Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1060 page)

 Officers.

Bylandt and other Officers of the Dutch-Belgian troops.

SOME HUSSARS.

King's-German, Hanoverian, Brunswick, and Dutch-Belgian Forces.

..........

BARON VAN CAPELLEN, Belgian Secretary of State.

The Dukes of Arenberg and d'Ursel.

THE MAYOR OF BRUSSELS.

CITIZENS AND IDLERS of Brussels.

..........

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

JOSEPH BONAPARTE.

Jerome Bonaparte.

THE KING OF ROME.

Eugene de Beauharnais.

Cambaceres, Arch-Chancellor to Napoleon.

TALLEYRAND.

CAULAINCOURT.

DE BAUSSET.

..........

MURAT, King of Naples.

SOULT, Napoleon's Chief of Staff.

NEY.

DAVOUT.

MARMONT.

BERTHIER.

BERTRAND.

BESSIERES.

AUGEREAU, MACDONALD, LAURISTON, CAMBRONNE.

Oudinot, Friant, Reille, d'Erlon, Drouot, Victor, Poniatowski,

 Jourdan, and other Marshals, and General and Regimental

 Officers of Napoleon's Army.

RAPP, MORTIER, LARIBOISIERE.

Kellermann and Milhaud.

COLONELS FABVRIER, MARBOT, MALLET, HEYMES, and others.

French AIDES and COURIERS.

DE CANISY, Equerry to the King of Rome.

COMMANDANT LESSARD.

Another COMMANDANT.

BUSSY, an Orderly Officer.

SOLDIERS of the Imperial Guard and others.

STRAGGLERS; A MAD SOLDIER.

French Forces.

..........

HOUREAU, BOURDOIS, and Ivan, physicians.

MENEVAL, Private Secretary to Napoleon.

DE MONTROND, an emissary of Napoleon's.

Other Secretaries to Napoleon.

CONSTANT, Napoleon's Valet.

ROUSTAN, Napoleon's Mameluke.

TWO POSTILLIONS.

A TRAVELLER.

CHAMBERLAINS and Attendants.

SERVANTS at the Tuileries.

FRENCH CITIZENS and Townspeople.

..........

THE KING OF PRUSSIA.

BLUCHER.

MUFFLING, Wellington's Prussian Attache.

GNEISENAU.

Zieten.

Bulow.

Kleist, Steinmetz, Thielemann, Falkenhausen.

Other Prussian General and Regimental Officers.

A PRUSSIAN PRISONER of the French.

Prussian Forces.

..........

FRANCIS, Emperor of Austria.

METTERNICH, Chancellor and Foreign Minister.

Hardenberg.

NEIPPERG

Schwarzenberg, Kleinau, Hesse-Homburg, and other Austrian Generals.

Viennese Personages of rank and fashion.

Austrian Forces.

..........

THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER of Russia.

Nesselrode.

KUTUZOF.

Bennigsen.

Barclay de Tolly, Dokhtorof, Bagration, Platoff, Tchichagoff,

Miloradovitch, and other Russian Generals.

Rostopchin, Governor of Moscow.

SCHUVALOFF, a Commissioner.

A RUSSIAN OFFICER under Kutuzof.

Russian Forces.

Moscow Citizens.

..........

Alava, Wellington's Spanish Attache.

Spanish and Portuguese Officers.

Spanish and Portuguese Forces.

Spanish Citizens.

..........

Minor Sovereigns and Princes of Europe.

LEIPZIG CITIZENS.

WOMEN

CAROLINE, PRINCESS OF WALES.

The Duchess of York.

THE DUCHESS OF RICHMOND.

The Duchess of Beaufort.

LADY H. DARYMPLE

Lady de Lancey.

LADY CHARLOTTE CAMPBELL.

Lady Anne Hamilton.

A YOUNG LADY AND HER MOTHER.

MRS. DALBIAC, a Colonel's wife.

MRS. PRESCOTT, a Captain's wife.

Other English ladies of note and rank.

Madame Grassini and other Ladies of the Opera.

Madame Angiolini, a dancer.

VILLAGE WOMEN.

SOLDIERS' WIVES AND SWEETHEARTS.

A SOLDIER'S DAUGHTER.

..........

THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE.

The Empress of Austria.

MARIA CAROLINA of Naples.

Queen Hortense.

Laetitia, Madame Bonaparte.

The Princess Pauline.

THE DUCHESS OF MONTEBELLO.

THE COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU.

THE COUNTESS OF BRIGNOLE.

Other Ladies-in-Waiting on Marie Louise.

THE EX-EMPRESS JOSEPHINE.

LADIES-IN-WAITING on Josephine.

Another French Lady.

FRENCH MARKET-WOMEN.

A SPANISH LADY.

French and Spanish Women of pleasure.

Continental Citizens' Wives.

Camp-followers.

ACT FIRST

SCENE I

THE BANKS OF THE NIEMEN, NEAR KOWNO

[The foreground is a hillock on a broken upland, seen in evening

twilight.  On the left, further back, are the dusky forests of

Wilkowsky; on the right is the vague shine of a large river.

Emerging from the wood below the eminence appears a shadowy

amorphous thing in motion, the central or Imperial column of

NAPOLEON'S Grand Army for the invasion of Russia, comprising

the corps of OUDINOT, NEY, and DAVOUT, with the Imperial Guard.

This, with the right and left columns, makes up the host of

nearly half a  million, all starting on their march to Moscow.

While the rearmost regiments are arriving, NAPOLEON rides ahead

with GENERAL HAXEL and one or two others to reconnoitre the river.

NAPOLEON'S horse stumbles and throws him.  He picks himself up

before he can be helped.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
[to Napoleon]

The portent is an ill one, Emperor;

An ancient Roman would retire thereat!

NAPOLEON

Whose voice was that, jarring upon my thought

So insolently?

HAXEL AND OTHERS

Sire, we spoke no word.

NAPOLEON

Then, whoso spake, such portents I defy!

[He remounts.  When the reconnoitrers again came back to the

foreground of the scene the huge array of columns is standing

quite still, in circles of companies, the captain of each in

the middle with a paper in his hand.  He reads from it a

proclamation.  They quiver emotionally, like leaves stirred by

the wind.  NAPOLEON and his staff reascend the hillock, and his

own words as repeated to the ranks reach his ears, while he

himself delivers the same address to those about him.

NAPOLEON

Soldiers, wild war is on the board again;

The lifetime-long alliance Russia swore

At Tilsit, for the English realm's undoing,

Is violate beyond refurbishment,

And she intractable and unashamed.

Russia is forced on by fatality:

She cries her destiny must be outwrought,

Meaning at our expense.  Does she then dream

We are no more the men of Austerlitz,

With nothing left of our old featfulness?

She offers us the choice of sword or shame;

We have made that choice unhesitatingly!

Then let us forthwith stride the Niemen flood,

Let us bear war into her great gaunt land,

And spread our glory there as otherwhere,

So that a stable peace shall stultify

The evil seed-bearing that Russian wiles

Have nourished upon Europe's choked affairs

These fifty years!

[The midsummer night darkens.  They all make their bivouacs

and sleep.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Something is tongued afar.

DISTANT VOICE IN THE WIND

The hostile hatchings of Napoleon's brain

Against our Empire, long have harassed us,

And mangled all our mild amenities.

So, since the hunger for embranglement

That gnaws this man, has left us optionless,

And haled us recklessly to horrid war,

We have promptly mustered our well-hardened hosts,

And, counting on our call to the most High,

Have forthwith set our puissance face to face

Against Napoleon's.—Ranksmen! officers!

You fend your lives, your land, your liberty.

I am with you.  Heaven frowns on the aggressor.

SPIRIT IRONIC

Ha! "Liberty" is quaint, and pleases me,

Sounding from such a soil!

[Midsummer-day breaks, and the sun rises on the right, revealing

the position clearly.  The eminence overlooks for miles the river

Niemen, now mirroring the morning rays.  Across the river three

temporary bridges have been thrown, and towards them the French

masses streaming out of the forest descend in three columns.

They sing, shout, fling their shakos in the air and repeat words

from the proclamation, their steel and brass flashing in the sun.

They narrow their columns as they gain the three bridges, and begin

to cross—horse, foot, and artillery.

NAPOLEON has come from the tent in which he has passed the night

to the high ground in front, where he stands watching through his

glass the committal of his army to the enterprise.  DAVOUT, NEY,

MURAT, OUDINOT, Generals HAXEL and EBLE, NARBONNE, and others

surround him.

It is a day of drowsing heat, and the Emperor draws a deep breath

as he shifts his weight from one puffed calf to the other.  The

light cavalry, the foot, the artillery having passed, the heavy

horse now crosses, their glitter outshining the ripples on the

stream.

A messenger enters.  NAPOLEON reads papers that are brought, and

frowns.]

NAPOLEON

The English heads decline to recognize

The government of Joseph, King of Spain,

As that of "the now-ruling dynast";

But only Ferdinand's!—I'll get to Moscow,

And send thence my rejoinder.  France shall wage

Another fifty years of wasting war

Before a Bourbon shall remount the throne

Of restless Spain!... 
[A flash lights his eyes.]

But this long journey now just set a-trip

Is my choice way to India; and 'tis there

That I shall next bombard the British rule.

With Moscow taken, Russia prone and crushed,

To attain the Ganges is simplicity—

Auxiliaries from Tiflis backing me.

Once ripped by a French sword, the scaffolding

Of English merchant-mastership in Ind

Will fall a wreck.... Vast, it is true, must bulk

An Eastern scheme so planned; but I could work it....

Man has, worse fortune, but scant years for war;

I am good for another five!

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

     Why doth he go?—

I see returning in a chattering flock

Bleached skeletons, instead of this array

Invincibly equipped.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

I'll show you why.

[The unnatural light before seen usurps that of the sun, bringing

into view, like breezes made visible, the films or brain-tissues of

the Immanent Will, that pervade all things, ramifying through the

whole army, NAPOLEON included, and moving them to Its inexplicable

artistries.]

NAPOLEON
[with sudden despondency]

That which has worked will work!—Since Lodi Bridge

The force I then felt move me moves me on

Whether I will or no; and oftentimes

Against my better mind.... Why am I here?

—By laws imposed on me inexorably!

History makes use of me to weave her web

To her long while aforetime-figured mesh

And contemplated charactery: no more.

Well, war's my trade; and whencesoever springs

This one in hand, they'll label it with my name!

[The natural light returns and the anatomy of the Will disappears.

NAPOLEON mounts his horse and descends in the rear of his host to

the banks of the Niemen.  His face puts on a saturnine humour, and

he hums an air.]

Malbrough s'en va-t-en guerre,

Mironton, mironton, mirontaine;

Malbrough s'en va-t-en guerre,

Ne sait quand reviendra!

[Exeunt NAPOLEON and his staff.]

SPIRIT SINISTER

It is kind of his Imperial Majesty to give me a lead. 
[Sings.]

Monsieur d'Malbrough est mort,

Mironton, mironton, mirontaine;

Monsieur d'Malbrough est mort,

Est mort et enterre!

[Anon the figure of NAPOLEON, diminished to the aspect of a doll,

reappears in front of his suite on the plain below.  He rides

across the swaying bridge.  Since the morning the sky has grown

overcast, and its blackness seems now to envelope the retreating

array on the other side of the stream.  The storm bursts with

thunder and lightning, the river turns leaden, and the scene is

blotted out by the torrents of rain.]