Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1054 page)

without stopping, and don't halt till we reach Compiegne.

[He sits down in the coach and is shut in, MURAT laughing silently

at the scene.  Exeunt carriages and riders toward Soissons.]

CHORUS OF THE IRONIC SPIRITS
[aerial music]

First 'twas a finished coquette,

And now it's a raw ingenue.—

Blond instead of brunette,

An old wife doffed for a new.

     She'll bring him a baby,

     As quickly as maybe,

And that's what he wants her to do,

          Hoo-hoo!

And that's what he wants her to do!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

What lewdness lip those wry-formed phantoms there!

IRONIC SPIRITS

Nay, Showman Years!  With holy reverent air

We hymn the nuptials of the Imperial pair.

[The scene thickens to mist and obscures the scene.]

SCENE VII

PETERSBURG.  THE PALACE OF THE EMPRESS-MOTHER

[One of the private apartments is disclosed, in which the Empress-

mother and Alexander are seated.]

EMPRESS-MOTHER

So one of Austrian blood his pomp selects

To be his bride and bulwark—not our own.

Thus are you coolly shelved!

ALEXANDER

     Me, mother dear?

You, faith, if I may say it dutifully!

Had all been left to me, some time ere now

He would have wedded Kate.

EMPRESS-MOTHER

     How so, my son?

Catharine was plighted, and it could not be.

ALEXANDER

Rather you swiftly pledged and married her,

To let Napoleon have no chance that way.

But Anne remained.

EMPRESS-MOTHER

     How Anne?—so young a girl!

Sane Nature would have cried indecency

At such a troth.

ALEXANDER

     Time would have tinkered that,

And he was well-disposed to wait awhile;

But the one test he had no temper for

Was the apparent slight of unresponse

Accorded his impatient overtures

By our suspensive poise of policy.

EMPRESS-MOTHER

A backward answer is our country's card—

The special style and mode of Muscovy.

We have grown great upon it, my dear son,

And may such practice rule our centuries through!

The necks of those who rate themselves our peers

Are cured of stiffness by its potency.

ALEXANDER

The principle in this case, anyhow,

Is shattered by the facts: since none can doubt

Your policy was counted an affront,

And drove my long ally to Austria's arms,

With what result to us must yet be seen!

EMPRESS-MOTHER

May Austria win much joy of the alliance!

Marrying Napoleon is a midnight leap

For any Court in Europe, credit me,

If ever such there were!  What he may carve

Upon the coming years, what murderous bolt

Hurl at the rocking Constitutions round,

On what dark planet he may land himself

In his career through space, no sage can say.

ALEXANDER

Well—possibly!... And maybe all is best

That he engrafts his lineage not on us.—

But, honestly, Napoleon none the less

Has been my friend, and I regret the dream

And fleeting fancy of a closer tie!

EMPRESS-MOTHER

Ay; your regrets are sentimental ever.

That he'll be writ no son-in-law of mine

Is no regret to me!  But an affront

There is, no less, in his evasion on't,

Wherein the bourgeois quality of him

Veraciously peeps out.  I would be sworn

He set his minions parleying with the twain—

Yourself and Francis—simultaneously,

Else no betrothal could have speeded so!

ALEXANDER

Despite the hazard of offence to one?

EMPRESS-MOTHER

More than the hazard; the necessity.

ALEXANDER

There's no offence to me.

EMPRESS-MOTHER

     There should be, then.

I am a Romanoff by marriage merely,

But I do feel a rare belittlement

And loud laconic brow-beating herein!

ALEXANDER

No, mother, no!  I am the Tsar—not you,

And I am only piqued in moderateness.

Marriage with France was near my heart—I own it—

What then?  It has been otherwise ordained.

[A silence.]

EMPRESS-MOTHER

Here comes dear Anne  Speak not of it before her.

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

ANNE

Alas! the news is that poor Prussia's queen,

Spirited Queen Louisa, once so fair,

Is slowly dying, mother!  Did you know?

ALEXANDER
[betraying emotion]

Ah!—such I dreaded from the earlier hints.

Poor soul—her heart was slain some time ago.

ANNE

What do you mean by that, my brother dear?

EMPRESS-MOTHER

He means, my child, that he as usual spends

Much sentiment upon the foreign fair,

And hence leaves little for his folk at home.

ALEXANDER

I mean, Anne, that her country's overthrow

Let death into her heart.  The Tilsit days

Taught me to know her well, and honour her.

She was a lovely woman even then!...

Strangely, the present English Prince of Wales

Was wished to husband her.  Had wishes won,

They might have varied Europe's history.

ANNE

Napoleon, I have heard, admired her once;

How he must grieve that soon she'll be no more!

EMPRESS-MOTHER

Napoleon and your brother loved her both.

[Alexander shows embarrassment.]

But whatsoever grief be Alexander's,

His will be none who feels but for himself.

ANNE

O mother, how can you mistake him so!

He worships her who is to be his wife,

The fair Archduchess Marie.

EMPRESS-MOTHER

     Simple child,

As yet he has never seen her, or but barely.

That is a tactic suit, with love to match!

ALEXANDER
[with vainly veiled tenderness]

High-souled Louisa;—when shall I forget

Those Tilsit gatherings in the long-sunned June!

Napoleon's gallantries deceived her quite,

Who fondly felt her pleas for Magdeburg

Had won him to its cause; the while, alas!

His cynic sense but posed in cruel play!

EMPRESS-MOTHER

Bitterly mourned she her civilities

When time unlocked the truth, that she had choked

Her indignation at his former slights

And slanderous sayings for a baseless hope,

And wrought no tittle for her country's gain.

I marvel why you mourn a frustrate tie

With one whose wiles could wring a woman so!

ALEXANDER
[uneasily]

I marvel also, when I think of it!

EMPRESS-MOTHER

Don't listen to us longer, dearest Anne.

[Exit Anne.]

—You will uphold my judging by and by,

That as a suitor we are quit of him,

And that blind Austria will rue the hour

Wherein she plucks for him her fairest flower!

[The scene shuts.]

SCENE VIII

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

[The view is up the middle of the Gallery, which is now a spectacle

of much magnificence.  Backed by the large paintings on the walls

are double rows on each side of brightly dressed ladies, the pick

of Imperial society, to the number of four thousand, one thousand

in each row; and behind these standing up are two rows on each side

of men of privilege and fashion.  Officers of the Imperial Guard

are dotted about as marshals.

Temporary barriers form a wide passage up the midst, leading to the

Salon-Carre, which is seen through the opening to be fitted up as

a chapel, with a gorgeous altar, tall candles, and cross.  In front

of the altar is a platform with a canopy over it.  On the platform

are two gilt chairs and a prie-dieu.

The expectant assembly does not continuously remain in the seats,

but promenades and talks, the voices at times rising to a din amid

the strains of the orchestra, conducted by the EMPEROR'S Director

of Music.  Refreshments in profusion are handed round, and the

extemporized cathedral resolves itself into a gigantic cafe of

persons of distinction under the Empire.]

SPIRIT SINISTER

All day have they been waiting for their galanty-show, and now the

hour of performance is on the strike.  It may be seasonable to muse

on the sixteenth Louis and the bride's great-aunt, as the nearing

procession is, I see, appositely crossing the track of the tumbril

which was the last coach of that respected lady.... It is now

passing over the site of the scaffold on which she lost her head.

... Now it will soon be here.

[Suddenly the heralds enter the Gallery at the end towards the

Tuileries, the spectators ranging themselves in their places.

In a moment the wedding procession of the EMPEROR and EMPRESS

becomes visible.  The civil marriage having already been performed,

Napoleon and Marie Louise advance together along the vacant pathway

towards the Salon-Carre, followed by the long suite of illustrious

personages, and acclamations burst from all parts of the Grand

Gallery.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Whose are those forms that pair in pompous train

Behind the hand-in-hand half-wedded ones,

With faces speaking sense of an adventure

Which may close well, or not so?

RECORDING ANGEL [reciting]

          First there walks

The Emperor's brother Louis, Holland's King;

Then Jerome of Westphalia with his spouse;

The mother-queen, and Julie Queen of Spain,

The Prince Borghese and the Princess Pauline,

Beauharnais the Vice-King of Italy,

And Murat King of Naples, with their Queens;

Baden's Grand-Duke, Arch-Chancellor Cambaceres,

Berthier, Lebrun, and, not least, Talleyrand.

Then the Grand Marshal and the Chamberlain,

The Lords-in-Waiting, the Grand Equerry,

With waiting-ladies, women of the chamber,

An others called by office, rank, or fame.

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

New, many, to Imperial dignities;

Which, won by character and quality

In those who now enjoy them, will become

The birthright of their sons in aftertime.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

It fits thee not to augur, quick-eared Shade.

Ephemeral at the best all honours be,

These even more ephemeral than their kind,

So random-fashioned, swift, perturbable!

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Napoleon looks content—nay, shines with joy.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

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

[Thereupon Napoleon's face blackens as if the shadow of a winter

night had fallen upon it.  Resentful and threatening, he stops the

procession and looks up and down the benches.]

SPIRIT SINISTER

This is sound artistry of the Immanent Will: it relieves the monotony

of so much good-humour.

NAPOLEON
[to the Chapel-master]

Where are the Cardinals?  And why not here? 
[He speaks so loud that

he is heard throughout the Gallery.]

ABBE DE PRADT
[trembling]

Many are present here, your Majesty;

But some are feebled by infirmities

Too common to their age, and cannot come.

NAPOLEON

Tell me no nonsense!  Half absent themselves

Because they WILL not come.  The factious fools!

Well, be it so.  But they shall flinch for it!

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

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

I seem to see the thin and headless ghost

Of the yet earlier Austrian, here, too, queen,

Walking beside the bride, with frail attempts

To pluck her by the arm!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

          Nay, think not so.

No trump unseals earth's sepulchre's to-day:

We are the only phantoms now abroad

On this mud-moulded ball!  Through sixteen years

She has decayed in a back-garden yonder,

Dust all the showance time retains of her,

Senseless of hustlings in her former house,

Lost to all count of crowns and bridalry—

Even of her Austrian blood.  No: what thou seest

Springs of the quavering fancy, stirred to dreams

By yon tart phantom's phrase.

MARIE LOUISE
[sadly to Napoleon]

     I know not why,

I love not this day's doings half so well

As our quaint meeting-time at Compiegne.

A clammy air creeps round me, as from vaults

Peopled with looming spectres, chilling me

And angering you withal!

NAPOLEON

     O, it is nought

To trouble you: merely, my cherished one,

Those devils of Italian Cardinals!—