Part 32
Yes, faith; and 'tis pity. But, by God, Blücher, I think, and I can make a shift To do the business without troubling 'em! Though I've an infamous army, that's the truth,-- Weak, and but ill-equipped,--and what's as bad, A damned unpractised staff!
MUFFLING
We'll hope for luck. Blücher concentrates certainly by now Near Ligny, as he says in his dispatch. Your Grace, I glean, will mass at Quatre-Bras?
WELLINGTON
Ay, now we are sure this move on Charleroi Is no mere feint. Though I had meant Nivelles. Have ye a good map, Richmond, near at hand?
RICHMOND
In the next room there's one. [Exit RICHMOND.]
[WELLINGTON calls up various general officers and aides from other parts of the room. PICTON, UXBRIDGE, HILL, CLINTON, VIVIAN, MAITLAND, PONSONBY, SOMERSET, and others join him in succession, receive orders, and go out severally.]
PRINCE OF ORANGE
As my divisions seem to lie around The probable point of impact, it behoves me To start at once, Duke, for Genappe, I deem? Being in Brussels, all for this damned ball, The dispositions out there have, so far, Been made by young Saxe Weimar and Perponcher, On their own judgment quite. I go, your Grace?
WELLINGTON
Yes, certainly. 'Tis now desirable. Farewell! Good luck, until we meet again, The battle won!
[Exit PRINCE OF ORANGE, and shortly after, MUFFLING. RICHMOND returns with a map, which he spreads out on the table. WELLINGTON scans it closely.]
Napoleon has befooled me, By God he has,--gained four-and-twenty hours' Good march upon me!
RICHMOND
What do you mean to do?
WELLINGTON
I have bidden the army concentrate in strength At Quatre-Bras. But we shan't stop him there; So I must fight him HERE. [He marks Waterloo with his thumbnail.] Well, now I have sped, All necessary orders I may sup, And then must say good-bye. [To Brunswick.] This very day There will be fighting, Duke. You are fit to start?
BRUNSWICK [coming forward]
I leave almost this moment.--Yes, your Grace-- And I sheath not my sword till I have avenged My father's death. I have sworn it!
WELLINGTON
My good friend, Something too solemn knells beneath your words. Take cheerful views of the affair in hand, And fall to't with _sang froid_!
BRUNSWICK
But I have sworn! Adieu. The rendezvous is Quatre-Bras?
WELLINGTON
Just so. The order is unchanged. Adieu; But only till a later hour to-day; I see it is one o'clock.
[WELLINGTON and RICHMOND go out of the alcove and join the hostess, BRUNSWICK'S black figure being left there alone. He bends over the map for a few seconds.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
O Brunswick, Duke of Deathwounds! Even as he For whom thou wear'st that filial weedery Was waylaid by my tipstaff nine years since, So thou this day shalt feel his fendless tap, And join thy sire!
BRUNSWICK [starting up]
I am stirred by inner words, As 'twere my father's angel calling me,-- That prelude to our death my lineage know!
[He stands in a reverie for a moment; then, bidding adieu to the DUCHESS OF RICHMOND and her daughter, goes slowly out of the ballroom by a side-door.]
DUCHESS
The Duke of Brunswick bore him gravely here. His sable shape has stuck me all the eve As one of those romantic presences We hear of--seldom see.
WELLINGTON [phlegmatically]
Romantic,--well, It may be so. Times often, ever since The Late Duke's death, his mood has tinged him thus. He is of those brave men who danger see, And seeing front it,--not of those, less brave But counted more, who face it sightlessly.
YOUNG OFFICER [to partner]
The Generals slip away! I, Love, must take The cobbled highway soon. Some hours ago The French seized Charleroi; so they loom nigh.
PARTNER [uneasily]
Which tells me that the hour you draw your sword Looms nigh us likewise!
YOUNG OFFICER
Some are saying here We fight this very day. Rumours all-shaped Fly round like cockchafers!
[Suddenly there echoes in the ballroom a long-drawn metallic purl of sound, making all the company start.]
Transcriber's Note: There follows in musical notation five measures for side-drum.
Ah--there it is, Just as I thought! They are beating the Generale.
[The loud roll of side-drums is taken up by other drums further and further away, till the hollow noise spreads all over the city. Dismay is written on the faces of the women. The Highland non- commissioned officers and privates march smartly down the ballroom and disappear.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Discerned you stepping out in front of them That figure--of a pale drum-major kind, Or fugleman--who wore a cold grimace?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
He was my old fiend Death, in rarest trim, The occasion favouring his husbandry!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Are those who marched behind him, then, to fall?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Ay, all well-nigh, ere Time have houred three-score.
PARTNER
Surely this cruel call to instant war Spares space for one dance more, that memory May store when you are gone, while I--sad me!-- Wait, wait and weep.... Yes--one there is to be!
SPIRIT IRONIC
Methinks flirtation grows too tender here!
[Country Dance, “The Prime of Life,” a favourite figure at this period. The sense of looming tragedy carries emotion to its climax. All the younger officers stand up with their partners, forming several figures of fifteen or twenty couples each. The air is ecstasizing, and both sexes abandon themselves to the movement.
Nearly half an hour passes before the figure is danced down. Smothered kisses follow the conclusion. The silence is broken from without by more long hollow rolling notes, so near that they thrill the window-panes.]
SEVERAL
'Tis the Assemble. Now, then, we must go!
[The officers bid farewell to their partners and begin leaving in twos and threes. When they are gone the women mope and murmur to each other by the wall, and listen to the tramp of men and slamming of doors in the streets without.]
LADY HAMILTON DALRYMPLE
The Duke has borne him gaily here to-night. The youngest spirits scarcely capped his own.
DALRYMPLE
Maybe that, finding himself blade to blade With Bonaparte at last, his blood gets quick. French lancers of the Guard were seen at Frasnes Last midnight; so the clash is not far off.
[They leave.]
DE LANCEY [to his wife]
I take you to our door, and say good-bye, And go thence to the Duke's and wait for him. In a few hours we shall be all in motion Towards the scene of--what we cannot tell! You, dear, will haste to Antwerp till it's past, As we have arranged.
[They leave.]
WELLINGTON [to Richmond]
Now I must also go, And snatch a little snooze ere harnessing. The Prince and Brunswick have been gone some while.
[RICHMOND walks to the door with him. Exit WELLINGTON, RICHMOND returns.]
DUCHESS [to Richmond]
Some of these left renew the dance, you see. I cannot stop them; but with memory hot Of those late gone, of where they are gone, and why, It smacks of heartlessness!
RICHMOND
Let be; let be; Youth comes not twice to fleet mortality!
[The dancing, however, is fitful and spiritless, few but civilian partners being left for the ladies. Many of the latter prefer to sit in reverie while waiting for their carriages.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
When those stout men-at-arms drew forward there, I saw a like grimacing shadow march And pirouette before no few of them. Some of themselves beheld it; some did not.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Which were so ushered?
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Brunswick, who saw and knew; One also moved before Sir Thomas Picton, Who coolly conned and drily spoke to it; Another danced in front of Ponsonby, Who failed of heeding his.--De Lancey, Hay, Gordon, and Cameron, and many more Were footmanned by like phantoms from the ball.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Multiplied shimmerings of my Protean friend, Who means to couch them shortly. Thou wilt eye Many fantastic moulds of him ere long, Such as, bethink thee, oft hast eyed before.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
I have--too often!
[The attenuated dance dies out, the remaining guests depart, the musicians leave the gallery and depart also. RICHMOND goes to a window and pulls back one of the curtains. Dawn is barely visible in the sky, and the lamps indistinctly reveal that long lines of British infantry have assembled in the street. In the irksomeness of waiting for their officers with marching-orders, they have lain down on the pavements, where many are soundly sleeping, their heads on their knapsacks and their arms by their side.]
DUCHESS
Poor men. Sleep waylays them. How tired they seem!
RICHMOND
They'll be more tired before the day is done. A march of eighteen miles beneath the heat, And then to fight a battle ere they rest, Is what foreshades.--Well, it is more than bed-time; But little sleep for us or any one To-night in Brussels!
[He draws the window-curtain and goes out with the DUCHESS. Servants enter and extinguish candles. The scene closes in darkness.]
## SCENE III
CHARLEROI. NAPOLEON'S QUARTERS
[The same midnight. NAPOLEON is lying on a bed in his clothes. In consultation with SOULT, his Chief of Staff, who is sitting near, he dictates to his Secretary orders for the morrow. They are addressed to KELLERMANN, DROUOT, LOBAU, GERARD, and other of his marshals. SOULT goes out to dispatch them.
The Secretary resumes the reading of reports. Presently MARSHAL NEY is announced He is heard stumbling up the stairs, and enters.]
NAPOLEON
Ah, Ney; why come you back? Have you secured The all-important Crossways?--safely sconced Yourself at Quatre-Bras?
NEY
Not, sire, as yet. For, marching forwards, I heard gunnery boom, And, fearing that the Prussians had engaged you, I stood at pause. Just then---
NAPOLEON
My charge was this: Make it impossible at any cost That Wellington and Blücher should unite. As it's from Brussels that the English come, And from Namur the Prussians, Quatre-Bras Lends it alone for their forgathering: So, why exists it not in your hands/
NEY
My reason, sire, was rolling from my tongue.-- Hard on the boom of guns, dim files of foot Which read to me like massing Englishry-- The vanguard of all Wellington's array-- I half-discerned. So, in pure wariness, I left the Bachelu columns there at Frasnes, And hastened back to tell you.
NAPOLEON
Ney; O Ney! I fear you are not the man that once you were; Of your so daring, such a faint-heart now! I have ground to know the foot that flustered you Were but a few stray groups of Netherlanders; For my good spies in Brussels send me cue That up to now the English have not stirred, But cloy themselves with nightly revel there.
NEY [bitterly]
Give me another opportunity Before you speak like that!
NAPOLEON
You soon will have one!... But now--no more of this. I have other glooms Upon my soul--the much-disquieting news That Bourmont has deserted to our foes With his whole staff.
NEY
We can afford to let him.
NAPOLEON
It is what such betokens, not their worth, That whets it!... Love, respect for me, have waned; But I will right that. We've good chances still. You must return foot-hot to Quatre-Bras; There Kellermann's cuirassiers will promptly join you To bear the English backward Brussels way. I go on towards Fleurus and Ligny now.-- If Blücher's force retreat, and Wellington's Lie somnolent in Brussels one day more, I gain that city sans a single shot!...
Now, friend, downstairs you'll find some supper ready, Which you must tuck in sharply, and then off. The past day has not ill-advantaged us; We have stolen upon the two chiefs unawares, And in such sites that they must fight apart. Now for a two hours' rest.--Comrade, adieu Until to-morrow!
NEY
Till to-morrow, sire!
[Exit NEY. NAPOLEON falls asleep, and the Secretary waits till dictation shall be resumed. BUSSY, the orderly officer, comes to the door.
BUSSY
Letters--arrived from Paris. [Hands letters.]
SECRETARY
He shall have them The moment he awakes. These eighteen hours He's been astride; and is not what he was.-- Much news from Paris?
BUSSY
I can only say What's not the news. The courier has just told me He'd nothing from the Empress at Vienna To bring his Majesty. She writes no more.
SECRETARY
And never will again! In my regard That bird's forsook the nest for good and all.
BUSSY
All that they hear in Paris from her court Is through our spies there. One of them reports This rumour of her: that the Archduke John, In taking leave to join our enemies here, Said, “Oh, my poor Louise; I am grieved for you And what I hope is, that he'll be run through, Or shot, or break his neck, for your own good No less than ours.
NAPOLEON [waking]
By “he” denoting me?
BUSSY [starting]
Just so, your Majesty.
NAPOLEON [peremptorily]
What said the Empress?
BUSSY
She gave no answer, sire, that rumour bears.
NAPOLEON
Count Neipperg, whom they have made her chamberlain, Interred his wife last spring--is it not so?
BUSSY
He did, your Majesty.
NAPOLEON
H'm....You may go.
[Exit BUSSY. The Secretary reads letters aloud in succession. He comes to the last; begins it; reaches a phrase, and stops abruptly.]
Mind not! Read on. No doubt the usual threat, Or prophecy, from some mad scribe? Who signs it?
SECRETARY
The subscript is “The Duke of Enghien!”
NAPOLEON [starting up]
Bah, man! A treacherous trick! A hoax--no more! Is that the last?
SECRETARY
The last, your Majesty.
NAPOLEON
Then now I'll sleep. In two hours have me called.
SECRETARY
I'll give the order, sire.
[The Secretary goes. The candles are removed, except one, and NAPOLEON endeavours to compose himself.]
SPIRIT IRONIC
A little moral panorama would do him no harm, after that reminder of the Duke of Enghien. Shall it be, young Compassion?
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
What good--if that old Years tells us be true? But I say naught. To ordain is not for me!
[Thereupon a vision passes before NAPOLEON as he lies, comprising hundreds of thousands of skeletons and corpses in various stages of decay. They rise from his various battlefields, the flesh dropping from them, and gaze reproachfully at him. His intimate officers who have been slain he recognizes among the crowd. In front is the DUKE OF ENGHIEN as showman.]
NAPOLEON [in his sleep]
Why, why should this reproach be dealt me now? Why hold me my own master, if I be Ruled by the pitiless Planet of Destiny?
[He jumps up in a sweat and puts out the last candle; and the
## scene is curtained by darkness.]
## SCENE IV
A CHAMBER OVERLOOKING A MAIN STREET IN BRUSSELS
[A June sunrise; the beams struggling through the window-curtains. A canopied bed in a recess on the left. The quick notes of “Brighton Camp, or the “Girl I've left behind me,” strike sharply into the room from fifes and drums without. A young lady in a dressing-gown, who has evidently been awaiting the sound, springs from the bed like a hare from its form, undraws window-curtains and opens the window.
Columns of British soldiery are marching past from the Parc southward out of the city by the Namur Gate. The windows of other houses in the street rattle open, and become full of gazers.
A tap at the door. An older lady enters, and comes up to the first.]
YOUNGER LADY [turning]
O mamma--I didn't hear you!
ELDER LADY
I was sound asleep till the thumping of the drums set me fantastically dreaming, and when I awoke I found they were real. Did they wake you too, my dear?
Younger Lady [reluctantly]
I didn't require waking. I hadn't slept since we came home.
ELDER LADY
That was from the excitement of the ball. There are dark rings round your eye. [The fifes and drums are now opposite, and thrill the air in the room.] Ah--that “Girl I've left behind me!”--which so many thousands of women have throbbed an accompaniment to, and will again to-day if ever they did!
YOUNGER LADY [her voice faltering]
It is rather cruel to say that just now, mamma. There, I can't look at them after it! [She turns and wipes her eyes.]
ELDER LADY
I wasn't thinking of ourselves--certainly not of you.--How they press on--with those great knapsacks and firelocks and, I am told, fifty-six rounds of ball-cartridge, and four days' provisions in those haversacks. How can they carry it all near twenty miles and fight with it on their shoulders!... Don't cry, dear. I thought you would get sentimental last night over somebody. I ought to have brought you home sooner. How many dances did you have? It was impossible for me to look after you in the excitement of the war-tidings.
YOUNGER LADY
Only three--four.
ELDER LADY
Which were they?
YOUNGER LADY
“Enrico,” the “Copenhagen Waltz” and the “Hanoverian,” and the “Prime of Life.”
ELDER LADY
It was very foolish to fall in love on the strength of four dances.
YOUNGER LADY [evasively]
Fall in love? Who said I had fallen in love? What a funny idea!
ELDER LADY
Is it?... Now here come the Highland Brigade with their pipes and their “Hieland Laddie.” How the sweethearts cling to the men's arms. [Reaching forward.] There are more regiments following. But look, that gentleman opposite knows us. I cannot remember his name. [She bows and calls across.] Sir, which are these?
GENTLEMAN OPPOSITE
The Ninety-second. Next come the Forty-ninth, and next the Forty- second--Sir Denis Pack's brigade.
ELDER LADY
Thank you.--I think it is that gentleman we talked to at the Duchess's, but I am not sure. [A pause: another band.]
GENTLEMAN OPPOSITE
That's the Twenty-eighth. [They pass, with their band and colours.] Now the Thirty-second are coming up--part of Kempt's brigade. Endless, are they not?
ELDER LADY
Yes, Sir. Has the Duke passed out yet?
GENTLEMAN OPPOSITE
Not yet. Some cavalry will go by first, I think. The foot coming up now are the Seventy-ninth. [They pass.]... These next are the Ninety-fifth. [They pass.]... These are the First Foot- guards now. [They pass, playing “British Grenadiers.”]... The Fusileer-guards now. [They pass.] Now the Coldstreamers. [They pass. He looks up towards the Parc.] Several Hanoverian regiments under Colonel Best are coming next. [They pass, with their bands and colours. An interval.]
ELDER LADY [to daughter]
Here are the hussars. How much more they carry to battle than at reviews. The hay in those great nets must encumber them. [She turns and sees that her daughter has become pale.] Ah, now I know! HE has just gone by. You exchanged signals with him, you wicked girl! How do you know what his character is, or if he'll ever come back?
[The younger lady goes and flings herself on her face upon the bed, sobbing silently. Her mother glances at her, but leaves her alone. An interval. The prancing of a group of horsemen is heard on the cobble-stones without.]
GENTLEMAN OPPOSITE [calling]
Here comes the Duke!
ELDER LADY [to younger]
You have left the window at the most important time! The Duke of Wellington and his staff-officers are passing out.
YOUNGER LADY
I don't want to see him. I don't want to see anything any more!
[Riding down the street comes WELLINGTON in a grey frock-coat and small cocked hat, frigid and undemonstrative; accompanied by four or five Generals of his suite, the Deputy Quartermaster-general De LANCEY, LORD FITZROY SOMERSET, Aide-de-camp, and GENERAL MUFFLING.]
GENTLEMAN OPPOSITE
He is the Prussian officer attached to our headquarters, through whom Wellington communicates with Blücher, who, they say, is threatened by the French at Ligny at this moment.
[The elder lady turns to her daughter, and going to the bed bends over her, while the horses' tramp of WELLINGTON and his staff clatters more faintly in the street, and the music of the last retreating band dies away towards the Forest of Soignes.
Finding her daughter is hysterical with grief she quickly draws the window-curtains to screen the room from the houses opposite. Scene ends.]
## SCENE V
THE FIELD OF LIGNY
[The same day later. A prospect of the battlefield of Ligny southward from the roof of the windmill of Bussy, which stands at the centre and highest point of the Prussian position, about six miles south-east of Quatre-Bras.
The ground slopes downward along the whole front of the scene to a valley through which wanders the Ligne, a muddy stream bordered by sallows. On both sides of the stream, in the middle plane of the picture, stands the village of Ligny, composed of thatched cottages, gardens, and farm-houses with stone walls; the main features, such as the church, church-yard, and village-green being on the further side of the Ligne.
On that side the land reascends in green wheatfields to an elevation somewhat greater than that of the foreground, reaching away to Fleurus in the right-hand distance.
In front, on the slopes between the spectator and the village, is the First Corps of the Prussian army commanded by Zieten, its First Brigade under STEINMETZ occupying the most salient point. The Corps under THIELMANN is ranged to the left, and that of PIRCH to the rear, in reserve to ZIETEN. In the centre-front, just under the mill, BLÜCHER on a fine grey charger is intently watching, with his staff.
Something dark is seen to be advancing over the horizon by Fleurus, about three miles off. It is the van of NAPOLEON'S army, approaching to give battle.
At this moment hoofs are heard clattering along a road that passes behind the mill; and there come round to the front the DUKE OF WELLINGTON, his staff-officers, and a small escort of cavalry.
WELLINGTON and BLÜCHER greet each other at the foot of the windmill. They disappear inside, and can be heard ascending the ladders.
Enter on the roof WELLINGTON and BLÜCHER, followed by FITZROY SOMERSET, GNEISENAU, MUFFLING, and others. Before renewing their conversation they peer through their glasses at the dark movements on the horizon. WELLINGTON'S manner is deliberate, judicial, almost indifferent; BLÜCHER'S eager and impetuous.
WELLINGTON
They muster not as yet in near such strength At Quatre-Bras as here.
BLÜCHER
'Tis from Fleurus They come debouching. I, perforce, withdrew My forward posts of cavalry at dawn In face of their light cannon.... They'll be here I reckon, soon!
WELLINGTON [still with glass]
I clearly see his staff, And if my eyes don't lie, the Arch-one too.... It is the whole Imperial army, Prince, That we've before us. [A silence.] Well, we'll cope with them! What would you have me do?
[BLÜCHER is so absorbed in what he sees that he does not heed.]
GNEISENAU
Duke, this I'd say: Events suggest to us that you come up With all your force, behind the village here, And act as our reserve.
MUFFLING
But Bonaparte, Pray note, has redistributed his strength In fashion that you fail to recognize. I am against your scheme.
BLÜCHER [lowering his glass]
Signs notify Napoleon's plans as changed! He purports now To strike our left--between Sombreffe and Brye.... If so, I have to readjust my ward.
WELLINGTON
One of his two divisions that we scan Outspreading from Fleurus, seems bent on Ligny, The other on Saint-Amand.
BLÜCHER
Well, I shall see In half an hour, your Grace. If what I deem Be what he means, Von Zieten's corps forthwith Must stand to their positions: Pirch out here, Henckel at Ligny, Steinmetz at La Haye.
WELLINGTON
So that, your Excellency, as I opine, I go and sling my strength on their left wing-- Manoeuvring to outflank 'em on that side.
BLÜCHER
True, true. Our plan uncovers of itself; You bear down everything from Quatre-Bras Along the road to Frasnes.
WELLINGTON
I will, by God. I'll bear straight on to Gosselies, if needs!
GNEISENAU