it now? That clock doesn't go.
MURAT [drily, looking at his watch]
Yes, it does; and it is right. If clocks were to go as fast as your wishes just now it would be awkward for the rest of the world.
NAPOLEON [chuckling good-humouredly]
How we have dished the Soissons folk, with their pavilions, and purple and gold hangings for bride and bridegroom to meet in, and stately ceremonial to match, and their thousands looking on! Here we are where there's nobody. Ha, ha!
MURAT
But why should they be dished, sire? The pavilions and ceremonies were by your own orders.
NAPOLEON
Well, as the time got nearer I couldn't stand the idea of dawdling about there.
MURAT
The Soissons people will be in a deuce of a taking at being made such fools of!
NAPOLEON
So let 'em. I'll make it up with them somehow.--She can't be far off now, if we have timed her rightly. [He peers out into the rain and listens.]
MURAT
I don't quite see how you are going to manage when she does come. Do we go before her toward Soissons when you have greeted her here, or follow in her rear? Or what do we do?
NAPOLEON
Heavens, I know no more than you! Trust to the moment and see what happens. [A silence.] Hark--here she comes! Good little girl; up to time!
[The distant squashing in the mud of a multitude of hoofs and wheels is succeeded by the appearance of outriders and carriages, horses and horsemen, splashed with sample clays of the districts traversed. The vehicles slow down to the inn. NAPOLEON'S face fires up, and, followed by MURAT, he rushes into the rain towards the coach that is drawn by eight horses, containing the blue-eyed girl. He holds off his hat at the carriage-window.]
MARIE LOUISE [shrinking back inside]
Ah, Heaven! Two highwaymen are upon us!
THE EQUERRY D'AUDENARDE [simultaneously]
The Emperor!
[The steps of the coach are hastily lowered, NAPOLEON, dripping, jumps in and embraces her. The startled ARCHDUCHESS, with much blushing and confusion recognizes him.]
MARIE LOUISE [tremulously, as she recovers herself]
You are so much--better looking than your portraits--that I hardly knew you! I expected you at Soissons. We are not at Soissons yet?
NAPOLEON
No, my dearest spouse, but we are together! [Calling out to the equerry.] Drive through Soissons--pass the pavilion of reception without stopping, and don't halt till we reach Compiegne.
[He sits down in the coach and is shut in, MURAT laughing silently at the scene. Exeunt carriages and riders toward Soissons.]
CHORUS OF THE IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music]
First 'twas a finished coquette, And now it's a raw ingenue.-- Blond instead of brunette, An old wife doffed for a new. She'll bring him a baby, As quickly as maybe, And that's what he wants her to do, Hoo-hoo! And that's what he wants her to do!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
What lewdness lip those wry-formed phantoms there!
IRONIC SPIRITS
Nay, Showman Years! With holy reverent air We hymn the nuptials of the Imperial pair.
[The scene thickens to mist and obscures the scene.]
## SCENE VII
PETERSBURG. THE PALACE OF THE EMPRESS-MOTHER
[One of the private apartments is disclosed, in which the Empress- mother and Alexander are seated.]
EMPRESS-MOTHER
So one of Austrian blood his pomp selects To be his bride and bulwark--not our own. Thus are you coolly shelved!
ALEXANDER
Me, mother dear? You, faith, if I may say it dutifully! Had all been left to me, some time ere now He would have wedded Kate.
EMPRESS-MOTHER
How so, my son? Catharine was plighted, and it could not be.
ALEXANDER
Rather you swiftly pledged and married her, To let Napoleon have no chance that way. But Anne remained.
EMPRESS-MOTHER
How Anne?--so young a girl! Sane Nature would have cried indecency At such a troth.
ALEXANDER
Time would have tinkered that, And he was well-disposed to wait awhile; But the one test he had no temper for Was the apparent slight of unresponse Accorded his impatient overtures By our suspensive poise of policy.
EMPRESS-MOTHER
A backward answer is our country's card-- The special style and mode of Muscovy. We have grown great upon it, my dear son, And may such practice rule our centuries through! The necks of those who rate themselves our peers Are cured of stiffness by its potency.
ALEXANDER
The principle in this case, anyhow, Is shattered by the facts: since none can doubt Your policy was counted an affront, And drove my long ally to Austria's arms, With what result to us must yet be seen!
EMPRESS-MOTHER
May Austria win much joy of the alliance! Marrying Napoleon is a midnight leap For any Court in Europe, credit me, If ever such there were! What he may carve Upon the coming years, what murderous bolt Hurl at the rocking Constitutions round, On what dark planet he may land himself In his career through space, no sage can say.
ALEXANDER
Well--possibly!... And maybe all is best That he engrafts his lineage not on us.-- But, honestly, Napoleon none the less Has been my friend, and I regret the dream And fleeting fancy of a closer tie!
EMPRESS-MOTHER
Ay; your regrets are sentimental ever. That he'll be writ no son-in-law of mine Is no regret to me! But an affront There is, no less, in his evasion on't, Wherein the bourgeois quality of him Veraciously peeps out. I would be sworn He set his minions parleying with the twain-- Yourself and Francis--simultaneously, Else no betrothal could have speeded so!
ALEXANDER
Despite the hazard of offence to one?
EMPRESS-MOTHER
More than the hazard; the necessity.
ALEXANDER
There's no offence to me.
EMPRESS-MOTHER
There should be, then. I am a Romanoff by marriage merely, But I do feel a rare belittlement And loud laconic brow-beating herein!
ALEXANDER
No, mother, no! I am the Tsar--not you, And I am only piqued in moderateness. Marriage with France was near my heart--I own it-- What then? It has been otherwise ordained.
[A silence.]
EMPRESS-MOTHER