NAPOLÉON [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.

  NAPOLÉON

  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.

  NAPOLÉON

  I’ll send Eugène 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 NAPOLÉON 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 Eugène 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.]

  PARIS.  THE TUILERIES

    [The evening of the next day.  A saloon of the Palace, with
    folding-doors communicating with a dining-room.  The doors are
    flung open, revealing on the dining-table an untouched dinner,
    NAPOLÉON and JOSÉPHINE rising from it, and DE BAUSSET, chamberlain-
    in-waiting, pacing up and down.  The EMPEROR and EMPRESS come
    forward into the saloon, the latter pale and distressed, and
    patting her eyes with her handkerchief.

    The doors are closed behind them; a page brings in coffee; NAPOLÉON
    signals to him to leave.  JOSÉPHINE goes to pour out the coffee,
    but NAPOLÉON pushes her aside and pours it out himself, looking at
    her in a way which causes her to sink cowering into a chair like a
    frightened animal.]

  JOSÉPHINE

  I see my doom, my friend, upon your face!

  NAPOLÉON

  You see me bored by Cambacérès’ ball.

  JOSÉPHINE

  It means divorce!—a thing more terrible
  Than carrying elsewhere the dalliances
  That formerly were mine.  I kicked at that;
  But now agree, as I for long have done,
  To any infidelities of act
  May I be yours in name!

  NAPOLÉON

            My mind must bend
  To other things than our domestic petting:
  The Empire orbs above our happiness,
  And ’tis the Empire dictates this divorce.
  I reckon on your courage and calm sense
  To breast with me the law’s formalities,
  And get it through before the year has flown.

  JOSÉPHINE

  But are you REALLY going to part from me?
  O no, no, my dear husband; no, in truth,
  It cannot be my Love will serve me so!

  NAPOLÉON

  I mean but mere divorcement, as I said,
  On simple grounds of sapient sovereignty.

  JOSÉPHINE

  But nothing have I done save good to you:—
  Since the fond day we wedded into one
  I never even have THOUGHT you jot of harm!
  Many the happy junctures when you have said
  I stood as guardian-angel over you,
  As your Dame Fortune, too, and endless things
  Of such-like pretty tenour—yes, you have!
  Then how can you so gird against me now?
  You had not pricked upon it much of late,
  And so I hoped and hoped the ugly spectre
  Had been laid dead and still.

  NAPOLÉON [impatiently]

            I tell you, dear,
  The thing’s decreed, and even the princess chosen.

  JOSÉPHINE

  Ah—so—the princess chosen!... I surmise
  It is none else than the Grand-Duchess Anne:
  Gossip was right—though I would not believe.
  She’s young; but no great beauty!—Yes, I see
  Her silly, soulless eyes and horrid hair;
  In which new gauderies you’ll forget sad me!

  NAPOLÉON

  Upon my soul you are childish, Joséphine:
  A woman of your years to pout it so!—
  I say it’s not the Tsar’s Grand-Duchess Anne.

  JOSÉPHINE

  Some other Fair, then.  You whose name can nod
  The flower of all the world’s virginity
  Into your bed, will well take care of that!
  [Spitefully.]  She may not have a child, friend, after all.

  NAPOLÉON [drily]

  You hope she won’t, I know!—But don’t forget
  Madame Walewska did, and had she shown
  Such cleverness as yours, poor little fool,
  Her withered husband might have been displaced,
  And her boy made my heir.—Well, let that be.
  The severing parchments will be signed by us
  Upon the fifteenth, prompt.

  JOSÉPHINE

            What—I have to sign
  My putting away upon the fifteenth next?

  NAPOLÉON

  Ay—both of us.

  JOSÉPHINE [falling on her knees]

            So far advanced—so far!
  Fixed?—for the fifteenth?  O I do implore you,
  My very dear one, by our old, old love,
  By my devotion, don’t cast me off
  Now, after these long years!

  NAPOLÉON

            Heavens, how you jade me!
  Must I repeat that I don’t cast you off;
  We merely formally arrange divorce—
  We live and love, but call ourselves divided.

    [A silence.]

  JOSÉPHINE [with sudden calm]

  Very well.  Let it be.  I must submit!  [Rises.]

  NAPOLÉON

  And this much likewise you must promise me,
  To act in the formalities thereof
  As if you shaped them of your own free will.

  JOSÉPHINE

  How can I—when no freewill’s left in me?

  NAPOLÉON

  You are a willing party—do you hear?

  JOSÉPHINE [quivering]

  I hardly—can—bear this!—It is—too much
  For a poor weak and broken woman’s strength!
  But—but I yield!—I am so helpless now:
  I give up all—ay, kill me if you will,
  I won’t cry out!

  NAPOLÉON

            And one thing further still,
  You’ll help me in my marriage overtures
  To win the Duchess—Austrian Marie she,—
  Concentrating all your force to forward them.

  JOSÉPHINE

  It is the—last humiliating blow!—
  I cannot—O, I will not!

  NAPOLÉON [fiercely]

            But you SHALL!
  And from your past experience you may know
  That what I say I mean!

  JOSÉPHINE [breaking into sobs]

  O my dear husband—do not make me—don’t!
  If you but cared for me—the hundredth part
  Of how—I care for you, you could not be
  So cruel as to lay this torture on me.
  It hurts me so!—it cuts me like a sword.
  Don’t make me, dear!  Don’t, will you!  O,O,O!
  [She sinks down in a hysterical fit.]

  NAPOLÉON [calling]

  Bausset!

    [Enter DE BAUSSET, Chamberlain-in-waiting.]

            Bausset, come in and shut the door.
  Assist me here.  The Empress has fallen ill.
  Don’t call for help.  We two can carry her
  By the small private staircase to her rooms.
  Here—I will take her feet.

    [They lift JOSÉPHINE between them and carry her out.  Her moans
    die away as they recede towards the stairs.  Enter two servants,
    who remove coffee-service, readjust chairs, etc.]

  FIRST SERVANT

  So, poor old girl, she’s wailed her Missere Mei, as Mother Church
  says.  I knew she was to get the sack ever since he came back.

  SECOND SERVANT

  Well, there will be a little civil huzzaing, a little crowing and
  cackling among the Bonapartes at the downfall of the Beauharnais
  family at last, mark me there will!  They’ve had their little hour,
  as the poets say, and now ’twill be somebody else’s turn.  O it is
  droll!  Well, Father Time is a great philosopher, if you take him
  right.  Who is to be the new woman?

  FIRST SERVANT

  She that contains in her own corporation the necessary particular.

  SECOND SERVANT

  And what may they be?

  FIRST SERVANT

  She must be young.

  SECOND SERVANT

  Good.  She must.  The country must see to that.

  FIRST SERVANT

  And she must be strong.

  SECOND SERVANT

  Good again.  She must be strong.  The doctors will see to that.

  FIRST SERVANT
  And she must be fruitful as the vine.

  SECOND SERVANT

  Ay, by God.  She must be fruitful as the vine.  That, Heaven help
  him, he must see to himself, like the meanest multiplying man in
  Paris.

    [Exeunt servant.  Re-enter NAPOLÉON with his stepdaughter, Queen
    Hortense.]

  NAPOLÉON
  Your mother is too rash and reasonless—
  Wailing and fainting over statesmanship
  Which is no personal caprice of mine,
  But policy most painful—forced on me
  By the necessities of this country’s charge.
  Go to her; see if she be saner now;
  Explain it to her once and once again,
  And bring me word what impress you may make.

    [HORTENSE goes out.  CHAMPAGNY is shown in.]

  Champagny, I have something clear to say
  Now, on our process after the divorce.
  The question of the Russian Duchess Anne
  Was quite inept for further toying with.
  The years rush on, and I grow nothing younger.
  So I have made up my mind—committed me
  To Austria and the Hapsburgs—good or ill!
  It was the best, most practicable plunge,
  And I have plunged it.

  CHAMPAGNY

            Austria say you, sire?
  I reckoned that but a scurrying dream!

  NAPOLÉON

  Well, so it was.  But such a pretty dream
  That its own charm transfixed it to a notion,
  That showed itself in time a sanity,
  Which hardened in its turn to a resolve
  As firm as any built by mortal mind.—
  The Emperor’s consent must needs be won;
  But I foresee no difficulty there.
  The young Archduchess is a bright blond thing
  By general story; and considering, too,
  That her good mother childed seventeen times,
  It will be hard if she can not produce
  The modest one or two that I require.

    [Enter DE BAUSSET with dispatches.]

  DE BAUSSET

  The courier, sire, from Petersburg is here,
  And brings these letters for your Majesty.

    [Exit DE BAUSSET.]

  NAPOLÉON [after silently reading]

  Ha-ha!  It never rains unless it pours:
  Now I can have the other readily.
  The proverb hits me aptly: “Well they do
  Who doff the old love ere they don the new!”
   [He glances again over the letter.]
  Yes, Caulaincourt now writes he has every hope
  Of quick success in settling the alliance!
  The Tsar is willing—even anxious for it,
  His sister’s youth the single obstacle.
  The Empress-mother, hitherto against me,
  Ambition-fired, verges on suave consent,
  Likewise the whole Imperial family.
  What irony is all this to me now!
  Time lately was when I had leapt thereat.

  CHAMPAGNY

  You might, of course, sire, give th’ Archduchess up,
  Seeing she looms uncertainly as yet,
  While this does so no longer.

  NAPOLÉON

            No—not I.
  My sense of my own dignity forbids
  My watching the slow clocks of Muscovy!
  Why have they dallied with my tentatives
  In pompous silence since the Erfurt day?
  —And Austria, too, affords a safer hope.
  The young Archduchess is much less a child
  Than is the other, who, Caulaincourt says,
  Will be incapable of motherhood
  For six months yet or more—a grave delay.

  CHAMPAGNY

  Your Majesty appears to have trimmed your sail
  For Austria; and no more is to be said!

  NAPOLÉON

  Except that there’s the house of Saxony
  If Austria fail.—then, very well, Champagny,
  Write you to Caulaincourt accordingly.

  CHAMPAGNY

  I will, your Majesty.

    [Exit CHAMPAGNY.  Re-enter QUEEN HORTENSE.]

  NAPOLÉON

            Ah, dear Hortense,
  How is your mother now?

  HORTENSE

            Calm; quite calm, sire.
  I pledge me you need have no further fret
  From her entreating tears.  She bids me say
  That now, as always, she submits herself
  With chastened dignity to circumstance,
  And will descend, at notice, from your throne—
  As in days earlier she ascended it—
  In questionless obedience to your will.
  It was your hand that crowned her; let it be
  Likewise your hand that takes her crown away.
  As for her children, we shall be but glad
  To follow and withdraw ourselves with her,
  The tenderest mother children ever knew,
  From grandeurs that have brought no happiness!

  NAPOLÉON [taking her hand]

  But, Hortense, dear, it is not to be so!
  You must stay with me, as I said before.
  Your mother, too, must keep her royal state,
  Since no repudiation stains this need.
  Equal magnificence will orb her round
  In aftertime as now.  A palace here,
  A palace in the country, wealth to match,
  A rank in order next my future wife’s,
  And conference with me as my truest friend.
  Now we will seek her—Eugène, you, and I—
  And make the project clear.

    [Exeunt NAPOLÉON and HORTENSE.  The scene darkens and shuts.]

  VIENNA.  A PRIVATE APARTMENT IN THE IMPERIAL PALACE

    [The EMPEROR FRANCIS discovered, paler than usual, and somewhat
    flurried.  Enter METTERNICH the Prime Minister—a thin-lipped,
    long-nosed man with inquisitive eyes.]

  FRANCIS

  I have been expecting you some minutes here,
  The thing that fronts us brooking brief delay.—
  Well, what say you by now on this strange offer?

  METTERNICH

  My views remain the same, your Majesty:
  The policy of peace that I have upheld,
  Both while in Paris and of late time here,
  Points to this step as heralding sweet balm
  And bandaged veins for our late crimsoned realm.

  FRANCIS

  Agreed.  As monarch I perceive therein
  A happy doorway for my purposings.
  It seems to guarantee the Hapsburg crown
  A quittance of distractions such as those
  That leave their shade on many a backward year!—
  There is, forsooth, a suddenness about it,
  And it would aid us had we clearly keyed
  The cryptologues of which the world has heard
  Between Napoléon and the Russian Court—
  Begun there with the selfsame motiving.

  METTERNICH

  I would not, sire, one second ponder it.
  It was an obvious first crude cast-about
  In the important reckoning of means
  For his great end, a strong monarchic line.
  The more advanced the more it profits us;
  For sharper, then, the quashing of such views,
  And wreck of that conjunction in the aims
  Of France and Russia, marked so much of late
  As jeopardizing quiet neighbours’ thrones.

  FRANCIS

  If that be so, on the domestic side
  There seems no bar.  Speaking as father solely,
  I see secured to her the proudest fate
  That woman can daydream.  And I could hope
  That private bliss would not be wanting her!

  METTERNICH

  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.]

  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 Cambacérès 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.]

  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.

  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 NAPOLÉON
    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.]

  NAPOLÉON [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.

  NAPOLÉON [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.

  NAPOLÉON

  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!

  NAPOLÉON

  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?

  NAPOLÉON

  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.  NAPOLÉON’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, NAPOLÉON, 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?

  NAPOLÉON

  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.]

  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 Napoléon 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 Napoléon 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, Napoléon 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

  Here comes dear Anne  Speak not of it before her.

    [Enter the GRAND-DUCHESS, a girl of sixteen.]

  ANNE

  Alas! the news is that poor Prussia’s queen,
  Spirited Queen Louisa, once so fair,
  Is slowly dying, mother!  Did you know?

  ALEXANDER [betraying emotion]

  Ah!—such I dreaded from the earlier hints.
  Poor soul—her heart was slain some time ago.

  ANNE

  What do you mean by that, my brother dear?

  EMPRESS-MOTHER

  He means, my child, that he as usual spends
  Much sentiment upon the foreign fair,
  And hence leaves little for his folk at home.

  ALEXANDER

  I mean, Anne, that her country’s overthrow
  Let death into her heart.  The Tilsit days
  Taught me to know her well, and honour her.
  She was a lovely woman even then!...
  Strangely, the present English Prince of Wales
  Was wished to husband her.  Had wishes won,
  They might have varied Europe’s history.

  ANNE

  Napoléon, I have heard, admired her once;
  How he must grieve that soon she’ll be no more!

  EMPRESS-MOTHER

  Napoléon and your brother loved her both.

    [Alexander shows embarrassment.]

  But whatsoever grief be Alexander’s,
  His will be none who feels but for himself.

  ANNE

  O mother, how can you mistake him so!
  He worships her who is to be his wife,
  The fair Archduchess Marie.

  EMPRESS-MOTHER

            Simple child,
  As yet he has never seen her, or but barely.
  That is a tactic suit, with love to match!

  ALEXANDER [with vainly veiled tenderness]

  High-souled Louisa;—when shall I forget
  Those Tilsit gatherings in the long-sunned June!
  Napoléon’s gallantries deceived her quite,
  Who fondly felt her pleas for Magdeburg
  Had won him to its cause; the while, alas!
  His cynic sense but posed in cruel play!

  EMPRESS-MOTHER

  Bitterly mourned she her civilities
  When time unlocked the truth, that she had choked
  Her indignation at his former slights
  And slanderous sayings for a baseless hope,
  And wrought no tittle for her country’s gain.
  I marvel why you mourn a frustrate tie
  With one whose wiles could wring a woman so!

  ALEXANDER [uneasily]

  I marvel also, when I think of it!

  EMPRESS-MOTHER

  Don’t listen to us longer, dearest Anne.

    [Exit Anne.]

  —You will uphold my judging by and by,
  That as a suitor we are quit of him,
  And that blind Austria will rue the hour
  Wherein she plucks for him her fairest flower!

    [The scene shuts.]

  PARIS.  THE GRAND GALLERY OF THE LOUVRE AND THE SALON-CARRE ADJOINING

    [The view is up the middle of the Gallery, which is now a spectacle
    of much magnificence.  Backed by the large paintings on the walls
    are double rows on each side of brightly dressed ladies, the pick
    of Imperial society, to the number of four thousand, one thousand
    in each row; and behind these standing up are two rows on each side
    of men of privilege and fashion.  Officers of the Imperial Guard
    are dotted about as marshals.

    Temporary barriers form a wide passage up the midst, leading to the
    Salon-Carre, which is seen through the opening to be fitted up as
    a chapel, with a gorgeous altar, tall candles, and cross.  In front
    of the altar is a platform with a canopy over it.  On the platform
    are two gilt chairs and a prie-dieu.

    The expectant assembly does not continuously remain in the seats,
    but promenades and talks, the voices at times rising to a din amid
    the strains of the orchestra, conducted by the EMPEROR’S Director
    of Music.  Refreshments in profusion are handed round, and the
    extemporized cathedral resolves itself into a gigantic cafe of
    persons of distinction under the Empire.]

  SPIRIT SINISTER

  All day have they been waiting for their galanty-show, and now the
  hour of performance is on the strike.  It may be seasonable to muse
  on the sixteenth Louis and the bride’s great-aunt, as the nearing
  procession is, I see, appositely crossing the track of the tumbril
  which was the last coach of that respected lady.... It is now
  passing over the site of the scaffold on which she lost her head.
... Now it will soon be here.

    [Suddenly the heralds enter the Gallery at the end towards the
    Tuileries, the spectators ranging themselves in their places.
    In a moment the wedding procession of the EMPEROR and EMPRESS
    becomes visible.  The civil marriage having already been performed,
    Napoléon and Marie Louise advance together along the vacant pathway
    towards the Salon-Carre, followed by the long suite of illustrious
    personages, and acclamations burst from all parts of the Grand
    Gallery.

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       Whose are those forms that pair in pompous train
       Behind the hand-in-hand half-wedded ones,
       With faces speaking sense of an adventure
       Which may close well, or not so?

  RECORDING ANGEL [reciting]

                 First there walks
       The Emperor’s brother Louis, Holland’s King;
       Then Jérôme of Westphalia with his spouse;
       The mother-queen, and Julie Queen of Spain,
       The Prince Borghese and the Princess Pauline,
       Beauharnais the Vice-King of Italy,
       And Murat King of Naples, with their Queens;
       Baden’s Grand-Duke, Arch-Chancellor Cambacérès,
       Berthier, Lebrun, and, not least, Talleyrand.
       Then the Grand Marshal and the Chamberlain,
       The Lords-in-Waiting, the Grand Equerry,
       With waiting-ladies, women of the chamber,
       An others called by office, rank, or fame.

  SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

       New, many, to Imperial dignities;
       Which, won by character and quality
       In those who now enjoy them, will become
       The birthright of their sons in aftertime.

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       It fits thee not to augur, quick-eared Shade.
       Ephemeral at the best all honours be,
       These even more ephemeral than their kind,
       So random-fashioned, swift, perturbable!

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       Napoléon looks content—nay, shines with joy.

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       Yet see it pass, as by a conjuror’s wand.

    [Thereupon Napoléon’s face blackens as if the shadow of a winter
    night had fallen upon it.  Resentful and threatening, he stops the
    procession and looks up and down the benches.]

  SPIRIT SINISTER

  This is sound artistry of the Immanent Will: it relieves the monotony
  of so much good-humour.

  NAPOLÉON [to the Chapel-master]

  Where are the Cardinals?  And why not here?  [He speaks so loud that
  he is heard throughout the Gallery.]

  ABBÉ DE PRADT [trembling]

  Many are present here, your Majesty;
  But some are feebled by infirmities
  Too common to their age, and cannot come.

  NAPOLÉON

  Tell me no nonsense!  Half absent themselves
  Because they WILL not come.  The factious fools!
  Well, be it so.  But they shall flinch for it!

    [MARIE LOUISE looks frightened.  The procession moves on.]

  SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       I seem to see the thin and headless ghost
       Of the yet earlier Austrian, here, too, queen,
       Walking beside the bride, with frail attempts
       To pluck her by the arm!

  SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

                 Nay, think not so.
       No trump unseals earth’s sepulchre’s to-day:
       We are the only phantoms now abroad
       On this mud-moulded ball!  Through sixteen years
       She has decayed in a back-garden yonder,
       Dust all the showance time retains of her,
       Senseless of hustlings in her former house,
       Lost to all count of crowns and bridalry—
       Even of her Austrian blood.  No: what thou seest
       Springs of the quavering fancy, stirred to dreams
       By yon tart phantom’s phrase.

  MARIE LOUISE [sadly to Napoléon]

            I know not why,
  I love not this day’s doings half so well
  As our quaint meeting-time at Compiegne.
  A clammy air creeps round me, as from vaults
  Peopled with looming spectres, chilling me
  And angering you withal!

  NAPOLÉON

            O, it is nought
  To trouble you: merely, my cherished one,
  Those devils of Italian Cardinals!—
  Now I’ll be bright as ever—you must, too.

  MARIE LOUISE

  I’ll try.

    [Reaching the entrance to the Salon-Carre amid strains of music
    the EMPEROR and EMPRESS are received and incensed by the CARDINAL
    GRAND ALMONERS.  They take their seats under the canopy, and the
    train of notabilities seat themselves further back, the persons-
    in-waiting stopping behind the Imperial chairs.

    The ceremony of the religious marriage now begins.  The choir
    intones a hymn, the EMPEROR and EMPRESS go to the altar, remove
    their gloves, and make their vows.]

  SPIRIT IRONIC

  The English Church should return thanks for this wedding, seeing
  how it will purge of coarseness the picture-sheets of that artistic
  nation, which will hardly be able to caricature the new wife as it
  did poor plebeian Joséphine.  Such starched and ironed monarchists
  cannot sneer at a woman of such a divinely dry and crusted line like
  the Hapsburgs!

    [Mass is next celebrated, after which the TE DEUM is chanted in
    harmonies that whirl round the walls of the Salon-Carre and quiver
    down the long Gallery.  The procession then re-forms and returns,
    amid the flutterings and applause of the dense assembly.  But
    Napoléon’s face has not lost the sombre expression which settled
    on it.  The pair and their train pass out by the west door, and
    the congregation disperses in the other direction, the cloud-
    curtain closing over the scene as they disappear.