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
Your Excellencies, if I may be a judge, Such movement will not tend to unity; It leans too largely on a peradventure Most speculative in its contingencies!
[A silence; till the officers of the staff remark to each other that concentration is best in any circumstances. A general discussion ensues.]
BLÜCHER [concludingly]
We will expect you, Duke, to our support.
WELLINGTON
I must agree that, in the sum, it's best. So be it then. If not attacked myself I'll come to you.--Now I return with speed To Quatre-Bras.
BLÜCHER
And I descend from here To give close eye and thought to things below; No more can well be studied where we stand.
[Exeunt from roof WELLINGTON, BLÜCHER and the rest. They reappear below, and WELLINGTON and his suite gallop furiously away in the direction of Quatre-Bras. An interval.]
DUMB SHOW [below]
Three reports of a cannon give the signal for the French attack. NAPOLEON'S army advances down the slopes of green corn opposite, bands and voices joining in songs of victory. The French come in three grand columns; VANDAMME'S on the left [the spectator's right] against Saint-Amand, the most forward angle of the Prussian position. GERARD'S in the centre bear down upon Ligny. GROUCHY'S on the French right is further back. Far to the rear can be discerned NAPOLEON, the Imperial Guard, and MILHAUD'S cuirassiers halted in reserve.
This formidable advance is preceded by swarms of tirailleurs, who tread down the high wheat, exposing their own men in the rear.
Amid cannonading from both sides they draw nearer to the Prussians, though lanes are cut through them by the latter's guns. They drive the Prussians out of Ligny; who, however, rally in the houses, churchyard, and village green.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
I see unnatural an Monster, loosely jointed, With an Apocalyptic Being's shape, And limbs and eyes a hundred thousand strong, And fifty thousand heads; which coils itself About the buildings there.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Thou dost indeed. It is the Monster Devastation. Watch.
Round the church they fight without quarter, shooting face to face, stabbing with unfixed bayonets, and braining with the butts of muskets. The village catches fire, and soon becomes a furnace. The crash of splitting timbers as doors are broken through, the curses of the fighters, rise into the air, with shouts of “En avant!” from the further side of the stream, and “Vorwarts!” from the nearer.
The battle extends to the west by Le Hameau and Saint-Amand la Haye; and Ligny becomes invisible under a shroud of smoke.
VOICES [at the base of the mill]
This sun will go down bloodily for us! The English, sharply sighed for by Prince Blücher, Cannot appear. Wellington words across That hosts have set on him at Quatre-Bras, And leave him not one bayonet to spare!
The truth of this intelligence is apparent. A low dull sound heard lately from the direction of Quatre-Bras has increased to a roaring cannonade. The scene abruptly closes.
Scene VI
THE FIELD AT QUATRE-BRAS
[The same day. The view is southward, and the straight gaunt highway from Brussels [behind the spectator] to Charleroi over the hills in front, bisects the picture from foreground to distance. Near at hand, where it is elevated and open, there crosses it obliquely, at a point called Les Quatre-Bras, another road which comes from Nivelle, five miles to the gazer's right rear, and goes to Namur, twenty miles ahead to the left. At a distance of five or six miles in this latter direction it passes near the previous scene, Ligny, whence the booming of guns can be continuously heard.
Between the cross-roads in the centre of the scene and the far horizon the ground dips into a hollow, on the other side of which the same straight road to Charleroi is seen climbing the crest, and over it till out of sight. From a hill on the right hand of the mid-distance a large wood, the wood of Bossu, reaches up nearly to the crossways, which give their name to the buildings thereat, consisting of a few farm-houses and an inn.
About three-quarters of a mile off, nearly hidden by the horizon towards Charleroi, there is also a farmstead, Gemioncourt; another, Piraumont, stands on an eminence a mile to the left of it, and somewhat in front of the Namur road.]
DUMB SHOW
As this scene uncovers the battle is beheld to be raging at its height, and to have reached a keenly tragic phase. WELLINGTON has returned from Ligny, and the main British and Hanoverian position, held by the men who marched out of Brussels in the morning, under officers who danced the previous night at the Duchess's, is along the Namur road to the left of the perspective, and round the cross- road itself. That of the French, under Ney, is on the crests further back, from which they are descending in imposing numbers. Some advanced columns are assailing the English left, while through the smoke-hazes of the middle of the field two lines of skirmishers are seen firing at each other--the southernmost dark blue, the northernmost dull red. Time lapses till it is past four o'clock.
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
The cannonade of the French ordnance-lines Has now redoubled. Columns new and dense Of foot, supported by fleet cavalry, Straightly impinge upon the Brunswick bands That border the plantation of Bossu. Above some regiments of the assaulting French A flag like midnight swims upon the air, To say no quarter may be looked for there!
The Brunswick soldiery, much notched and torn by the French grape- shot, now lie in heaps. The DUKE OF BRUNSWICK himself, desperate to keep them steady, lights his pipe, and rides slowly up and down in front of his lines previous to the charge which follows.
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
The French have heaved them on the Brunswickers, And borne them back. Now comes the Duke's told time. He gallops at the head of his hussars-- Those men of solemn and appalling guise, Full-clothed in black, with nodding hearsy plumes, A shining silver skull and cross of bones Set upon each, to byspeak his slain sire.... Concordantly, the expected bullet starts And finds the living son.
BRUNSWICK reels to the ground. His troops, disheartened, lose their courage and give way.
The French front columns, and the cavalry supporting them, shout as they advance. The Allies are forced back upon the English main position. WELLINGTON is in personal peril for a time, but he escapes it by a leap of his horse.
A curtain of smoke drops. An interval. The curtain reascends.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Behold again the Dynasts' gory gear! Since we regarded, what has progressed here?
RECORDING ANGEL [in recitative]
Musters of English foot and their allies Came palely panting by the Brussels way, And, swiftly stationed, checked their counter-braves. Ney, vexed by lack of like auxiliaries, Bade then the columned cuirassiers to charge In all their edged array of weaponcraft. Yea; thrust replied to thrust, and fire to fire; The English broke, till Picton prompt to prop them Sprang with fresh foot-folk from the covering rye.
Next, Pire's cavalry took up the charge.... And so the action sways. The English left Is turned at Piraumont; whilst on their right Perils infest the greenwood of Bossu; Wellington gazes round with dubious view; England's long fame in fight seems sepulchered, And ominous roars swell loudlier Ligny-ward.
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
New rage has wrenched the battle since thou'st writ; Hot-hasting succours of light cannonry Lately come up, relieve the English stress; Kellermann's cuirassiers, both man and horse All plated over with the brass of war, Are rolling on the highway. More brigades Of British, soiled and sweltering, now are nigh, Who plunge within the boscage of Bossu; Where in the hidden shades and sinuous creeps Life-struggles can be heard, seen but in peeps. Therewith the foe's accessions harass Ney, Racked that no needful d'Erlon darks the way!
Inch by inch NEY has to draw off: WELLINGTON promptly advances. At dusk NEY'S army finds itself back at Frasnes, where he meets D'ERLON coming up to his assistance, too late.
The weary English and their allies, who have been on foot ever since one o'clock the previous morning, prepare to bivouac in front of the cross-roads. Their fires flash up for a while; and by and by the dead silence of heavy sleep hangs over them. WELLINGTON goes into his tent, and the night darkens.
A Prussian courier from Ligny enters, who is conducted into the tent to WELLINGTON.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
What tidings can a courier bring that count Here, where such mighty things are native born?
RECORDING ANGEL [in recitative]
The fury of the tumult there begun Scourged quivering Ligny through the afternoon: Napoleon's great intent grew substantive, And on the Prussian pith and pulse he bent His foretimed blow. Blücher, to butt the shock, Called up his last reserves, and heading on, With blade high brandished by his aged arm, Spurred forward his white steed. But they, outspent, Failed far to follow. Darkness coped the sky, And storm, and rain with thunder. Yet once more He cheered them on to charge. His horse, the while, Pierced by a bullet, fell on him it bore. He, trampled, bruised, faint, and in disarray Dragged to another mount, was led away. His ragged lines withdraw from sight and sound, And their assailants camp upon the ground.
The scene shuts with midnight.
Scene VII
BRUSSELS. THE PLACE ROYALE
[The same night, dark and sultry. A crowd of citizens throng the broad Place. They gaze continually down the Rue de Namur, along which arrive minute by minute carts and waggons laden with wounded men. Other wounded limp into the city on foot. At much greater speed enter fugitive soldiers from the miscellaneous contingents of WELLINGTON'S army at Quatre-Bras, who gesticulate and explain to the crowd that all is lost and that the French will soon be in Brussels.
Baggage-carts and carriages, with and without horses, stand before an hotel, surrounded by a medley of English and other foreign nobility and gentry with their valets and maids. Bulletins from the battlefield are affixed on the corner of the Place, and people peer at them by the dim oil lights.
A rattle of hoofs reaches the ears, entering the town by the same Namur gate. The riders disclose themselves to be Belgian hussars, also from the field.]
SEVERAL HUSSARS
The French approach! Wellington is beaten. Bonaparte is at our heels.
[Consternation reaches a climax. Horses are hastily put-to at the hotel: people crowd into the carriages and try to drive off. They get jammed together and hemmed in by the throng. Unable to move they quarrel and curse despairingly in sundry tongues.]
BARON CAPELLEN
Affix the new bulletin. It is a more assuring one, and may quiet them a little.
[A new bulletin is nailed over the old one.]
MAYOR
Good people, calm yourselves. No victory has been won by Bonaparte. The noise of guns heard all the afternoon became fainter towards the end, showing beyond doubt that the retreat was away from the city.
A CITIZEN
The French are said to be forty thousand strong at Les Quatre-Bras, and no forty thousand British marched out against them this morning!
ANOTHER CITIZEN
And it is whispered that the city archives and the treasure-chest have been sent to Antwerp!
MAYOR
Only as a precaution. No good can be gained by panic. Sixty or seventy thousand of the Allies, all told, face Napoleon at this hour. Meanwhile who is to attend to the wounded that are being brought in faster and faster? Fellow-citizens, do your duty by these unfortunates, and believe me that when engaged in such an act of mercy no enemy will hurt you.
CITIZENS
What can we do?
MAYOR
I invite all those who have such, to bring mattresses, sheets, and coverlets to the Hotel de Ville, also old linen and lint from the houses of the cures.
[Many set out on this errand. An interval. Enter a courier, who speaks to the MAYOR and the BARON CAPELLEN.]
BARON CAPELLEN [to Mayor]
Better inform them immediately, to prevent a panic.
MAYOR [to Citizens]
I grieve to tell you that the Duke of Brunswick, whom you saw ride out this morning, was killed this afternoon at Les Quatre-Bras. A musket-ball passed through his bridle-hand and entered his belly. His body is now arriving. Carry yourselves gravely.
[A lane is formed in the crowd in the direction of the Rue de Namur; they wait. Presently an extemporized funeral procession, with the body of the DUKE on a gun-carriage, and a small escort of Brunswickers with carbines reversed, comes slowly up the street, their silver death's-heads shining in the lamplight. The agitation of the citizens settles into a silent gloom as the mournful train passes.]
MAYOR [to Baron Capellen]
I noticed the strange look of prepossession on his face at the ball last night, as if he knew what was going to be.
BARON CAPELLEN
The Duchess mentioned it to me.... He hated the French, if any man ever did, and so did his father before him! Here comes the English Colonel Hamilton, straight from the field. He will give us trustworthy particulars.
[Enter COLONEL HAMILTON by the Rue de Namur. He converses with the MAYOR and the BARON on the issue of the struggle.]
MAYOR
Now I will go the Hotel de Ville, and get it ready for those wounded who can find no room in private houses.
[Exeunt MAYOR, CAPELLEN, D'URSEL, HAMILTON, etc. severally. Many citizens descend in the direction of the Hotel de Ville to assist. Those who remain silently watch the carts bringing in the wounded till a late hour. The doors of houses in the Place and elsewhere are kept open, and the rooms within lighted, in expectation of more arrivals from the field. A courier gallops up, who is accosted by idlers.]
COURIER [hastily]
The Prussians are defeated at Ligny by Napoleon in person. He will be here to-morrow.
[Exit courier.]
FIRST IDLER
The devil! Then I am for welcoming him. No Antwerp for me!
OTHER IDLERS [sotto voce]
Vive l'Empereur!
[A warm summer fog from the Lower Town covers the Parc and the Place Royale.]
Scene VIII
THE ROAD TO WATERLOO
[The view is now from Quatre-Bras backward along the road by which the English arrived. Diminishing in a straight line from the foreground to the centre of the distance it passes over Mont Saint-Jean and through Waterloo to Brussels.
It is now tinged by a moving mass of English and Allied infantry, in retreat to a new position at Mont Saint-Jean. The sun shines brilliantly upon the foreground as yet, but towards Waterloo and the Forest of Soignes on the north horizon it is overcast with black clouds which are steadily advancing up the sky.
To mask the retreat the English outposts retain their position on the battlefield in the face of NEY'S troops, and keep up a desultory firing: the cavalry for the same reason remain, being drawn up in lines beside the intersecting Namur road.
Enter WELLINGTON, UXBRIDGE [who is in charge of the cavalry], MUFFLING, VIVIAN, and others. They look through their field- glasses towards Frasnes, NEY'S position since his retreat yesternight, and also towards NAPOLEON'S at Ligny.]
WELLINGTON
The noonday sun, striking so strongly there, Makes mirrors of their arms. That they advance Their glowing radiance shows. Those gleams by Marbais Suggest fixed bayonets.
UXBRIDGE
Vivian's glass reveals That they are cuirassiers. Ney's troops, too, near At last, methinks, along this other road.
WELLINGTON
One thing is sure: that here the whole French force Schemes to unite and sharply follow us. It formulates our fence. The cavalry Must linger here no longer; but recede To Mont Saint-Jean, as rearguard of the foot. From the intelligence that Gordon brings 'Tis pretty clear old Blücher had to take A damned good drubbing yesterday at Ligny, And has been bent hard back! So that, for us, Bound to the plighted plan, there is no choice But do like.... No doubt they'll say at home That we've been well thrashed too. It can't be helped, They must!... [He looks round at the sky.] A heavy rainfall threatens us, To make it all the worse!
[The speaker and his staff ride off along the Brussels road in the rear of the infantry, and UXBRIDGE begins the retreat of the cavalry. CAPTAIN MERCER enters with a light battery.]
MERCER [excitedly]
Look back, my lord; Is it not Bonaparte himself we see Upon the road I have come by?
UXBRIDGE [looking through glass]
Yes, by God; His face as clear-cut as the edge of a cloud The sun behind shows up! His suite and all! Fire--fire! And aim you well.
[The battery makes ready and fires.]
No! It won't do. He brings on mounted ordnance of his Guard, So we're in danger here. Then limber up, And off as soon as may be.
[The English artillery and cavalry retreat at full speed, just as the weather bursts, with flashes of lightning and drops of rain. They all clatter off along the Brussels road, UXBRIDGE and his aides galloping beside the column; till no British are left at Quatre-Bras except the slain.
The focus of the scene follows the retreating English army, the highway and its and margins panoramically gliding past the vision of the spectator. The phantoms chant monotonously while the retreat goes on.]
CHORUS OF RUMOURS [aerial music]
Day's nether hours advance; storm supervenes In heaviness unparalleled, that screens With water-woven gauzes, vapour-bred, The creeping clumps of half-obliterate red-- Severely harassed past each round and ridge By the inimical lance. They gain the bridge And village of Genappe, in equal fence With weather and the enemy's violence. --Cannon upon the foul and flooded road, Cavalry in the cornfields mire-bestrowed, With frothy horses floundering to their knees, Make wayfaring a moil of miseries! Till Britishry and Bonapartists lose Their clashing colours for the tawny hues That twilight sets on all its stealing tinct imbues.
[The rising ground of Mont Saint-Jean, in front of Waterloo, is gained by the English vanguard and main masses of foot, and by degrees they are joined by the cavalry and artillery. The French are but little later in taking up their position amid the cornfields around La Belle Alliance.
Fires begin to shine up from the English bivouacs. Camp kettles are slung, and the men pile arms and stand round the blaze to dry themselves. The French opposite lie down like dead men in the dripping green wheat and rye, without supper and without fire.
By and by the English army also lies down, the men huddling together on the ploughed mud in their wet blankets, while some sleep sitting round the dying fires.]
CHORUS OF THE YEARS [aerial music]
The eyelids of eve fall together at last, And the forms so foreign to field and tree Lie down as though native, and slumber fast!
CHORUS OF THE PITIES
Sore are the thrills of misgiving we see In the artless champaign at this harlequinade, Distracting a vigil where calm should be!
The green seems opprest, and the Plain afraid Of a Something to come, whereof these are the proofs,-- Neither earthquake, nor storm, nor eclipses's shade!
CHORUS OF THE YEARS
Yea, the coneys are scared by the thud of hoofs, And their white scuts flash at their vanishing heels, And swallows abandon the hamlet-roofs.
The mole's tunnelled chambers are crushed by wheels, The lark's eggs scattered, their owners fled; And the hedgehog's household the sapper unseals.
The snail draws in at the terrible tread, But in vain; he is crushed by the felloe-rim The worm asks what can be overhead,
And wriggles deep from a scene so grim, And guesses him safe; for he does not know What a foul red flood will be soaking him!
Beaten about by the heel and toe Are butterflies, sick of the day's long rheum, To die of a worse than the weather-foe.
Trodden and bruised to a miry tomb Are ears that have greened but will never be gold, And flowers in the bud that will never bloom.
CHORUS OF THE PITIES
So the season's intent, ere its fruit unfold, Is frustrate, and mangled, and made succumb, Like a youth of promise struck stark and cold!...
And what of these who to-night have come?
CHORUS OF THE YEARS
The young sleep sound; but the weather awakes In the veterans, pains from the past that numb;
Old stabs of Ind, old Peninsular aches, Old Friedland chills, haunt their moist mud bed, Cramps from Austerlitz; till their slumber breaks.
CHORUS OF SINISTER SPIRITS
And each soul shivers as sinks his head On the loam he's to lease with the other dead From to-morrow's mist-fall till Time be sped!
[The fires of the English go out, and silence prevails, save for the soft hiss of the rain that falls impartially on both the sleeping armies.]
ACT SEVENTH
Scene I
THE FIELD OF WATERLOO
[An aerial view of the battlefield at the time of sunrise is disclosed.
The sky is still overcast, and rain still falls. A green expanse, almost unbroken, of rye, wheat, and clover, in oblong and irregular patches undivided by fences, covers the undulating ground, which sinks into a shallow valley between the French and English positions. The road from Brussels to Charleroi runs like a spit through both positions, passing at the back of the English into the leafy forest of Soignes.
The latter are turning out from their bivouacs. They move stiffly from their wet rest, and hurry to and fro like ants in an ant-hill. The tens of thousands of moving specks are largely of a brick-red colour, but the foreign contingent is darker.
Breakfasts are cooked over smoky fires of green wood. Innumerable groups, many in their shirt-sleeves, clean their rusty firelocks, drawing or exploding the charges, scrape the mud from themselves, and pipeclay from their cross-belts the red dye washed off their jackets by the rain.
At six o'clock, they parade, spread out, and take up their positions in the line of battle, the front of which extends in a wavy riband three miles long, with three projecting bunches at Hougomont, La Haye Sainte, and La Haye.
Looking across to the French positions we observe that after advancing in dark streams from where they have passed the night they, too, deploy and wheel into their fighting places--figures with red epaulettes and hairy knapsacks, their arms glittering like a display of cutlery at a hill-side fair.
They assume three concentric lines of crescent shape, that converge on the English midst, with great blocks of the Imperial Guard at the back of them. The rattle of their drums, their fanfarades, and their bands playing “Veillons au salut de l'Empire” contrast with the quiet reigning on the English side.
A knot of figures, comprising WELLINGTON with a suite of general and other staff-officers, ride backwards and forwards in front of the English lines, where each regimental colour floats in the hands of the junior ensign. The DUKE himself, now a man of forty- six, is on his bay charger Copenhagen, in light pantaloons, a small plumeless hat, and a blue cloak, which shows its white lining when blown back.
On the French side, too, a detached group creeps along the front in preliminary survey. BONAPARTE--also forty-six--in a grey overcoat, is mounted on his white arab Marengo, and accompanied by SOULT, NEY, JEROME, DROUOT, and other marshals. The figures of aides move to and fro like shuttle-cocks between the group and distant points in the field. The sun has begun to gleam.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Discriminate these, and what they are, Who stand so stalwartly to war.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Report, ye Rumourers of things near and far.
SEMICHORUS I OF RUMOURS [chanting]
Sweep first the Frenchmen's leftward lines along, And eye the peaceful panes of Hougomont-- That seemed to hold prescriptive right of peace In fee from Time till Time itself should cease!-- Jarred now by Reille's fierce foot-divisions three, Flanked on their left by Pire's cavalry.-- The fourfold corps of d'Erlon, spread at length, Compose the right, east of the famed chaussee-- The shelterless Charleroi-and-Brussels way,-- And Jacquinot's alert light-steeded strength Still further right, their sharpened swords display. Thus stands the first line.
SEMICHORUS II
Next behind its back Comes Count Lobau, left of the Brussels track; Then Domon's horse, the horse of Subervie; Kellermann's cuirassed troopers twinkle-tipt, And, backing d'Erlon, Milhaud's horse, equipt Likewise in burnished steelwork sunshine-dipt: So ranks the second line refulgently.
SEMICHORUS I
The third and last embattlement reveals D'Erlon's, Lobau's, and Reille's foot-cannoniers, And horse-drawn ordnance too, on massy wheels, To strike with cavalry where space appears.
SEMICHORUS II
The English front, to left, as flanking force, Has Vandeleur's hussars, and Vivian's horse; Next them pace Picton's rows along the crest; The Hanoverian foot-folk; Wincke; Best; Bylandt's brigade, set forward fencelessly, Pack's northern clansmen, Kempt's tough infantry, With gaiter, epaulet, spat, and {philibeg}; While Halkett, Ompteda, and Kielmansegge Prolong the musters, near whose forward edge Baring invests the Farm of Holy Hedge.
SEMICHORUS I
Maitland and Byng in Cooke's division range, And round dun Hougomont's old lichened sides A dense array of watching Guardsmen hides Amid the peaceful produce of the grange, Whose new-kerned apples, hairy gooseberries green, And mint, and thyme, the ranks intrude between.-- Last, westward of the road that finds Nivelles, Duplat draws up, and Adam parallel.
SEMICHORUS II
The second British line--embattled horse-- Holds the reverse slopes, screened, in ordered course; Dornberg's, and Arentsschildt's, and Colquhoun-Grant's, And left of them, behind where Alten plants His regiments, come the “Household” Cavalry; And nigh, in Picton's rear, the trumpets call The “Union” brigade of Ponsonby. Behind these the reserves. In front of all, Or interspaced, with slow-matched gunners manned, Upthroated rows of threatful ordnance stand.
[The clock of Nivelles convent church strikes eleven in the distance. Shortly after, coils of starch-blue smoke burst into being along the French lines, and the English batteries respond promptly, in an ominous roar that can be heard at Antwerp.
A column from the French left, six thousand strong, advances on the plantation in front of the chateau of Hougomont. They are played upon by the English ordnance; but they enter the wood, and dislodge some battalions there. The French approach the buildings, but are stopped by a loop-holed wall with a mass of English guards behind it. A deadly fire bursts from these through the loops and over the summit.
NAPOLEON orders a battery of howitzers to play upon the building. Flames soon burst from it; but the foot-guards still hold the courtyard.]
Scene II
THE SAME. THE FRENCH POSITION
[On a hillock near the farm of Rossomme a small table from the farmhouse has been placed; maps are spread thereon, and a chair is beside it. NAPOLEON, SOULT, and other marshals are standing round, their horses waiting at the base of the slope.
NAPOLEON looks through his glass at Hougomont. His elevated face makes itself distinct in the morning light as a gloomy resentful countenance, blue-black where shaven, and stained with snuff, with powderings of the same on the breast of his uniform. His stumpy figure, being just now thrown back, accentuates his stoutness.]
NAPOLEON
Let Reille be warned that these his surly sets On Hougomont chateau, can scarce defray Their mounting bill of blood. They do not touch The core of my intent--to pierce and roll The centre upon the right of those opposed. Thereon will turn the outcome of the day, In which our odds are ninety to their ten!
SOULT
Yes--prove there time and promptitude enough To call back Grouchy here. Of his approach I see no sign.
NAPOLEON [roughly]
Hours past he was bid come. --But naught imports it! We are enough without him. You have been beaten by this Wellington, And so you think him great. But let me teach you Wellington is no foe to reckon with. His army, too, is poor. This clash to-day Is more serious for our seasoned files Than breakfasting.
SOULT
Such is my earnest hope.
NAPOLEON
Observe that Wellington still labours on, Stoutening his right behind Gomont chateau, But leaves his left and centre as before-- Weaker, if anything. He plays our game!
[WELLINGTON can, in fact, be seen detaching from his main line several companies of Guards to check the aims of the French on Hougomont.]
Let me re-word my tactics. Ney leads off By seizing Mont Saint-Jean. Then d'Erlon stirs, And heaves up his division from the left. The second corps will move abreast of him The sappers nearing to entrench themselves Within the aforesaid farm.
[Enter an aide-de-camp.]
AIDE
From Marshal Ney, Sire, I bring hasty word that all is poised To strike the vital stroke, and only waits Your Majesty's command,
NAPOLEON
Which he shall have When I have scanned the hills for Grouchy's helms.
[NAPOLEON turns his glass to an upland four or five miles off on the right, known as St. Lambert's Chapel Hill. Gazing more and more intently, he takes rapid pinches of snuff in excitement. NEY'S columns meanwhile standing for the word to advance, eighty guns being ranged in front of La Belle Alliance in support of them.]
I see a darkly crawling, slug-like shape Embodying far out there,--troops seemingly-- Grouchy's van-guard. What think you?
SOULT [also examining closely]
Verily troops; And, maybe, Grouchy's. But the air is hazed.
NAPOLEON
If troops at all, they are Grouchy's. Why misgive, And force on ills you fear!
ANOTHER MARSHAL
It seems a wood. Trees don bold outlines in their new-leafed pride.
ANOTHER MARSHAL
It is the creeping shadow from a cloud.
ANOTHER MARSHAL
It is a mass of stationary foot; I can descry piled arms.
[NAPOLEON sends off the order for NEY'S attack--the grand assault on the English midst, including the farm of La Haye Sainte. It opens with a half-hour's thunderous discharge of artillery, which ceases at length to let d'Erlon's infantry pass.
Four huge columns of these, shouting defiantly, push forwards in face of the reciprocal fire from the cannon of the English. Their effrontery carries them so near the Anglo-Allied lines that the latter waver. But PICTON brings up PACK'S brigade, before which the French in turn recede, though they make an attempt in La Haye Sainte, whence BARING'S Germans pour a resolute fire.
WELLINGTON, who is seen afar as one of a group standing by a great elm, orders OMPTEDA to send assistance to BARING, as may be gathered from the darting of aides to and fro between the points, like house-flies dancing their quadrilles.
East of the great highway the right columns of D'ERLON'S corps have climbed the slopes. BYLANDT'S sorely exposed Dutch are broken, and in their flight disorder the ranks of the English Twenty-eighth, the Carabineers of the Ninety-fifth being also dislodged from the sand-pit they occupied.]
NAPOLEON
All prospers marvellously! Gomont is hemmed; La Haye Sainte too; their centre jeopardized; Travers and d'Erlon dominate the crest, And further strength of foot is following close. Their troops are raw; the flower of England's force That fought in Spain, America now holds.--
[SIR TOMAS PICTON, seeing what is happening orders KEMPT'S brigade forward. It volleys murderously DONZELOT'S columns of D'ERLON'S corps, and repulses them. As they recede PICTON is beheld shouting an order to charge.]
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
I catch a voice that cautions Picton now Against his rashness. “What the hell care I,-- Is my curst carcase worth a moment's mind?-- Come on!” he answers. Onwardly he goes!
[His tall, stern, saturnine figure with its bronzed complexion is on nearer approach discerned heading the charge. As he advances to the slope between the cross-roads and the sand-pit, riding very conspicuously, he falls dead, a bullet in his forehead. His aide, assisted by a soldier, drags the body beneath a tree and hastens on. KEMPT takes his command.
Next MARCOGNET is repulsed by PACK'S brigade. D'ERLON'S infantry and TRAVERS'S cuirassiers are charged by the Union Brigade of Scotch[23] Greys, Royal Dragoons, and Inniskillens, and cut down everywhere, the brigade following them so furiously the LORD UXBRIDGE tries in vain to recall it. On its coming near the French it is overwhelmed by MILHAUD'S cuirassiers, scarcely a fifth of the brigade returning.
An aide enters to NAPOLEON from GENERAL DOMON.]
AIDE
The General, on a far reconnaissance, Says, sire, there is no room for longer doubt That those debouching on St. Lambert's Hill Are Prussian files.
NAPOLEON
Then where is General Grouchy?
[Enter COLONEL MARBOT with a prisoner.]
Aha--a Prussian, too! How comes he here?
MARBOT
Sire, my hussars have captured him near Lasnes-- A subaltern of the Silesian Horse. A note from Bulow to Lord Wellington, Announcing that a Prussian corps is close, Was found on him. He speaks our language, sire.
NAPOLEON [to prisoner]
What force looms yonder on St. Lambert's Hill?
PRISONER
General Count Bulow's van, your Majesty.
[A thoughtful scowl crosses NAPOLEONS'S sallow face.]
NAPOLEON
Where, then, did your main army lie last night?
PRISONER
At Wavre.
NAPOLEON
But clashed it with no Frenchmen there?
PRISONER
With none. We deemed they had marched on Plancenoit.
NAPOLEON [shortly]
Take him away. [The prisoner is removed.] Has Grouchy's whereabouts Been sought, to apprize him of this Prussian trend?
SOULT
Certainly, sire. I sent a messenger.
NAPOLEON [bitterly]
A messenger! Had my poor Berthier been here Six would have insufficed! Now then: seek Ney; Bid him to sling the valour of his braves Fiercely on England ere Count Bulow come; And advertize the succours on the hill As Grouchy's. [Aside] This is my one battle-chance; The Allies have many such! [To SOULT] If Bulow nears, He cannot join in time to share the fight. And if he could, 'tis but a corps the more.... This morning we had ninety chances ours, We have threescore still. If Grouchy but retrieve His fault of absence, conquest comes with eve!
[The scene shifts.]
Scene III
SAINT LAMBERT'S CHAPEL HILL
[A hill half-way between Wavre and the fields of Waterloo, five miles to the north-east of the scene preceding. The hill is wooded, with some open land around. To the left of the scene, towards Waterloo, is a valley.]
DUMB SHOW
Marching columns in Prussian uniforms, coming from the direction of Wavre, debouch upon the hill from the road through the wood.
They are the advance-guard and two brigades of Bulow's corps, that have been joined there by BLÜCHER. The latter has just risen from the bed to which he has been confined since the battle of Ligny, two days back. He still looks pale and shaken by the severe fall and trampling he endured near the end of the action.
On the summit the troops halt, and a discussion between BLÜCHER and his staff ensues.
The cannonade in the direction of Waterloo is growing more and more violent. BLÜCHER, after looking this way and that, decides to fall upon the French right at Plancenoit as soon as he can get there, which will not be yet.
Between this point and that the ground descends steeply to the valley on the spectator's left, where there is a mud-bottomed stream, the Lasne; the slope ascends no less abruptly on the other side towards Plancenoit. It is across this defile alone that the Prussian army can proceed thither- a route of unusual difficulty for artillery; where, moreover, the enemy is suspected of having placed a strong outpost during the night to intercept such an approach.
A figure goes forward--that of MAJOR FALKENHAUSEN, who is sent to reconnoitre, and they wait a tedious time, the firing at Waterloo growing more tremendous. FALKENHAUSEN comes back with the welcome news that no outpost is there.
There now remains only the difficulty of the defile itself; and the attempt is made. BLÜCHER is descried riding hither and thither as the guns drag heavily down the slope into the muddy bottom of the valley. Here the wheels get stuck, and the men already tired by marching since five in the morning, seem inclined to leave the guns where they are. But the thunder from Waterloo still goes on, BLÜCHER exhorts his men by words and eager gestures, and they do at length get the guns across, though with much loss of time.
The advance-guard now reaches some thick trees called the Wood of Paris. It is followed by the LOSTHIN and HILLER divisions of foot, and in due course by the remainder of the two brigades. Here they halt, and await the arrival of the main body of BULOW'S corps, and the third corps under THIELEMANN.
The scene shifts.
Scene IV
THE FIELD OF WATERLOO. THE ENGLISH POSITION
[WELLINGTON, on Copenhagen, is again under the elm-tree behind La Haye Sainte. Both horse and rider are covered with mud-splashes, but the weather having grown finer the DUKE has taken off his cloak.
UXBRIDGE, FITZROY SOMERSET, CLINTON, ALTEN, COLVILLE, DE LANCEY, HERVEY, GORDON, and other of his staff officers and aides are near him; there being also present GENERALS MUFFLING, HUGEL, and ALAVA; also TYLER, PICTON'S aide. The roar of battle continues.]
WELLINGTON
I am grieved at losing Picton; more than grieved. He was as grim a devil as ever lived, And roughish-mouthed withal. But never a man More stout in fight, more stoical in blame!
TYLER
Before he left for this campaign he said, “When you shall hear of MY death, mark my words, You'll hear of a bloody day!” and, on my soul, 'Tis true.
[Enter another aide-de-camp.]
AIDE
Sir William Ponsonby, my lords, has fallen. His horse got mud-stuck in a new-plowed plot, Lancers surrounded him and bore him down, And six then ran him through. The occasion sprung Mainly from the Brigade's too reckless rush, Sheer to the French front line.
WELLINGTON [gravely]
Ah--so it comes! The Greys were bound to pay--'tis always so-- Full dearly for their dash so far afield. Valour unballasted but lands its freight On the enemy's shore.--What has become of Hill?
AIDE
We have not seen him latterly, your Grace.
WELLINGTON
By God, I hope I haven't lost him, too?
BRIDGMAN [just come up]
Lord Hill's bay charger, being shot dead, your Grace, Rolled over him in falling. He is bruised, But hopes to be in place again betimes.
WELLINGTON
Praise Fate for thinking better of that frown!
[It is now nearing four o'clock. La Haye Sainte is devastated by the second attack of NEY. The farm has been enveloped by DONZELOT'S division, its garrison, the King's German Legion, having fought till all ammunition was exhausted. The gates are forced open, and in the retreat of the late defenders to the main Allied line they are nearly all cut or shot down.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
O Farm of sad vicissitudes and strange! Farm of the Holy Hedge, yet fool of change! Whence lit so sanct a name on thy now violate grange?
WELLINGTON [to Muffling, resolutely]
Despite their fierce advantage here, I swear By every God that war can call upon To hold our present place at any cost, Until your force cooperate with our lines! To that I stand; although 'tis bruited now That Bulow's corps has only reached Ohain. I've sent Freemantle hence to seek them there, And give them inkling we shall need them soon.
MUFFLING [looking at his watch]
I had hoped that Blücher would be here ere this.
[The staff turn their glasses on the French position.]
UXBRIDGE
What movement can it be they contemplate?
WELLINGTON
A shock of cavalry on the hottest scale, It seems to me.... [To aide] Bid him to reinforce The front line with some second-line brigades; Some, too, from the reserve.
[The Brunswickers advance to support MAITLAND'S Guards, and the MITCHELL and ADAM Brigades establish themselves above Hougomont, which is still in flames.
NEY, in continuation of the plan of throwing his whole force on the British centre before the advent of the Prussians, now intensifies his onslaught with the cavalry. Terrific discharges of artillery initiate it to clear the ground. A heavy round- shot dashes through the tree over the heads of WELLINGTON and his generals, and boughs and leaves come flying down on them.]
WELLINGTON
Good practice that! I vow they did not fire So dexterously in Spain. [He calls up an aide.] Bid Ompteda Direct the infantry to lie tight down On the reverse ridge-slope, to screen themselves While these close shots and shells are teasing us; When the charge comes they'll cease.
[The order is carried out. NEY'S cavalry attack now matures. MILHAUD'S cuirassiers in twenty-four squadrons advance down the opposite decline, followed and supported by seven squadrons of chasseurs under DESNOETTES. They disappear for a minute in the hollow between the armies.]
UXBRIDGE
Ah--now we have got their long-brewed plot explained!
WELLINGTON [nodding]
That this was rigged for some picked time to-day I had inferred. But that it would be risked Sheer on our lines, while still they stand unswayed, In conscious battle-trim, I reckoned not. It looks a madman's cruel enterprise!
FITZROY SOMERSET
We have just heard that Ney embarked on it Without an order, ere its aptness riped.
WELLINGTON
It may be so: he's rash. And yet I doubt. I know Napoleon. If the onset fail It will be Ney's; if it succeed he'll claim it!
[A dull reverberation of the tread of innumerable hoofs comes from behind the hill, and the foremost troops rise into view.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Behold the gorgeous coming of those horse, Accoutered in kaleidoscopic hues That would persuade us war has beauty in it!-- Discern the troopers' mien; each with the air Of one who is himself a tragedy: The cuirassiers, steeled, mirroring the day; Red lancers, green chasseurs: behind the blue The red; the red before the green: A lingering-on till late in Christendom, Of the barbaric trick to terrorize The foe by aspect!
[WELLINGTON directs his glass to an officer in a rich uniform with many decorations on his breast, who rides near the front of the approaching squadrons. The DUKE'S face expresses admiration.]
WELLINGTON
It's Marshal Ney himself who heads the charge. The finest cavalry commander, he, That wears a foreign plume; ay, probably The whole world through!
SPIRIT IRONIC
And when that matchless chief Sentenced shall lie to ignominious death But technically deserved, no finger he Who speaks will lift to save him.!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
To his shame. We must discount war's generous impulses I sadly see.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Be mute, and let spin on This whirlwind of the Will!
[As NEY'S cavalry ascends the English position the swish of the horses' breasts through the standing corn can be heard, and the reverberation of hoofs increases in strength. The English gunners stand with their portfires ready, which are seen glowing luridly in the daylight. There is comparative silence.]
A VOICE
Now, captains, are you loaded?
CAPTAINS
Yes, my lord.
VOICE
Point carefully, and wait till their whole height Shows above the ridge.
[When the squadrons rise in full view, within sixty yards of the cannon-mouths, the batteries fire, with a concussion that shakes the hill itself. Their shot punch holes through the front ranks of the cuirassiers, and horse and riders fall in heaps. But they are not stopped, hardly checked, galloping up to the mouths of the guns, passing between the pieces, and plunging among the Allied infantry behind the ridge, who, with the advance of the horsemen, have sprung up from their prone position and formed into squares.]
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
Ney guides the fore-front of the carabineers Through charge and charge, with rapid recklessness. Horses, cuirasses, sabres, helmets, men, Impinge confusedly on the pointed prongs Of the English kneeling there, whose dim red shapes Behind their slanted steel seem trampled flat And sworded to the sward. The charge recedes, And lo, the tough lines rank there as before, Save that they are shrunken.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Hero of heroes, too, Ney, [not forgetting those who gird against him].-- Simple and single-souled lieutenant he; Why should men's many-valued motions take So barbarous a groove!
[The cuirassiers and lancers surge round the English and Allied squares like waves, striking furiously on them and well-nigh breaking them. They stand in dogged silence amid the French cheers.]
WELLINGTON [to the nearest square]
Hard pounding this, my men! I truly trust You'll pound the longest!
SQUARE
Hip-hip-hip-hurrah!
MUFFLING [again referring to his watch]
However firmly they may stand, in faith, Their firmness must have bounds to it, because There are bounds to human strength!... Your, Grace, To leftward now, to spirit Zieten on.
WELLINGTON
Good. It is time! I think he well be late, However, in the field.
[MUFFLING goes. Enter an aide, breathless.]
AIDE
Your Grace, the Ninety-fifth are patience-spent With standing under fire so passing long. They writhe to charge--or anything but stand!
WELLINGTON
Not yet. They shall have at 'em later on. At present keep them firm.
[Exit aide. The Allied squares stand like little red-brick castles, independent of each other, and motionless except at the dry hurried command “Close up!” repeated every now and then as they are slowly thinned. On the other hand, under their firing and bayonets a disorder becomes apparent among the charging horse, on whose cuirasses the bullets snap like stones on window-panes. At this the Allied cavalry waiting in the rear advance; and by degrees they deliver the squares from their enemies, who are withdrawn to their own position to prepare for a still more strenuous assault. The point of view shifts.]
Scene V
THE SAME. THE WOMEN'S CAMP NEAR MONT SAINT-JEAN
[On the sheltered side of a clump of trees at the back of the English position camp-fires are smouldering. Soldiers' wives, mistresses, and children from a few months to five or six years of age, sit on the ground round the fires or on armfuls of straw from the adjoining farm. Wounded soldiers lie near the women. The wind occasionally brings the smoke and smell of battle into the encampment, the noise being continuous. Two waggons stand near; also a surgeon's horse in charge of a batman, laden with bone-saws, knives, probes, tweezers, and other surgical instruments. Behind lies a woman who has just given birth to a child, which a second woman is holding.
Many of the other women are shredding lint, the elder children assisting. Some are dressing the slighter wounds of the soldiers who have come in here instead of going further. Along the road near is a continual procession of bearers of wounded men to the rear. The occupants of the camp take hardly any notice of the thundering of the cannon. A camp-follower is playing a fiddle near. Another woman enters.]
WOMAN
There's no sign of my husband any longer. His battalion is half-a- mile from where it was. He looked back as they wheeled off towards the fighting-line, as much as to say, “Nancy, if I don't see 'ee again, this is good-bye, my dear.” Yes, poor man!... Not but what 'a had a temper at times!
SECOND WOMAN
I'm out of all that. My husband--as I used to call him for form's sake--is quiet enough. He was wownded at Quarter-Brass the day before yesterday, and died the same night. But I didn't know it till I got here, and then says I, “Widder or no widder, I mean to see this out.”
[A sergeant staggers in with blood dropping from his face.]
SERGEANT
Damned if I think you will see it out, mis'ess, for if I don't mistake there'll be a retreat of the whole army on Brussels soon. We can't stand much longer!--For the love of God, have ye got a cup of water, if nothing stronger? [They hand a cup.]
THIRD WOMAN [entering and sinking down]
The Lord send that I may never see again what I've been seeing while looking for my poor galliant Joe! The surgeon asked me to lend a hand; and 'twas worse than opening innerds at a pig-killing! [She faints.]
FOURTH WOMAN [to a little girl]
Never mind her, my dear; come and help me with this one. [She goes with the girl to a soldier in red with buff facings who lies some distance off.] Ah--'tis no good. He's gone.
GIRL
No, mother. His eyes are wide open, a-staring to get a sight of the battle!
FOURTH WOMAN
That's nothing. Lots of dead ones stare in that silly way. It depends upon where they were hit. I was all through the Peninsula; that's how I know. [She covers the horny gaze of the man. Shouts and louder discharges are heard.]--Heaven's high tower, what's that?
[Enter an officer's servant.[24]]
SERVANT
Waiting with the major's spare hoss--up to my knees in mud from the rain that had come down like baccy-pipe stems all the night and morning--I have just seen a charge never beholded since the days of the Amalekites! The squares still stand, but Ney's cavalry have made another attack. Their swords are streaming with blood, and their horses' hoofs squash out our poor fellow's bowels as they lie. A ball has sunk in Sir Thomas Picton's forehead and killed him like Goliath the Philistine. I don't see what's to stop the French. Well, it's the Lord's doing and marvellous in our eyes. Hullo, who's he? [They look towards the road.] A fine hale old gentleman, isn't he? What business has a man of that sort here?
[Enter, on the highway near, the DUKE OF RICHMOND in plain clothes, on horseback, accompanied by two youths, his sons. They draw rein on an eminence, and gaze towards the battlefields.]
RICHMOND [to son]
Everything looks as bad as possible just now. I wonder where your brother is? However, we can't go any nearer.... Yes, the bat- horses are already being moved off, and there are more and more fugitives. A ghastly finish to your mother's ball, by Gad if it isn't!
[They turn their horses towards Brussels. Enter, meeting them, MR. LEGH, a Wessex gentleman, also come out to view the battle.]
LEGH
Can you tell me, sir, how the battle is going?
RICHMOND
Badly, badly, I fear, sir. There will be a retreat soon, seemingly.
LEGH
Indeed! Yes, a crowd of fugitives are coming over the hill even now. What will these poor women do?
RICHMOND
God knows! They will be ridden over, I suppose. Though it is extraordinary how they do contrive to escape destruction while hanging so close to the rear of an action! They are moving, however. Well, we will move too.
[Exeunt DUKE OF RICHMOND, sons, and MR. LEGH. The point of view shifts.]
Scene VI
THE SAME. THE FRENCH POSITION
[NEY'S charge of cavalry against the opposite upland has been three times renewed without success. He collects the scattered squadrons to renew it a fourth time. The glittering host again ascends the confronting slopes over the bodies of those previously left there, and amid horses wandering about without riders, or crying as they lie with entrails trailing or limbs broken.]
NAPOLEON [starting up]
A horrible dream has gripped me--horrible! I saw before me Lannes--just as he looked That day at Aspern: mutilated, bleeding! “What--blood again?” he said to me. “Still blood?”
[He further arouses himself, takes snuff vehemently, and looks through his glass.]
What time is it?--Ah, these assaults of Ney's! They are a blunder; they've been enterprised An hour too early!... There Lheritier goes Onward with his division next Milhaud; Now Kellermann must follow up with his. So one mistake makes many. Yes; ay; yes!
SOULT
I fear that Ney has compromised us here Just as at Jena; even worse!
NAPOLEON
No less Must we support him now he is launched on it.... The miracle is that he is still alive!
[NEY and his mass of cavalry again pass the English batteries and disappear amid the squares beyond.]
Their cannon are abandoned; and their squares Again environed--see! I would to God Murat could be here! Yet I disdained His proffered service.... All my star asks now Is to break some half-dozen of those blocks Of English yonder. He was the man to do it.
[NEY and D'ERLON'S squadrons are seen emerging from the English squares in a disorganized state, the attack having failed like the previous ones. An aide-de-camp enters to NAPOLEON.]
AIDE
The Prussians have debouched on our right rear From Paris-wood; and Losthin's infantry Appear by Plancenoit; Hiller's to leftwards. Two regiments of their horse protect their front, And three light batteries.
[A haggard shade crosses NAPOLEON'S face.]
NAPOLEON
What then! That's not a startling force as yet. A counter-stroke by Domon's cavalry Must shatter them. Lobau must bring his foot Up forward, heading for the Prussian front, Unrecking losses by their cannonade.
[Exit aide. The din of battle continues. DOMON'S horse are soon seen advancing towards and attacking the Prussian hussars in front of the infantry; and he next attempts to silence the Prussian batteries playing on him by leading up his troops and cutting down the gunners. But he has to fall back upon the infantry of LOBAU. Enter another aide-de-camp.]
AIDE
These tiding I report, your Majesty:-- Von Ryssel's and von Hacke's Prussian foot Have lately sallied from the Wood of Paris, Bearing on us; no vast array as yet; But twenty thousand loom not far behind These vanward marchers!
NAPOLEON
Ah! They swarm thus thickly? But be they hell's own legions we'll defy them!-- Lobau's men will stand firm.
[He looks in the direction of the English lines, where NEY'S cavalry-assaults still linger furiously on.]
But who rides hither, Spotting the sky with clods in his high haste?
SOULT
It looks like Colonel Heymes--come from Ney.
NAPOLEON [sullenly]
And his face shows what clef his music's in!
[Enter COLONEL HEYMES, blood-stained, muddy, and breathless.]
HEYMES
The Prince of Moscow, sire, the Marshal Ney, Bids me implore that infantry be sent Immediately, to further his attack. They cannot be dispensed with, save we fail!
NAPOLEON [furiously]
Infantry! Where the sacred God thinks he I can find infantry for him! Forsooth, Does he expect me to create them--eh? Why sends he such a message, seeing well How we are straitened here!
HEYMES
Such was the prayer Of my commission, sire. And I say That I myself have seen his strokes must waste Without such backing.
NAPOLEON
Why?
HEYMES
Our cavalry Lie stretched in swathes, fronting the furnace-throats Of the English cannon as a breastwork built Of reeking copses. Marshal Ney's third horse Is shot. Besides the slain, Donop, Guyot, Lheritier, Piquet, Travers, Delort, more, Are vilely wounded. On the other hand Wellington has sought refuge in a square, Few of his generals are not killed or hit, And all is tickle with him. But I see, Likewise, that I can claim no reinforcement, And will return and say so.
[Exit HEYMES]
NAPOLEON [to Soult, sadly]
Ney does win me! I fain would strengthen him.--Within an ace Of breaking down the English as he is, 'Twould write upon the sunset “Victory!”-- But whom may spare we from the right here now? So single man!
[An interval.]
Life's curse begins, I see, With helplessness!... All I can compass is To send Durutte to fall on Papelotte, And yet more strongly occupy La Haye, To cut off Bulow's right from bearing up And checking Ney's attack. Further than this None but the Gods can scheme!
[SOULT hastily begins writing orders to that effect. The point of view shifts.]
Scene VII
THE SAME. THE ENGLISH POSITION
[The din of battle continues. WELLINGTON, UXBRIDGE, HILL, DE LANCEY, GORDON, and others discovered near the middle of the line.]
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
It is a moment when the steadiest pulse Thuds pit-a-pat. The crisis shapes and nears For Wellington as for his counter-chief.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
The hour is shaking him, unshakeable As he may seem!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Know'st not at this stale time That shaken and unshaken are alike But demonstrations from the Back of Things? Must I again reveal It as It hauls The halyards of the world?
[A transparency as in earlier scenes again pervades the spectacle, and the ubiquitous urging of the Immanent Will becomes visualized. The web connecting all the apparently separate shapes includes WELLINGTON in its tissue with the rest, and shows him, like them, as acting while discovering his intention to act. By the lurid light the faces of every row, square, group, and column of men, French and English, wear the expression of that of people in a dream.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES [tremulously]
Yea, sire; I see. Disquiet me, pray, no more!
[The strange light passes, and the embattled hosts on the field seem to move independently as usual.]
WELLINGTON [to Uxbridge]
Manoeuvring does not seem to animate Napoleon's methods now. Forward he comes, And pounds away on us in the ancient style, Till he is beaten back in the ancient style; And so the see-saw sways!
[The din increases. WELLINGTON'S aide-de-camp, Sir A. GORDON, a little in his rear, falls mortally wounded. The DUKE turns quickly.]
But where is Gordon? Ah--hit is he! That's bad, that's bad, by God.
[GORDON is removed. An aide enters.]
AIDE
Your Grace, the Colonel Ompteda has fallen, And La Haye Sainte is now a bath of blood. Nothing more can be done there, save with help. The Rifles suffer sharply!
[An aide is seen coming from KEMPT.]
WELLINGTON
What says he?
DE LANCEY
He says that Kempt, being riddled through and thinned, Sends him for reinforcements.
WELLINGTON [with heat]
Reinforcements? And where am I to get him reinforcements In Heaven's name! I've no reinforcements here, As he should know.
AIDE [hesitating]
What's to be done, your Grace?
WELLINGTON
Done? Those he has left him, be they many or few, Fight till they fall, like others in the field!
[Exit aide. The Quartermaster-General DE LANCEY, riding by WELLINGTON, is struck by a lobbing shot that hurls him over the head of his horse. WELLINGTON and others go to him.]
DE LANCEY [faintly]
I may as well be left to die in peace!
WELLINGTON
He may recover. Take him to the rear, And call the best attention up to him.
[DE LANCEY is carried off. The next moment a shell bursts close to WELLINGTON.]
HILL [approaching]
I strongly feel you stand too much exposed!
WELLINGTON
I know, I know. It matters not one damn! I may as well be shot as not perceive What ills are raging here.
HILL
Conceding such, And as you may be ended momently, A truth there is no blinking, what commands Have you to leave me, should fate shape it so?
WELLINGTON
These simply: to hold out unto the last, As long as one man stands on one lame leg With one ball in his pouch!--then end as I.
[He rides on slowly with the others. NEY'S charges, though fruitless so far, are still fierce. His troops are now reduced to one-half. Regiments of the BACHELU division, and the JAMIN brigade, are at last moved up to his assistance. They are partly swept down by the Allied batteries, and partly notched away by the infantry, the smoke being now so thick that the position of the battalions is revealed only by the flashing of the priming- pans and muzzles, and by the furious oaths heard behind the cloud. WELLINGTON comes back. Enter another aide-de-camp.]
AIDE
We bow to the necessity of saying That our brigade is lessened to one-third, Your Grace. And those who are left alive of it Are so unmuscled by fatigue and thirst That some relief, however temporary, Becomes sore need.
WELLINGTON
Inform your general That his proposal asks the impossible! That he, I, every Englishman afield, Must fall upon the spot we occupy, Our wounds in front.
AIDE
It is enough, your Grace. I answer for't that he, those under him, And I withal, will bear us as you say.
[Exit aide. The din of battle goes on. WELLINGTON is grave but calm. Like those around him, he is splashed to the top of his hat with partly dried mire, mingled with red spots; his face is grimed in the same way, little courses showing themselves where the sweat has trickled down from his brow and temples.]
CLINTON [to Hill]
A rest would do our chieftain no less good, In faith, than that unfortunate brigade! He is tried damnably; and much more strained Than I have ever seen him.
HILL
Endless risks He's running likewise. What the hell would happen If he were shot, is more than I can say!
WELLINGTON [calling to some near]
At Talavera, Salamanca, boys, And at Vitoria, we saw smoke together; And though the day seems wearing doubtfully, Beaten we must not be! What would they say Of us at home, if so?
A CRY [from the French]
Their centre breaks! Vive l'Empereur!
[It comes from the FOY and BACHELU divisions, which are rushing forward. HALKETT'S and DUPLAT'S brigades intercept. DUPLAT falls, shot dead; but the venturesome French regiments, pierced with converging fires, and cleft with shells, have to retreat.]
HILL [joining Wellington]
The French artillery-fire To the right still renders regiments restive there That have to stand. The long exposure galls them.
WELLINGTON
They must be stayed as our poor means afford. I have to bend attention steadfastly Upon the centre here. The game just now Goes all against us; and if staunchness fail But for one moment with these thinning foot, Defeat succeeds!
[The battle continues to sway hither and thither with concussions, wounds, smoke, the fumes of gunpowder, and the steam from the hot viscera of grape-torn horses and men. One side of a Hanoverian square is blown away; the three remaining sides form themselves into a triangle. So many of his aides are cut down that it is difficult for WELLINGTON to get reports of what is happening afar. It begins to be discovered at the front that a regiment of hussars, and others without ammunition, have deserted, and that some officers in the rear, honestly concluding the battle to be lost, are riding quietly off to Brussels. Those who are left unwounded of WELLINGTON'S staff show gloomy misgivings at such signs, despite their own firmness.]
SPIRIT SINISTER
One needs must be a ghost To move here in the midst 'twixt host and host! Their balls scream brisk and breezy tunes through me As I were an organ-stop. It's merry so; What damage mortal flesh must undergo!
[A Prussian officer enters to MUFFLING, who has again rejoined the DUKE'S suite. MUFFLING hastens forward to WELLINGTON.]
MUFFLING
Blücher has just begun to operate; But owing to Gneisenau's stolid stagnancy The body of our army looms not yet! As Zieten's corps still plod behind Smohain Their coming must be late. Blücher's attack Strikes the remote right rear of the enemy, Somewhere by Plancenoit.
WELLINGTON
A timely blow; But would that Zieten sped! Well, better late Than never. We'll still stand.
[The point of observation shifts.]
Scene VIII
THE SAME. LATER
[NEY'S long attacks on the centre with cavalry having failed, those left of the squadrons and their infantry-supports fall back pell-mell in broken groups across the depression between the armies.
Meanwhile BULOW, having engaged LOBAU'S Sixth Corps, carries Plancenoit.
The artillery-fire between the French and the English continues. An officer of the Third Foot-guards comes up to WELLINGTON and those of his suite that survive.]
OFFICER
Our Colonel Canning--coming I know not whence--
WELLINGTON
I lately sent him with important words To the remoter lines.
OFFICER
As he returned A grape-shot struck him in the breast; he fell, At once a dead man. General Halkett, too, Has had his cheek shot through, but still keeps going.
WELLINGTON
And how proceeds De Lancey?
OFFICER
I am told That he forbids the surgeons waste their time On him, who well can wait till worse are eased.
WELLINGTON
A noble fellow.
[NAPOLEON can now be seen, across the valley, pushing forward a new scheme of some sort, urged to it obviously by the visible nearing of further Prussian corps. The EMPEROR is as critically situated as WELLINGTON, and his army is now formed in a right angle [“en potence”], the main front to the English, the lesser to as many of the Prussians as have yet arrived. His gestures show him to be giving instructions of desperate import to a general whom he has called up.]
SPIRIT IRONIC
He bids La Bedoyere to speed away Along the whole sweep of the surging line, And there announce to the breath-shotten bands Who toil for a chimaera trustfully, With seventy pounds of luggage on their loins, That the dim Prussian masses seen afar Are Grouchy's three-and-thirty thousand, come To clinch a victory.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
But Ney demurs!
SPIRIT IRONIC
Ney holds indignantly that such a feint Is not war-worthy. Says Napoleon then, Snuffing anew, with sour sardonic scowl, That he is choiceless.
SPIRIT SINISTER
Excellent Emperor! He tops all human greatness; in that he To lesser grounds of greatness adds the prime, Of being without a conscience.
[LA BEDOYERE and orderlies start on their mission. The false intelligence is seen to spread, by the excited motion of the columns, and the soldiers can be heard shouting as their spirits revive.
WELLINGTON is beginning to discern the features of the coming onset, when COLONEL FRASER rides up.]
FRASER
We have just learnt from a deserting captain, One of the carabineers who charged of late, That an assault which dwarfs all instances-- The whole Imperial Guard in welded weight-- Is shortly to be made.
WELLINGTON
For your smart speed My thanks. My observation is confirmed. We'll hasten now along the battle-line [to Staff], As swiftest means for giving orders out Whereby to combat this.
[The speaker, accompanied by HILL, UXBRIDGE, and others--all now looking as worn and besmirched as the men in the ranks--proceed along the lines, and dispose the brigades to meet the threatened shock. The infantry are brought out of the shelter they have recently sought, the cavalry stationed in the rear, and the batteries of artillery hitherto kept in reserve are moved to the front.
The last Act of the battle begins.
There is a preliminary attack by DONZELOT'S columns, combined with swarms of sharpshooters, to the disadvantage of the English and their Allies. WELLINGTON has scanned it closely. FITZROY SOMERSET, his military secretary, comes up.]
WELLINGTON
What casualty has thrown its shade among The regiments of Nassau, to shake them so?
SOMERSET
The Prince of Orange has been badly struck-- A bullet through his shoulder--so they tell; And Kielmansegge has shown some signs of stress. Kincaird's tried line wanes leaner and more lean-- Whittled to a weak skein of skirmishers; The Twenty-seventh lie dead.
WELLINGTON
Ah yes--I know!
[While they watch developments a cannon-shot passes and knocks SOMERSET'S right arm to a mash. He is assisted to the rear.
NEY and FRIANT now lead forward the last and most desperate assault of the day, in charges of the Old and Middle Guard, the attack by DONZELOT and ALLIX further east still continuing as a support. It is about a quarter-past eight, and the midsummer evening is fine after the wet night and morning, the sun approaching its setting in a sky of gorgeous colours.
The picked and toughened Guard, many of whom stood in the ranks at Austerlitz and Wagram, have been drawn up in three or four echelons, the foremost of which now advances up the slopes to the Allies' position. The others follow at intervals, the drummers beating the “pas de charge.”]
CHORUS OF RUMOURS [aerial music]
Twice thirty throats of couchant cannonry-- Ranked in a hollow curve, to close their blaze Upon the advancing files--wait silently Like to black bulls at gaze.
The Guard approaches nearer and more near: To touch-hole moves each match of smoky sheen: The ordnance roars: the van-ranks disappear As if wiped off the scene.
The aged Friant falls as it resounds; Ney's charger drops--his fifth on this sore day-- Its rider from the quivering body bounds And forward foots his way.
The cloven columns tread the English height, Seize guns, repulse battalions rank by rank, While horse and foot artillery heavily bite Into their front and flank.
It nulls the power of a flesh-built frame To live within that zone of missiles. Back The Old Guard, staggering, climbs to whence it came. The fallen define its track.
[The second echelon of the Imperial Guard has come up to the assault. Its columns have borne upon HALKETT'S right. HALKETT, desperate to keep his wavering men firm, himself seizes and waves the flag of the Thirty-third, in which act he falls wounded. But the men rally. Meanwhile the Fifty-second, covered by the Seventy-first, has advanced across the front, and charges the Imperial Guard on the flank.
The third echelon next arrives at the English lines and squares; rushes through the very focus of their fire, and seeing nothing more in front, raises a shout.
IMPERIAL GUARD
The Emperor! It's victory!
WELLINGTON
Stand up, Guards! Form line upon the front face of the square!
[Two thousand of MAITLAND'S Guards, hidden in the hollow roadway, thereupon spring up, form as ordered, and reveal themselves as a fence of leveled firelocks four deep. The flints click in a multitude, the pans flash, and volley after volley is poured into the bear-skinned figures of the massed French, who kill COLONEL D'OYLEY in returning fire.]
WELLINGTON
Now drive the fellows in! Go on; go on! You'll do it now!
[COLBORNE converges on the French guard with the Fifty-second, and The former splits into two as the climax comes. ADAM, MAITLAND, and COLBORNE pursue their advantage. The Imperial columns are broken, and their confusion is increased by grape-shot from BOLTON'S battery.]
Campbell, this order next: Vivian's hussars are to support, and bear Against the cavalry towards Belle Alliance. Go--let him know.
[Sir C. CAMPBELL departs with the order. Soon VIVIAN'S and VANDELEUR'S light horse are seen advancing, and in due time the French cavalry are rolled back.
WELLINGTON goes in the direction of the hussars with UXBRIDGE. A cannon-shot hisses past.]
UXBRIDGE [starting]
I have lost my leg, by God!
WELLINGTON
By God, and have you! Ay--the wind o' the shot Blew past the withers of my Copenhagen Like the foul sweeping of a witch's broom.-- Aha--they are giving way!
[While UXBRIDGE is being helped to the rear, WELLINGTON makes a sign to SALTOUN, Colonel of the First Footguards.]
SALTOUN [shouting]
Boys, now's your time; Forward and win!
FRENCH VOICES
The Guard gives way--we are beaten!
[They recede down the hill, carrying confusion into NAPOLEON'S centre just as the Prussians press forward at a right angle from the other side of the field. NAPOLEON is seen standing in the hollow beyond La Haye Sainte, alone, except for the presence of COUNT FLAHAULT, his aide-de-camp. His lips move with sudden exclamation.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
He says “Now all is lost! The clocks of the world Strike my last empery-hour.”
[Towards La Haye Sainte the French of DONZELOT and ALLIX, who are fighting KEMPT, PACK, KRUSE, and LAMBERT, seeing what has happened to the Old and Middle Guard, lose heart and recede likewise; so that the whole French line rolls back like a tide. Simultaneously the Prussians are pressing forward at Papelotte and La Haye. The retreat of the French grows into a panic.]
FRENCH VOICES [despairingly]
We are betrayed!
[WELLINGTON rides at a gallop to the most salient point of the English position, halts, and waves his hat as a signal to all the army. The sign is answered by a cheer along the length of the line.]
WELLINGTON
No cheering yet, my lads; but bear ahead, Before the inflamed face of the west out there Dons blackness. So you'll round your victory!
[The few aides that are left unhurt dart hither and thither with this message, and the whole English host and it allies advance in an ordered mass down the hill except some of the artillery, who cannot get their wheels over the bank of corpses in front. Trumpets, drums, and bugles resound with the advance.
The streams of French fugitives as they run are cut down and shot by their pursuers, whose clothes and contracted features are blackened by smoke and cartridge-biting, and soiled with loam and blood. Some French blow out their own brains as they fly. The sun drops below the horizon while the slaughter goes on.]
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Is this the last Esdraelon of a moil For mortal man's effacement?
SPIRIT IRONIC
Warfare, mere, Plied by the Managed for the Managers; To wit: by frenzied folks who profit nought For those who profit all!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Between the jars Of these who live, I hear uplift and move The bones of those who placidly have lain Within the sacred garths of yon grey fanes-- Nivelles, and Plancenoit, and Braine l'Alleud-- Beneath the unmemoried mounds through deedless years Their dry jaws quake: “What Sabaoath is this, That shakes us in our unobtrusive shrouds, As though our tissues did not yet abhor The fevered feats of life?”
SPIRIT IRONIC
Mere fancy's feints! How know the coffined what comes after them, Even though it whirl them to the Pleiades?-- Turn to the real.
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
That hatless, smoke-smirched shape There in the vale, is still the living Ney, His sabre broken in his hand, his clothes Slitten with ploughing ball and bayonet, One epaulette shorn away. He calls out “Follow!” And a devoted handful follow him Once more into the carnage. Hear his voice.
NEY [calling afar]
My friends, see how a Marshal of France can die!
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Alas, not here in battle, something hints, But elsewhere!... Who's the sworded brother-chief Swept past him in the tumult?
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
D'Erlon he. Ney cries to him:
NEY
Be sure of this, my friend, If we don't perish here at English hands, Nothing is left us but the halter-noose The Bourbons will provide!
SPIRIT IRONIC
A caustic wit, And apt, to those who deal in adumbrations!
[The brave remnant of the Imperial Guard repulses for a time the English cavalry under Vivian, in which MAJOR HOWARD and LIEUTENANT GUNNING of the Tenth Hussars are shot. But the war-weary French cannot cope with the pursuing infantry, helped by grape-shot from the batteries.
NAPOLEON endeavours to rally them. It is his last effort as a warrior; and the rally ends feebly.]
NAPOLEON
They are crushed! So it has ever been since Crecy!
[He is thrown violently off his horse, and bids his page bring another, which he mounts, and is lost to sight.]
SPIRIT OF RUMOUR
He loses his last chance of dying well!
[The three or four heroic battalions of the Old and Middle Guard fall back step by step, halting to reform in square when they get badly broken and shrunk. At last they are surrounded by the English Guards and other foot, who keep firing on them and smiting them to smaller and smaller numbers. GENERAL CAMBRONNE is inside the square.]
COLONEL HUGH HALKETT [shouting]
Surrender! And preserve those heroes' lives!
CAMBRONNE [with exasperation]
Mer-r-rde!... You've to deal with desperates, man, today: Life is a byword here!
[Hollow laughter, as from people in hell, comes approvingly from the remains of the Old Guard. The English proceed with their massacre, the devoted band thins and thins, and a ball strikes CAMBRONNE, who falls, and is trampled over.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Observe that all wide sight and self-command Desert these throngs now driven to demonry By the Immanent Unrecking. Nought remains But vindictiveness here amid the strong, And there amid the weak an impotent rage.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Why prompts the Will so senseless-shaped a doing?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
I have told thee that It works unwittingly, As one possessed, not judging.
SEMICHORUS I OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music]
Of Its doings if It knew, What It does It would not do!
SEMICHORUS II
Since It knows not, what far sense Speeds Its spinnings in the Immense?
SEMICHORUS I
None; a fixed foresightless dream Is Its whole philosopheme.
SEMICHORUS II
Just so; an unconscious planning, Like a potter raptly panning!
CHORUS
Are then, Love and Light Its aim-- Good Its glory, Bad Its blame? Nay; to alter evermore Things from what they were before.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Your knowings of the Unknowable declared, Let the last pictures of the play be bared.
[Enter, fighting, more English and Prussians against the French. NEY is caught by the throng and borne ahead. RULLIERE hides an eagle beneath his coat and follows Ney. NAPOLEON is involved none knows where in the crowd of fugitives.
WELLINGTON and BLÜCHER come severally to the view. They meet in the dusk and salute warmly. The Prussian bands strike up “God save the King” as the two shake hands. From his gestures of assent it can be seen that WELLINGTON accepts BLÜCHER'S offer to pursue.
The reds disappear from the sky, and the dusk grows deeper. The action of the battle degenerates to a hunt, and recedes further and further into the distance southward. When the tramplings and shouts of the combatants have dwindled, the lower sounds are noticeable that come from the wounded: hopeless appeals, cries for water, elaborate blasphemies, and impotent execrations of Heaven and hell. In the vast and dusky shambles black slouching shapes begin to move, the plunderers of the dead and dying.
The night grows clear and beautiful, and the moon shines musingly down. But instead of the sweet smell of green herbs and dewy rye as at her last beaming upon these fields, there is now the stench of gunpowder and a muddy stew of crushed crops and gore.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
So hath the Urging Immanence used to-day Its inadvertent might to field this fray: And Europe's wormy dynasties rerobe Themselves in their old gilt, to dazzle anew the globe!
[The scene us curtained by a night-mist.[25]]
Scene IX
THE WOOD OF BOSSU
[It is midnight. NAPOLEON enters a glade of the wood, a solitary figure on a faded horse. The shadows of the boughs travel over his listless form as he moves along. The horse chooses its own path, comes to a standstill, and feeds. The tramp of BERTRAND, SOULT, DROUOT, and LOBAU'S horses, gone forward in hope to find a way of retreat, is heard receding over the hill.]
NAPOLEON [to himself, languidly]
Here should have been some troops of Gerard's corps, Left to protect the passage of the convoys, Yet they, too, fail.... I have nothing more to lose, But life!
[Flocks of fugitive soldiers pass along the adjoining road without seeing him. NAPOLEON'S head droops lower and lower as he sits listless in the saddle, and he falls into a fitful sleep. The moon shines upon his face, which is drawn and waxen.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
“Sic diis immortalibus placet,”-- “Thus is it pleasing to the immortal gods,” As earthlings used to say. Thus, to this last, The Will in thee has moved thee, Bonaparte, As we say now.
NAPOLEON [starting]
Whose frigid tones are those, Breaking upon my lurid loneliness So brusquely?... Yet, 'tis true, I have ever know That such a Will I passively obeyed!
[He drowses again.]
SPIRIT IRONIC
Nothing care I for these high-doctrined dreams, And shape the case in quite a common way, So I would ask, Ajaccian Bonaparte, Has all this been worth while?
NAPOLEON
O hideous hour, Why am I stung by spectral questionings? Did not my clouded soul incline to match Those of the corpses yonder, thou should'st rue Thy saying, Fiend, whoever those may'st be!...
Why did the death-drops fail to bite me close I took at Fontainebleau? Had I then ceased, This deep had been umplumbed; had they but worked, I had thrown threefold the glow of Hannibal Down History's dusky lanes!--Is it too late?... Yes. Self-sought death would smoke but damply here!
If but a Kremlin cannon-shot had met me My greatness would have stood: I should have scored A vast repute, scarce paralleled in time. As it did not, the fates had served me best If in the thick and thunder of to-day, Like Nelson, Harold, Hector, Cyrus, Saul, I had been shifted from this jail of flesh, To wander as a greatened ghost elsewhere. --Yes, a good death, to have died on yonder field; But never a ball came padding down my way!
So, as it is, a miss-mark they will dub me; And yet--I found the crown of France in the mire, And with the point of my prevailing sword I picked it up! But for all this and this I shall be nothing.... To shoulder Christ from out the topmost niche In human fame, as once I fondly felt, Was not for me. I came too late in time To assume the prophet or the demi-god, A part past playing now. My only course To make good showance to posterity Was to implant my line upon the throne. And how shape that, if now extinction nears? Great men are meteors that consume themselves To light the earth. This is my burnt-out hour.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Thou sayest well. Thy full meridian-shine Was in the glory of the Dresden days, When well-nigh every monarch throned in Europe Bent at thy footstool.
NAPOLEON
Saving always England's-- Rightly dost say “well-nigh.”--Not England's,--she Whose tough, enisled, self-centred, kindless craft Has tracked me, springed me, thumbed me by the throat, And made herself the means of mangling me!
SPIRIT IRONIC
Yea, the dull peoples and the Dynasts both, Those counter-castes not oft adjustable, Interests antagonistic, proud and poor, Have for the nonce been bonded by a wish To overthrow thee.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Peace. His loaded heart Bears weight enough for one bruised, blistered while!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Worthless these kneadings of thy narrow thought, Napoleon; gone thy opportunity! Such men as thou, who wade across the world To make an epoch, bless, confuse, appal, Are in the elemental ages' chart Like meanest insects on obscurest leaves, But incidents and grooves of Earth's unfolding; Or as the brazen rod that stirs the fire Because it must.
[The moon sinks, and darkness blots out NAPOLEON and the scene.]
AFTER SCENE
THE OVERWORLD
[Enter the Spirit and Chorus of the Years, the Spirit and Chorus of the Pities, the Shade of the Earth, the Spirits Sinister and Ironic with their Choruses, Rumours, Spirit-messengers and Recording Angels.
Europe has now sunk netherward to its far-off position as in the Fore Scene, and it is beheld again as a prone and emaciated figure of which the Alps form the vertebrae, and the branching mountain- chains the ribs, the Spanish Peninsula shaping the head of the ecorche. The lowlands look like a grey-green garment half-thrown off, and the sea around like a disturbed bed on which the figure lies.]
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Thus doth the Great Foresightless mechanize In blank entrancement now as evermore Its ceaseless artistries in Circumstance Of curious stuff and braid, as just forthshown.
Yet but one flimsy riband of Its web Have we here watched in weaving--web Enorm, Whose furthest hem and selvage may extend To where the roars and plashings of the flames Of earth-invisible suns swell noisily, And onwards into ghastly gulfs of sky, Where hideous presences churn through the dark-- Monsters of magnitude without a shape, Hanging amid deep wells of nothingness.
Yet seems this vast and singular confection Wherein our scenery glints of scantest size, Inutile all--so far as reasonings tell.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
Thou arguest still the Inadvertent Mind.-- But, even so, shall blankness be for aye? Men gained cognition with the flux of time, And wherefore not the Force informing them, When far-ranged aions past all fathoming Shall have swung by, and stand as backward years?
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
What wouldst have hoped and had the Will to be?-- How wouldst have paeaned It, if what hadst dreamed Thereof were truth, and all my showings dream?
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
The Will that fed my hope was far from thine, One I would thus have hymned eternally:--
SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES [aerial music]
To Thee whose eye all Nature owns, Who hurlest Dynasts from their thrones,[26] And liftest those of low estate We sing, with Her men consecrate!
SEMICHORUS II
Yea, Great and Good, Thee, Thee we hail, Who shak'st the strong, Who shield'st the frail, Who hadst not shaped such souls as we If tendermercy lacked in Thee!
SEMICHORUS I
Though times be when the mortal moan Seems unascending to Thy throne, Though seers do not as yet explain Why Suffering sobs to Thee in vain;
SEMICHORUS II
We hold that Thy unscanted scope Affords a food for final Hope, That mild-eyed Prescience ponders nigh Life's loom, to lull it by-and-by.
SEMICHORUS I
Therefore we quire to highest height The Wellwiller, the kindly Might That balances the Vast for weal, That purges as by wounds to heal.
SEMICHORUS II
The systemed suns the skies enscroll Obey Thee in their rhythmic roll, Ride radiantly at Thy command, Are darkened by Thy Masterhand!
SEMICHORUS I
And these pale panting multitudes Seen surging here, their moils, their moods, All shall “fulfil their joy” in Thee In Thee abide eternally!
SEMICHORUS II
Exultant adoration give The Alone, through Whom all living live, The Alone, in Whom all dying die, Whose means the End shall justify! Amen.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES
So did we evermore, sublimely sing; So would we now, despise thy forthshowing!
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
Something of difference animates your quiring, O half-convinced Compassionates and fond, From chords consistent with our spectacle! You almost charm my long philosophy Out of my strong-built thought, and bear me back To when I thanksgave thus.... Ay, start not, Shades; In the Foregone I knew what dreaming was, And could let raptures rule! But not so now. Yea, I psalmed thus and thus.... But not so now.
SEMICHORUS I OF THE YEARS [aerial music]
O Immanence, That reasonest not In putting forth all things begot, Thou build'st Thy house in space--for what?
SEMICHORUS II
O loveless, Hateless!--past the sense Of kindly eyed benevolence, To what tune danceth this Immense?
SPIRIT IRONIC
For one I cannot answer. But I know 'Tis handsome of our Pities so to sing The praises of the dreaming, dark, dumb Thing That turns the handle of this idle show!
As once a Greek asked I would fain ask too, Who knows if all the Spectacle be true, Or an illusion of the gods [the Will, To wit] some hocus-pocus to fulfil?
SEMICHORUS I OF THE YEARS [aerial music]
Last as first the question rings Of the Will's long travailings; Why the All-mover, Why the All-prover Ever urges on and measure out the chordless chime of Things.[27]
SEMICHORUS II
Heaving dumbly As we deem, Moulding numbly As in dream Apprehending not how fare the sentient subjects of Its scheme.
SEMICHORUS I OF THE PITIES
Nay;--shall not Its blindness break? Yea, must not Its heart awake, Promptly tending To Its mending In a genial germing purpose, and for loving-kindness sake?
SEMICHORUS II
Should it never Curb or care Aught whatever Those endure Whom It quickens, let them darkle to extinction swift and sure.
CHORUS
But--a stirring thrills the air Like to sounds of joyance there That the rages Of the ages Shall be cancelled, and deliverance offered from the darts that were, Consciousness the Will informing, till It fashion all things fair!
THE END OF “THE DYNASTS”
September 25, 1907
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 1: Schlegel.]
[Footnote 2: Introduction to the Choephori.]
[Footnote 3: It is now called an Epic-drama, Footnote 1909.]
[Footnote 4: Through this tangle of intentions the writer has in the main followed Thiers, whose access to documents would seem to authenticate his details of the famous scheme for England's ruin.]
[Footnote 5: These historic facings, which, I believe, won for the local [Footnote old 39th: regiment the nickname of “Green Linnets,” have been changed for no apparent reason. Footnote They are now restored--1909]
[Footnote 6: The remains of the lonely hut occupied by the beacon-keepers, consisting of some half-buried brickbats, and a little mound of peat overgrown with moss, are still visible on the elevated spot referred to. The two keepers themselves, and their eccentricities and sayings are traditionary, with a slight disguise of names.]
[Footnote 7: “Le projet existe encore aux archives de la marine que Napoleon consultait incessamment; il sentait que cette marine depuis Louis XIV. avait fait de grandes choses: le plan de l'Expedition d'Egypte et de la descente en Angleterre se trouvaient au ministere de la marine.”--CAPEFIGUE: L'Europe pendant le Consulat et l'Empire.]
[Footnote 8: This weather-beaten old building, though now an hotel, is but little altered.]
[Footnote 9: Soph. Trach. 1266-72.]
[Footnote 10: This scene is a little antedated, to include it in the Act to which it essentially belongs.]
[Footnote 11: “Quel bonhour que je n'aie aucun enfant pour recueillir mon horrible heritage et qui soit charge du poids de mon nom!”-- [Footnote Extract from the poignant letter to his wife written on this night.--See Lanfrey iii. 374.]
[Footnote 12: In those days the hind-part of the harbour adjoining this scene was so named, and at high tides the waves washed across the isthmus at a point called “The Narrows.”
[Footnote 13: This General's name should, it is said, be pronounced in three syllables, nearly PRESH-EV-SKY.]
[Footnote 14: It has been conjectured of late that these adventurous spirits were Sir Robert Wilson and, possibly, Lord Hutchinson, present there at imminent risks of their lives.]
[Footnote 15: The traditional present of the rose was probably on this occasion, though it is not quite matter of certainty.]
[Footnote 16: At this date.]
[Footnote 17: So Madame Metternich to her husband in reporting this interview. But who shall say!]
[Footnote 18: The writer has been unable to discover what became of this unhappy lady and her orphaned infants.--[Footnote The foregoing note, which appeared in the first edition of this drama, was the means of bringing from a descendant of the lady referred to the information she remarried, and lived and died at Venice; and that both her children grew up and did well.--1909:
[Footnote 19: Thomas Young of Sturminster-Newton; served twenty-one years in the Fifteenth [Footnote King's: Hussars; died 1853; fought at Vitoria, and Waterloo.]
[Footnote 20: Hussars, it may be remembered, used to wear a pelisse, dolman, or “sling-jacket” [Footnote as the men called: , which hung loosely over the shoulder. The writer is able to recall the picturesque effect of this uniform.]
[Footnote 21: Sheridan.]
[Footnote 22: This famous ball has become so embedded in the history of the Hundred Days as to be an integral part of it. Yet in spite of the efforts that have been made to locate the room which saw the memorable gathering [Footnote by the present writer more than thirty years back, among other enthusiasts: , a dispassionate judgment must deny that its site has as yet been proven. Even Sir W. Fraser is not convincing. The event happened less than a century ago, but the spot is almost as phantasmal in its elusive mystery as towered Camelot, the palace of Priam, or the hill of Calvary.]
[Footnote 23: The spelling of the date is used.]
[Footnote 24: Samuel Clark; born 1779, died 1857. Buried at West Stafford, Dorset.]
[Footnote 25: One of the many Waterloo men known to the writer in his youth, John Bentley of the Fusileer Guards, use to declare that he lay down on the ground in such weariness that when food was brought him he could not eat it, and slept till next morning on an empty stomach. He died at Chelsea Hospital, 187-, aged eighty six.]
[Footnote 26: Transcriber's note: This footnote is an excerpt in Greek from the “Magnificat” canticle, the Latin character equivalent being “katheile DYNASTAS apo THrono,” or “He has put down the mighty from their thrones.”--D.L.]
[Footnote 27: Hor. Epis. i, 12.]
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