Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (1073 page)

[He gives the document, and bids them adieu almost without speech.

The marshals and others go out.  NAPOLEON continues sitting with

his chin on his chest.

An interval of silence.  There is then heard in the corridor a

sound of whetting.  Enter ROUSTAN the Mameluke, with a whetstone

in his belt and a sword in his hand.]

ROUSTAN

After this fall, your Majesty, 'tis plain

You will not choose to live; and knowing this

I bring to you my sword.

NAPOLEON
[with a nod]

I see you do, Roustan.

ROUSTAN

     Will you, sire, use it on yourself,

Or shall I pass it through you?

NAPOLEON
[coldly]

     Neither plan

Is quite expedient for the moment, man.

ROUSTAN

Neither?

NAPOLEON

     There may be, in some suited time,

Some cleaner means of carrying out such work.

ROUSTAN

Sire, you refuse?  Can you support vile life

A moment on such terms?  Why then, I pray,

Dispatch me with the weapon, or dismiss me.

[He holds the sword to NAPOLEON, who shakes his head.]

I live no longer under such disgrace!

[Exit ROUSTAN haughtily.  NAPOLEON vents a sardonic laugh, and

throws himself on a sofa, where he by and by falls asleep.  The

door is softly opened.  ROUSTAN and CONSTANT peep in.]

CONSTANT

To-night would be as good a time to go as any.  He will sleep there

for hours.  I have my few francs safe, and I deserve them; for I have

stuck to him honourably through fourteen trying years.

ROUSTAN

How many francs have you secured?

CONSTANT

Well—more than you can count in one breath, or even two.

ROUSTAN

Where?

CONSTANT

In a hollow tree in the Forest.  And as for YOUR reward, you can

easily get the keys of that cabinet, where there are more than

enough francs to equal mine.  He will not have them, and you may

as well take them as strangers.

ROUSTAN

It is not money that I want, but honour.  I leave, because I can

no longer stay with self-respect.

CONSTANT

And I because there is no other such valet in the temperate zone,

and it is for the good of society that I should not be wasted here.

ROUSTAN

Well, as you propose going this evening I will go with you, to lend

a symmetry to the drama of our departure.  Would that I had served

a more sensitive master!  He sleeps there quite indifferent to the

dishonour of remaining alive!

[NAPOLEON shows signs of waking.  CONSTANT and ROUSTAN disappear.

NAPOLEON slowly sits up.]

NAPOLEON

Here the scene lingers still!  Here linger I!...

Things could not have gone on as they were going;

I am amazed they kept their course so long.

But long or short they have ended now—at last!

[Footsteps are heard passing through the court without.]

Hark at them leaving me!  So politic rats

Desert the ship that's doomed.  By morrow-dawn

I shall not have a man to shake my bed

Or say good-morning to!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

          Herein behold

How heavily grinds the Will upon his brain,

His halting hand, and his unlighted eye.

SPIRIT IRONIC

A picture this for kings and subjects too!

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

Yet is it but Napoleon who has failed.

The pale pathetic peoples still plod on

Through hoodwinkings to light!

NAPOLEON
[rousing himself]

     This now must close.

Roustan misunderstood me, though his hint

Serves as a fillip to a flaccid brain....

—How gild the sunset sky of majesty

Better than by the act esteemed of yore?

Plutarchian heroes outstayed not their fame,

And what nor Brutus nor Themistocles

Nor Cato nor Mark Antony survived,

Why, why should I?  Sage Canabis, you primed me!

[He unlocks a case, takes out a little bag containing a phial, pours

from it a liquid into a glass, and drinks.  He then lies down and

falls asleep again.

Re-enter CONSTANT softly with a bunch of keys in his hand.  On

his way to the cabinet he turns and looks at NAPOLEON.  Seeing

the glass and a strangeness in the EMPEROR, he abandons his

object, rushes out, and is heard calling.

Enter MARET and BERTRAND.]

BERTRAND
[shaking the Emperor]

What is the matter, sire?  What's this you've done?

NAPOLEON
[with difficulty]

Why did you interfere!—But it is well;

Call Caulaincourt.  I'd speak with him a trice

Before I pass.

[MARET hurries out.  Enter IVAN the physician, and presently

CAULAINCOURT.]

     Ivan, renew this dose;

'Tis a slow workman, and requires a fellow;

Age has impaired its early promptitude.

[Ivan shakes his head and rushes away distracted.  CAULAINCOURT

seizes NAPOLEON'S hand.]

CAULAINCOURT

Why should you bring this cloud upon us now!

NAPOLEON

Restrain your feelings.  Let me die in peace.—

My wife and son I recommend to you;

Give her this letter, and the packet there.

Defend my memory, and protect their lives.

   
[They shake him.  He vomits.]

CAULAINCOURT

He's saved—for good or ill-as may betide!

NAPOLEON

God—here how difficult it is to die:

How easy on the passionate battle-plain!

[They open a window and carry him to it.  He mends.]

Fate has resolved what man could not resolve.

I must live on, and wait what Heaven may send!

[MACDONALD and other marshals re-enter.  A letter is brought from

MARIE LOUISE.  NAPOLEON reads it, and becomes more animated.

They are well; and they will join me in my exile.

Yes: I will live!  The future who shall spell?

My wife, my son, will be enough for me.—

And I will give my hours to chronicling

In stately words that stir futurity

The might of our unmatched accomplishments;

And in the tale immortalize your names

By linking them with mine.

[He soon falls into a convalescent sleep.  The marshals, etc. go

out.  The room is left in darkness.]

SCENE V

BAYONNE.  THE BRITISH CAMP

[The foreground is an elevated stretch of land, dotted over in rows

with the tents of the peninsular army.  On a parade immediately

beyond the tents the infantry are drawn up, awaiting something.

Still farther back, behind a brook, are the French soldiery, also

ranked in the same manner of reposeful expectation.  In the middle-

distance we see the town of Bayonne, standing within its zigzag

fortifications at the junction of the river Adour with the Nive.

On the other side of the Adour rises the citadel, a fortified

angular structure standing detached.  A large and brilliant

tricolor flag is waving indolently from a staff on the summit.

The Bay of Biscay, into which the Adour flows, is seen on the

left horizon as a level line.

The stillness observed by the soldiery of both armies, and by

everything else in the scene except the flag, is at last broken

by the firing of a signal-gun from a battery in the town-wall.

The eyes of the thousands present rivet themselves on the citadel.

Its waving tricolor moves down the flagstaff and disappears.]

THE REGIMENTS
[unconsciously]

Ha-a-a-a!

[In a few seconds there shoots up the same staff another flag—one

intended to be white; but having apparently been folded away a long

time, it is mildewed and dingy.

From all the guns on the city fortifications a salute peals out.

This is responded to by the English infantry and artillery with a

feu-de-joie.]

THE REGIMENTS

Hurrah-h-h-h!

[The various battalions are then marched away in their respective

directions and dismissed to their tents.  The Bourbon standard is

hoisted everywhere beside those of England, Spain, and Portugal.

The scene shuts.]

SCENE VI

A HIGHWAY IN THE OUTSKIRTS OF AVIGNON

[The Rhone, the old city walls, the Rocher des Doms and its

edifices, appear at the back plane of the scene under the

grey light of dawn.  In the foreground several postillions

and ostlers with relays of horses are waiting by the roadside,

gazing northward and listening for sounds.  A few loungers

have assembled.]

FIRST POSTILLION

He ought to be nigh by this time.  I should say he'd be very glad

to get this here Isle of Elba, wherever it may be, if words be true

that he's treated to such ghastly compliments on's way!

SECOND POSTILLION

Blast-me-blue, I don't care what happens to him!  Look at Joachim

Murat, him that's made King of Naples; a man who was only in the

same line of life as ourselves, born and bred in Cahors, out in

Perigord, a poor little whindling place not half as good as our

own.  Why should he have been lifted up to king's anointment, and

we not even have had a rise in wages?  That's what I say.

FIRST POSTILLION

But now, I don't find fault with that dispensation in particular.

It was one of our calling that the Emperor so honoured, after all,

when he might have anointed a tinker, or a ragman, or a street

woman's pensioner even.  Who knows but that we should have been

king's too, but for my crooked legs and your running pole-wound?

SECOND POSTILLION

We kings?  Kings of the underground country, then, by this time, if

we hadn't been too rotten-fleshed to follow the drum.  However, I'll

think over your defence, and I don't mind riding a stage with him,

for that matter, to save him from them that mean mischief here.

I've lost no sons by his battles, like some others we know.

[Enter a TRAVELLER on horseback.]

Any tidings along the road, sir of the Emperor Napoleon that was?

TRAVELLER

Tidings verily!  He and his escort are threatened by the mob at

every place they come to.  A returning courier I have met tells me

that at an inn a little way beyond here they have strung up his

effigy to the sign-post, smeared it with blood, and placarded it

"The Doom that awaits Thee!"  He is much delayed by such humorous

insults.  I have hastened ahead to escape the uproar.

SECOND POSTILLION

I don't know that you have escaped it.  The mob has been waiting

up all night for him here.

MARKET-WOMAN
[coming up]

I hope by the Virgin, as 'a called herself, that there'll be no

riots here!  Though I have not much pity for a man who could treat

his wife as he did, and that's my real feeling.  He might at least

have kept them both on, for half a husband is better than none for

poor women.  But I'd show mercy to him, that's true, rather than

have my stall upset, and messes in the streets wi' folks' brains,

and stabbings, and I don't know what all!

FIRST POSTILLION

If we can do the horsing quietly out here, there will be none of

that.  He'll dash past the town without stopping at the inn where

they expect to waylay him.—Hark, what's this coming?

[An approaching cortege is heard.  Two couriers enter; then a

carriage with NAPOLEON and BERTRAND; then others with the

Commissioners of the Powers,—all on the way to Elba.

The carriages halt, and the change of horses is set about instantly.

But before it is half completed BONAPARTE'S arrival gets known, and

throngs of men and women armed with sticks and hammers rush out of

Avignon and surround the carriages.]

POPULACE

Ogre of Corsica!  Odious tyrant!  Down with Nicholas!

BERTRAND
[looking out of carriage]

Silence, and doff your hats, you ill-mannered devils!

POPULACE
[scornfully]

Listen to him!  Is that the Corsican?  No; where is he? Give him up;

give him up!  We'll pitch him into the Rhone!

[Some cling to the wheels of NAPOLEON'S carriage, while others,

more distant, throw stones at it.  A stone breaks the carriage

window.]

OLD WOMAN
[shaking her fist]