ELBA.  THE QUAY, PORTO FERRAJO

    [Night descends upon a beautiful blue cove, enclosed on three sides
    by mountains.  The port lies towards the western [right-hand] horn
    of the concave, behind it being the buildings of the town; their
    long white walls and rows of windows rise tier above tier on the
    steep incline at the back, and are intersected by narrow alleys
    and flights of steps that lead up to forts on the summit.

    Upon a rock between two of these forts stands the Palace of the
    Mulini, NAPOLÉONS’S residence in Ferrajo.  Its windows command
    the whole town and the port.]

  CHORUS OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music]

       The Congress of Vienna sits,
       And war becomes a war of wits,
       Where every Power perpends withal
       Its dues as large, its friends’ as small;
       Till Priests of Peace prepare once more
       To fight as they have fought before!

       In Paris there is discontent;
       Medals are wrought that represent
       One now unnamed.  Men whisper, “He
       Who once has been, again will be!”

  DUMB SHOW

  Under cover of the dusk there assembles in the bay a small flotilla
  comprising a brig called l’Inconstant and several lesser vessels.

  SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

       The guardian on behalf of the Allies
       Absents himself from Elba.  Slow surmise
       Too vague to pen, too actual to ignore,
       Have strained him hour by hour, and more and more.
       He takes the sea to Florence, to declare
       His doubts to Austria’s ministrator there.

  SPIRIT IRONIC

       When he returns, Napoléon will be—where?

  Boats put off from these ships to the quay, where are now discovered
  to have silently gathered a body of grenadiers of the Old Guard.  The
  faces of DROUOT and CAMBRONNE are revealed by the occasional fleck of
  a lantern to be in command of them.  They are quietly taken aboard
  the brig, and a number of men of different arms to the other vessels.

  CHORUS OF RUMOURS [aerial music]

       Napoléon is going,
       And nought will prevent him;
       He snatches the moment
       Occasion has lent him!

       And what is he going for,
       Worn with war’s labours?
       —To reconquer Europe
       With seven hundred sabres.

  About eight o’clock we observe that the windows of the Palace of
  the Mulini are lighted and open, and that two women sit at them:
  the EMPEROR’S mother and the PRINCESS PAULINE.  They wave adieux
  to some one below, and in a short time a little open low-wheeled
  carriage, drawn by the PRINCESS PAULINE’S two ponies, descends
  from the house to the port.  The crowd exclaims “The Emperor!”
   NAPOLÉON appears in his grey great-coat, and is much fatter than
  when he left France.  BERTRAND sits beside him.

  He quickly alights and enters the waiting boat.  It is a tense
  moment.  As the boat rows off the sailors sing the Marseillaise,
  and the gathered inhabitants join in.  When the boat reaches the
  brig its sailors join in also, and shout “Paris or death!”  Yet
  the singing has a melancholy cadence.  A gun fires as a signal
  of departure.  The night is warm and balmy for the season.  Not
  a breeze is there to stir a sail, and the ships are motionless.

  CHORUS OF RUMOURS

       Haste is salvation;
       And still he stays waiting:
       The calm plays the tyrant,
       His venture belating!

       Should the corvette return
       With the anxious Scotch colonel,
       Escape would be frustrate,
       Retention eternal.

  Four aching hours are spent thus.  NAPOLÉON remains silent on the
  deck, looking at the town lights, whose reflections bore like augers
  into the water of the bay.  The sails hang flaccidly.  Then a feeble
  breeze, then a strong south wind, begins to belly the sails; and the
  vessels move.

  CHORUS OF RUMOURS

       The south wind, the south wind,
       The south wind will save him,
       Embaying the frigate
       Whose speed would enslave him;
       Restoring the Empire
       That fortune once gave him!

  The moon rises and the ships silently disappear over the horizon
  as it mounts higher into the sky.

  VIENNA.  THE IMPERIAL PALACE

    [The fore-part of the scene is the interior of a dimly lit gallery
    with an openwork screen or grille on one side of it that commands
    a bird’s-eye view of the grand saloon below.  At present the screen
    is curtained.  Sounds of music and applause in the saloon ascend
    into the gallery, and an irradiation from the same quarter shines
    up through chinks in the curtains of the grille.

    Enter the gallery MARIE LOUISE and the COUNTESS OF BRIGNOLE,
    followed by the COUNT NEIPPERG, a handsome man of forty two with
    a bandage over one eye.]

  COUNTESS OF BRIGNOLE

  Listen, your Majesty.  You gather all
  As well as if you moved amid them there,
  And are advantaged with free scope to flit
  The moment the scene palls.

  MARIE LOUISE

            Ah, my dear friend,
  To put it so is flower-sweet of you;
  But a fallen Empress, doomed to furtive peeps
  At scenes her open presence would unhinge,
  Reads not much interest in them!  Yet, in truth,
  ’Twas gracious of my father to arrange
  This glimpse-hole for my curiosity.
  —But I must write a letter ere I look;
  You can amuse yourself with watching them.—
  Count, bring me pen and paper.  I am told
  Madame de Montesquiou has been distressed
  By some alarm; I write to ask its shape.

    [NEIPPERG spreads writing materials on a table, and MARIE LOUISE
    sits.  While she writes he stays near her.  MADAME DE BRIGNOLE
    goes to the screen and parts the curtains.

    The light of a thousand candles blazes up into her eyes from
    below.  The great hall is decorated in white and silver, enriched
    by evergreens and flowers.  At the end a stage is arranged, and
    Tableaux Vivants are in progress thereon, representing the history
    of the House of Austria, in which figure the most charming women
    of the Court.

    There are present as spectators nearly all the notables who have
    assembled for the Congress, including the EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA
    himself, has gay wife, who quite eclipses him, the EMPEROR
    ALEXANDER, the KING OF PRUSSIA—still in the mourning he has
    never abandoned since the death of QUEEN LUISA,—the KING
    OF BAVARIA and his son, METTERNICH, TALLEYRAND, WELLINGTON,
    NESSELRODE, HARDENBERG; and minor princes, ministers, and
    officials of all nations.]

  COUNTESS OF BRIGNOLE [suddenly from he grille]

  Something has happened—so it seems, madame!
  The Tableau gains no heed from them, and all
  Turn murmuring together.

  MARIE LOUISE

       What may be?

    [She rises with languid curiosity, and COUNT NEIPPERG adroitly
    takes her hand and leads her forward.  All three look down through
    the grille.]

  NEIPPERG

  some strange news, certainly, your Majesty,
  Is being discussed.—I’ll run down and inquire.

  MARIE LOUISE [playfully]

  Nay—stay here.  We shall learn soon enough.

  NEIPPERG

  Look at their faces now.  Count Metternich
  Stares at Prince Talleyrand—no muscle moving.
  The King of Prussia blinks bewilderedly
  Upon Lord Wellington.

  MARIE LOUISE [concerned]

            Yes; so it seems....
  They are thunderstruck.  See, though the music beats,
  The ladies of the Tableau leave their place,
  And mingle with the rest, and quite forget
  That they are in masquerade.  The sovereigns show
  By far the gravest mien.... I wonder, now,
  If it has aught to do with me or mine?
  Disasters mostly have to do with me!

  COUNTESS OF BRIGNOLE

  Those rude diplomists from England there,
  At your Imperial father’s consternation,
  And Russia’s, and the King of Prussia’s gloom,
  Shake shoulders with hid laughter!  That they call
  The English sense of humour, I infer,—
  To see a jest in other people’s troubles!

  MARIE LOUISE [hiding her presages]

  They ever take things thus phlegmatically:
  The safe sea minimizes Continental scare
  In their regard.  I wish it did in mine!
  But Wellington laughs not, as I discern.

  NEIPPERG

  Perhaps, though fun for the other English here,
  It means new work for him.  Ah—notice now
  The music makes no more pretence to play!
  Sovereigns and ministers have moved apart,
  And talk, and leave the ladies quite aloof—
  Even the Grand Duchesses and Empress, all—
  Such mighty cogitations trance their minds!

  MARIE LOUISE [with more anxiety]

  Poor ladies; yea, they draw into the rear,
  And whisper ominous words among themselves!
  Count Neipperg—I must ask you now—go glean
  What evil lowers.  I am riddled through
  With strange surmises and more strange alarms!

    [The COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU enters.]

  Ah—we shall learn it now.  Well—what, madame?

  COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU [breathlessly]

  Your Majesty, the Emperor Napoléon
  Has vanished from Elba!  Wither flown,
  And how, and why, nobody says or knows.

  MARIE LOUISE [sinking into a chair]

  My divination pencilled on my brain
  Something not unlike that!  The rigid mien
  That mastered Wellington suggested it....
  Complicity will be ascribed to me,
  Unwitting though I stand!... [A pause.]
            He’ll not succeed!
  And my fair plans for Parma will be marred,
  And my son’s future fouled!—I must go hence,
  And instantly declare to Metternich
  That I know nought of this; and in his hands
  Place me unquestioningly, with dumb assent
  To serve the Allies.... Methinks that I was born
  Under an evil-coloured star, whose ray
  Darts death at joys!—Take me away, Count.—You [to the ladies]
  Can stay and see the end.

    [Exeunt MARIE LOUISE and NEIPPERG.  MESDAMES DE MONTESQUIOU and
    DE BRIGNOLE go to the grille and watch and listen.]

  VOICE OF ALEXANDER [below]

  I told you, Prince, that it would never last!

  VOICE OF TALLEYRAND

  Well, sire, you should have sent him to the Azores,
  Or the Antilles, or best, Saint-Helena.

  VOICE OF THE KING OF PRUSSIA

  Instead, we send him but two days from France,
  Give him an island as his own domain,
  A military guard of large resource,
  And millions for his purse!

  ANOTHER VOICE

            The immediate cause
  Must be a negligence in watching him.
  The British Colonel Campbell should have seen
  That apertures for flight were wired and barred
  To such a cunning bird!

  ANOTHER VOICE

            By all report
  He took the course direct to Naples Bay.

  VOICES [of new arrivals]

  He has made his way to France—so all tongues tell—
  And landed there, at Cannes!  [Excitement.]

  COUNTESS OF BRIGNOLE

            Do now but note
  How cordial intercourse resolves itself
  To sparks of sharp debate!  The lesser guests
  Are fain to steal unnoticed from a scene
  Wherein they feel themselves as surplusage
  Beside the official minds.—I catch a sign
  The King of Prussia makes the English Duke;
  They leave the room together.

  COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU

            Yes; wit wanes,
  And all are going—Prince Talleyrand,
  The Emperor Alexander, Metternich,
  The Emperor Francis.... So much for the Congress!
  Only a few blank nobodies remain,
  And they seem terror-stricken.... Blackly ends
  Such fair festivities.  The red god War
  Stalks Europe’s plains anew!

    [The curtain of the grille is dropped.  MESDAMES DE MONTESQUIOU
    and DE BRIGNOLE leave the gallery.  The light is extinguished
    there and the scene disappears.]

  LA MURE, NEAR GRENOBLE

    [A lonely road between a lake and some hills, two or three miles
    outside the village of la Mure, is discovered.  A battalion of
    the Fifth French royalist regiment of the line under COMMANDANT
    LESSARD, is drawn up in the middle of the road with a company of
    sappers and miners, comprising altogether about eight hundred men.

    Enter to them from the south a small detachment of lancers with
    an aide-de-camp at their head.  They ride up to within speaking
    distance.]

  LESSARD

  They are from Bonaparte.  Present your arms!

  AIDE [calling]

  We’d parley on Napoléon’s behalf,
  And fain would ask you join him.

  LESSARD

            Al parole
  With rebel bands the Government forbids.
  Come five steps further and we fire!

  AIDE

            To France,
  And to posterity through fineless time,
  Must you then answer for so foul a blow
  Against the common weal!

    [NAPOLÉON’S aide-de-camp and the lancers turn about and ride
    back out of sight.  The royalist troops wait.  Presently there
    reappears from the same direction a small column of soldiery,
    representing the whole of NAPOLÉON’S little army shipped from
    Elba.  It is divided into an advance-guard under COLONEL MALLET,
    and two bodies behind, a troop of Polish lancers under COLONEL
    JERMANWSKI on the right side of the road, and some officers
    without troops on the left, under MAJOR PACCONI.

    NAPOLÉON rides in the midst of the advance-guard, in the old
    familiar “redingote grise,” cocked hat, and tricolor cockade,
    his well-known profile keen against the hills.  He is attended
    by GENERALS BERTRAND, DROUOT, and CAMBRONNE.  When they get within
    gun-shot of the royalists the men are halted.  NAPOLÉON dismounts
    and steps forward.]

  NAPOLÉON

            Direct the men
  To lodge their weapons underneath the arm,
  Points downward.  I shall not require them here.

  COLONEL MALLET

  Sire, is it not a needless jeopardy
  To meet them thus?  The sentiments of these
  We do not know, and the first trigger pressed
  May end you.

  NAPOLÉON

            I have thought it out, my friend,
  And value not my life as in itself,
  But as to France, severed from whose embrace]
  I am dead already.

    [He repeats the order, which is carried out.  There is a breathless
    silence, and people from the village gather round with tragic
    expectations.  NAPOLÉON walks on alone towards the Fifth battalion,
    Throwing open his great-coat and revealing his uniform and the
    ribbon of the Legion of Honour.  Raising his hand to his hat he
    salutes.]

  LESSARD

       Present arms!

    [The firelocks of the royalist battalion are levelled at NAPOLÉON.]

  NAPOLÉON [still advancing]

            Men of the Fifth,
  See—here I am!... Old friends, do you not know me?
  If there be one among you who would slay
  His Chief of proud past years, let him come on
  And do it now!  [A pause.]

  LESSARD [to his next officer]

            They are death-white at his words!
  They’ll fire not on this man.  And I am helpless.

  SOLDIERS [suddenly]

  Why yes!  We know you, father.  Glad to see ye!
  The Emperor for ever!  Ha!  Huzza!

    [They throw their arms upon the ground, and, rushing forward,
    sink down and seize NAPOLÉON’S knees and kiss his hands.  Those
    who cannot get near him wave their shakos and acclaim him
    passionately.  BERTRAND, DROUOT, and CAMBRONNE come up.]

  NAPOLÉON [privately]

  All is accomplished, Bertrand!  Ten days more,
  And we are snug within the Tuileries.

    [The soldiers tear out their white cockades and trample on them,
    and disinter from the bottom of their knapsacks tricolors, which
    they set up.

    NAPOLÉON’S own men now arrive, and fraternize with and embrace
    the soldiers of the Fifth.  When the emotion has subsided,
    NAPOLÉON forms the whole body into a square and addresses them.]

  Soldiers, I came with these few faithful ones
  To save you from the Bourbons,—treasons, tricks,
  Ancient abuses, feudal tyranny—
  From which I once of old delivered you.
  The Bourbon throne is illegitimate
  Because not founded on the nation’s will,
  But propped up for the profit of a few.
  Comrades, is this not so?

  A GRENADIER

            Yes, verily, sire.
  You are the Angel of the Lord to us;
  We’ll march with you to death or victory!  [Shouts.]

    [At this moment a howling dog crosses in front of them with a
    cockade tied to its tail.  The soldiery of both sides laugh
    loudly.

    NAPOLÉON forms both bodies of troops into one column.  Peasantry
    run up with buckets of sour wine and a single glass; NAPOLÉON
    takes his turn with the rank and file in drinking from it.  He
    bids the whole column follow him to Grenoble and Paris.  Exeunt
    soldiers headed by NAPOLÉON.   The scene shuts.]

  SCHONBRUNN

    [The gardens of the Palace.  Fountains and statuary are seen
    around, and the Gloriette colonnade rising against the sky on
    a hill behind.

    The ex-EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE is discovered walking up and down.
    Accompanying her is the KING OF ROME—now a blue-eye, fair-haired
    child—in the charge of the COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU.  Close by is
    COUNT NEIPPERG, and at a little distance MÉNEVAL, her attendant
    and Napoléon’s adherent.

    The EMPEROR FRANCIS and METTERNICH enter at the other end of the
    parterre.]

  MARIE LOUISE [with a start]

  Here are the Emperor and Prince Metternich.
  Wrote you as I directed?

  NEIPPERG

            Promptly so.
  I said your Majesty had not part
  In this mad move of your Imperial spouse,
  And made yourself a ward of the Allies;
  Adding, that you had vowed irrevocably
  To enter France no more.

  MARIE LOUISE

            Your worthy zeal
  Has been a trifle swift.  My meaning stretched
  Not quite so far as that.... And yet—and yet
  It matters little.  Nothing matters much!

    [The EMPEROR and METTERNICH come forward.  NEIPPERG retires.]

  FRANCIS

  My daughter, you did not a whit too soon
  Voice your repudiation.  Have you seen
  What the allies have papered Europe with?

  MARIE LOUISE

  I have seen nothing.

  FRANCIS

       Please you read it, Prince.

  METTERNICH [taking out a paper]

  “The Powers assembled at the Congress here
  Owe it to their own troths and dignities,
  And to the furtherance of social order,
  To make a solemn Declaration, thus:
  By breaking the convention as to Elba,
  Napoléon Bonaparte forthwith destroys
  His only legal title to exist,
  And as a consequence has hurled himself
  Beyond the pale of civil intercourse.
  Disturber of the tranquillity of the world,
  There can be neither peace nor truce with him,
  And public vengeance is his self-sought doom.—
  Signed by the Plenipotentiaries.”

  MARIE LOUISE [pale]

            O God,
  How terrible!... What shall—-[she begins weeping.]

  KING OF ROME

            Is it papa
  They want to hurt like that, dear Mamma ’Quiou?
  Then ’twas no good my praying for him so;
  And I can see that I am not going to be
  A King much longer!

  COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU [retiring with the child]

            Pray for him, Monseigneur,
  Morning and evening just the same!  They plan
  To take you off from me.  But don’t forget—
  Do as I say!

  KING OF ROME

            Yes, Mamma ’Quiou, I will!—
  But why have I no pages now?  And why
  Does my mamma the Empress weep so much?

  COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU

  We’ll talk elsewhere.

    [MONTESQUIOU and the KING OF ROME withdraw to back.]

  FRANCIS

            At least, then, you agree
  Not to attempt to follow Paris-ward
  Your conscience-lacking husband, and create
  More troubles in the State?—Remember this,
  I sacrifice my every man and horse
  Ere he Rule France again.

  MARIE LOUISE

            I am pledged already
  To hold by the Allies; let that suffice!

  METTERNICH

  For the clear good of all, your Majesty,
  And for your safety and the King of Rome’s,
  It most befits that your Imperial father
  Should have sole charge of the young king henceforth,
  While these convulsions rage.  That this is so
  You will see, I think, in view of being installed
  As Parma’s Duchess, and take steps therefor.

  MARIE LOUISE [coldly]

  I understand the terms to be as follows:
  Parma is mine—my very own possession,—
  And as a counterquit, the guardianship
  Is ceded to my father of my son,
  And I keep out of France.

  METTERNICH

            And likewise this:
  All missives that your Majesty receives
  Under Napoléon’s hand, you tender straight
  The Austrian Cabinet, the seals unbroke;
  With those received already.

  FRANCIS

            You discern
  How vastly to the welfare of your son
  This course must tend?  Duchess of Parma throned
  You shine a wealthy woman, to endow
  Your son with fortune and large landed fee.

  MARIE LOUISE [bitterly]

  I must have Parma: and those being the terms
  Perforce accept!  I weary of the strain
  Of statecraft and political embroil:
  I long for private quiet!... And now wish
  To say no more at all.

    [MÉNEVAL, who has heard her latter remarks, turns sadly away.]

  FRANCIS

            There’s nought to say;
  All is in train to work straightforwardly.

    [FRANCIS and METTERNICH depart.  MARIE LOUISE retires towards the
    child and the COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU at the back of the parterre,
    where they are joined by NEIPPERG.

    Enter in front DE MONTROND, a secret emissary of NAPOLÉON, disguised
    as a florist examining the gardens.  MÉNEVAL recognizes him and
    comes forward.]

  MÉNEVAL

  Why are you here, de Montrond?  All is hopeless!

  DE MONTROND

  Wherefore?  The offer of the Regency
  I come empowered to make, and will conduct her
  Safely to Strassburg with her little son,
  If she shrink not to breech her as a man,
  And tiptoe from a postern unperceived?

  MÉNEVAL

  Though such quaint gear would mould her to a youth
  Fair as Adonis on a hunting morn,
  Yet she’ll refuse!  A German prudery
  Sits on her still; more, kneaded by her arts
  There’s no will left to her.  I conjured her
  To hold aloof, sign nothing.  But in vain.

  DE MONTROND [looking towards Marie Louise]

  I fain would put it to her privately!

  MÉNEVAL

  A thing impossible.  No word to her
  Without a word to him you see with her,
  Neipperg to wit.  She grows indifferent
  To dreams as Regent; visioning a future
  Wherein her son and self are two of three
  But where the third is not Napoléon.

  DE MONTROND [In sad surprise]

  I may as well go hence then as I came,
  And kneel to Heaven for one thing—that success
  Attend Napoléon in the coming throes!

  MÉNEVAL

  I’ll walk with you for safety to the gate,
  Though I am as the Emperor’s man suspect,
  And any day may be dismissed.  If so
  I go to Paris.

    [Exeunt MÉNEVAL and DE MONTROND.]

  SPIRIT IRONIC

       Had he but persevered, and biassed her
       To slip the breeches on, and hie away,
       Who knows but that the map of France had shaped
       And it will never now!

    [There enters from the other side of the gardens MARIA CAROLINA,
    ex-Queen of Naples, and grandmother of Marie Louise.  The latter,
    dismissing MONTESQUIOU and the child, comes forward.]

  MARIA CAROLINA

  I have crossed from Hetzendorf to kill an hour;
  Why art so pensive, dear?

  MARIE LOUISE

            Ah, why!  My lines
  Rule ruggedly.  You doubtless have perused
  This vicious cry against the Emperor?
  He’s outlawed—to be caught alive or dead,
  Like any noisome beast!

  MARIA CAROLINA

            Nought have I heard,
  My child.  But these vile tricks, to pluck you from
  Your nuptial plightage and your rightful glory
  Make me belch oaths!—You shall not join your husband
  Do they assert?  My God, I know one thing,
  Outlawed or no, I’d knot my sheets forthwith,
  Were I but you, and steal to him in disguise,
  Let come what would come!  Marriage is for life.

  MARIE LOUISE

  Mostly; not always: not with Joséphine;
  And, maybe, not with me.  But, that apart,
  I could do nothing so outrageous.
  Too many things, dear grand-dame, you forget.
  A puppet I, by force inflexible,
  Was bid to wed Napoléon at a nod,—
  The man acclaimed to me from cradle-days
  As the incarnate of all evil things,
  The Antichrist himself.—I kissed the cup,
  Gulped down the inevitable, and married him;
  But none the less I saw myself therein
  The lamb whose innocent flesh was dressed to grace
  The altar of dynastic ritual!—
  Hence Elba flung no duty-call to me,
  Neither does Paris now.

  MARIA CAROLINA

            I do perceive
  They have worked on you to much effect already!
  Go, join your Count; he waits you, dear.—Well, well;
  The way the wind blows needs no cock to tell!

    [Exeunt severally QUEEN MARIA CAROLINA and MARIE LOUISE with
    NEIPPERG.  The sun sets over the gardens and the scene fades.]

  LONDON. THE OLD HOUSE OF COMMONS

    [The interior of the Chamber appears as in Scene III., Act I.,
    Part I., except that the windows are not open and the trees
    without are not yet green.

    Among the Members discovered in their places are, of ministers
    and their supporters, LORD CASTLEREAGH the Foreign Secretary,
    VANSITTART Chancellor of the Exchequer, BATHURST, PALMERSTON
    the War Secretary, ROSE, PONSONBY, ARBUTHNOT, LUSHINGTON, GARROW
    the Attorney General, SHEPHERD, LONG, PLUNKETT, BANKES; and among
    those of the Opposition SIR FRANCIS BURDETT, WHITBREAD, TIERNEY,
    ABERCROMBY, DUNDAS, BRAND, DUNCANNON, LAMBTON, HEATHCOTE, SIR
    SAMUEL ROMILLY, G. WALPOLE, RIDLEY, OSBORNE, and HORNER.

    Much interest in the debate is apparent, and the galleries are
    full.  LORD CASTLEREAGH rises.]

  CASTLEREAGH

  At never a moment in my stressed career,
  Amid no memory-moving urgencies,
  Have I, sir, felt so gravely set on me
  The sudden, vast responsibility
  That I feel now.  Few things conceivable
  Could more momentous to the future be
  Than what may spring from counsel here to-night
  On means to meet the plot unparalleled
  In full fierce play elsewhere.  Sir, this being so,
  And seeing how the events of these last days
  Menace the toil of twenty anxious years,
  And peril all that period’s patient aim,
  No auguring mind can doubt that deeds which root
  In steadiest purpose only, will effect
  Deliverance from a world-calamity
  As dark as any in the vaults of Time.

  Now, what we notice front and foremost is
  That this convulsion speaks not, pictures not
  The heart of France.  It comes of artifice—
  From the unique and sinister influence
  Of a smart army-gamester—upon men
  Who have shared his own excitements, spoils, and crimes.—
  This man, who calls himself most impiously
  The Emperor of France by Grace of God,
  Has, in the scale of human character,
  Dropt down so low, that he has set at nought
  All pledges, stipulations, guarantees,
  And stepped upon the only pedestal
  On which he cares to stand—his lawless will.
  Indeed, it is a fact scarce credible
  That so mysteriously in his own breast
  Did this adventurer lock the scheme he planned,
  That his companion Bertrand, chief in trust,
  Was unapprised thereof until the hour
  In which the order to embark was given!

  I think the House will readily discern
  That the wise, wary trackway to be trod
  By our own country in the crisis reached,
  Must lie ’twixt two alternatives,—of war
  In concert with the Continental Powers,
  Or of an armed and cautionary course
  Sufficing for the present phase of things.

  Whatever differences of view prevail
  On the so serious and impending question—
  Whether in point of prudent reckoning
  ’Twere better let the power set up exist,
  Or promptly at the outset deal with it—
  Still, to all eyes it is imperative
  That some mode of safeguardance be devised;
  And if I cannot range before the House,
  At this stage, all the reachings of the case,
  I will, if needful, on some future day
  Poise these nice matters on their merits here.

  Meanwhile I have to move:
  That an address unto His Royal Highness
  Be humbly offered for his gracious message,
  And to assure him that his faithful Commons
  Are fully roused to the dark hazardries
  To which the life and equanimity
  Of Europe are exposed by deeds in France,
  In contravention of the plighted pacts
  At Paris in the course of yester-year.

  That, in a cause of such wide-waked concern,
  It doth afford us real relief to know
  That concert with His Majesty’s Allies
  Is being effected with no loss of time—
  Such concert as will thoroughly provide
  For Europe’s full and long security.  [Cheers.]

  That we, with zeal, will speed such help to him
  So to augment his force by sea and land
  As shall empower him to set afoot
  Swift measures meet for its accomplishing.  [Cheers.]

  BURDETT

  It seems to me almost impossible,
  Weighing the language of the noble lord,
  To catch its counsel,—whether peace of war.  [Hear, hear.]
  If I translate his words to signify
  The high expediency of watch and ward,
  That we may not be taken unawares,
  I own concurrence; but if he propose
  Too plunge this realm into a sea of blood
  To reinstate the Bourbon line in France,
  I should but poorly do my duty here
  Did I not lift my voice protestingly
  Against so ruinous an enterprise!

  Sir, I am old enough to call to mind
  The first fierce frenzies for the selfsame end,
  The fruit of which was to endow this man,
  The object of your apprehension now,
  With such a might as could not be withstood
  By all of banded Europe, till he roamed
  And wrecked it wantonly on Russian plains.
  Shall, then, another score of scourging years
  Distract this land to make a Bourbon king?
  Wrongly has Bonaparte’s late course been called
  A rude incursion on the soil of France.—
  Who ever knew a sole and single man
  Invade a nation thirty million strong,
  And gain in some few days full sovereignty
  Against the nation’s will!—The truth is this:
  The nation longed for him, and has obtained him....

  I have beheld the agonies of war
  Through many a weary season; seen enough
  To make me hold that scarcely any goal
  Is worth the reaching by so red a road.
  No man can doubt that this Napoléon stands
  As Emperor of France by Frenchmen’s wills.
  Let the French settle, then, their own affairs;
  I say we shall have nought to apprehend!—

  Much as I might advance in proof of this,
  I’ll dwell not thereon now.  I am satisfied
  To give the general reasons which, in brief,
  Balk my concurrence in the Address proposed.  [Cheers.]

  PONSONBY

  My words will be but few, for the Address
  Constrains me to support it as it stands.
  So far from being the primary step to war,
  Its sense and substance is, in my regard,
  To leave the House to guidance by events
  On the grave question of hostilities.

  The statements of the noble lord, I hold,
  Have not been candidly interpreted
  By grafting on to them a headstrong will,
  As does the honourable baronet,
  To rob the French of Buonaparte’s rule,
  And force them back to Bourbon monarchism.
  That our free land, at this abnormal time,
  Should put her in a pose of wariness,
  No unwarped mind can doubt.  Must war revive,
  Let it be quickly waged; and quickly, too,
  Reach its effective end: though ’tis my hope,
  My ardent hope, that peace may be preserved.

  WHITBREAD

  Were it that I could think, as does my friend,
  That ambiguity of sentiment
  Informed the utterance of the noble lord
  [As oft does ambiguity of word],
  I might with satisfied and sure resolve
  Vote straight for the Address.  But eyeing well
  The flimsy web there woven to entrap
  The credence of my honourable friends,
  I must with all my energy contest
  The wisdom of a new and hot crusade
  For fixing who shall fill the throne of France.

  Already are the seeds of mischief sown:
  The Declaration at Vienna, signed
  Against Napoléon, is, in my regard,
  Abhorrent, and our country’s character
  Defaced by our subscription to its terms!
  If words have any meaning it incites
  To sheer assassination; it proclaims
  That any meeting Bonaparte may slay him;
  And, whatso language the Allies now hold,
  In that outburst, at least, was war declared.
  The noble lord to-night would second it,
  Would seem to urge that we full arm, then wait
  For just as long, no longer, than would serve
  The preparations of the other Powers,
  And then—pounce down on France!

  CASTLEREAGH

       No, no!  Not so.