SCENE II
PARIS. THE TUILERIES
[The evening of the next day. A saloon of the Palace, with
folding-doors communicating with a dining-room. The doors are
flung open, revealing on the dining-table an untouched dinner,
NAPOLÉON and JOSÉPHINE rising from it, and DE BAUSSET, chamberlain-
in-waiting, pacing up and down. The EMPEROR and EMPRESS come
forward into the saloon, the latter pale and distressed, and
patting her eyes with her handkerchief.
The doors are closed behind them; a page brings in coffee; NAPOLÉON
signals to him to leave. JOSÉPHINE goes to pour out the coffee,
but NAPOLÉON pushes her aside and pours it out himself, looking at
her in a way which causes her to sink cowering into a chair like a
frightened animal.]
JOSÉPHINE
I see my doom, my friend, upon your face!
NAPOLÉON
You see me bored by Cambacérès’ ball.
JOSÉPHINE
It means divorce!—a thing more terrible
Than carrying elsewhere the dalliances
That formerly were mine. I kicked at that;
But now agree, as I for long have done,
To any infidelities of act
May I be yours in name!
NAPOLÉON
My mind must bend
To other things than our domestic petting:
The Empire orbs above our happiness,
And ’tis the Empire dictates this divorce.
I reckon on your courage and calm sense
To breast with me the law’s formalities,
And get it through before the year has flown.
JOSÉPHINE
But are you REALLY going to part from me?
O no, no, my dear husband; no, in truth,
It cannot be my Love will serve me so!
NAPOLÉON
I mean but mere divorcement, as I said,
On simple grounds of sapient sovereignty.
JOSÉPHINE
But nothing have I done save good to you:—
Since the fond day we wedded into one
I never even have THOUGHT you jot of harm!
Many the happy junctures when you have said
I stood as guardian-angel over you,
As your Dame Fortune, too, and endless things
Of such-like pretty tenour—yes, you have!
Then how can you so gird against me now?
You had not pricked upon it much of late,
And so I hoped and hoped the ugly spectre
Had been laid dead and still.
NAPOLÉON [impatiently]
I tell you, dear,
The thing’s decreed, and even the princess chosen.
JOSÉPHINE
Ah—so—the princess chosen!... I surmise
It is none else than the Grand-Duchess Anne:
Gossip was right—though I would not believe.
She’s young; but no great beauty!—Yes, I see
Her silly, soulless eyes and horrid hair;
In which new gauderies you’ll forget sad me!
NAPOLÉON
Upon my soul you are childish, Joséphine:
A woman of your years to pout it so!—
I say it’s not the Tsar’s Grand-Duchess Anne.
JOSÉPHINE
Some other Fair, then. You whose name can nod
The flower of all the world’s virginity
Into your bed, will well take care of that!
[Spitefully.] She may not have a child, friend, after all.
NAPOLÉON [drily]
You hope she won’t, I know!—But don’t forget
Madame Walewska did, and had she shown
Such cleverness as yours, poor little fool,
Her withered husband might have been displaced,
And her boy made my heir.—Well, let that be.
The severing parchments will be signed by us
Upon the fifteenth, prompt.
JOSÉPHINE
What—I have to sign
My putting away upon the fifteenth next?
NAPOLÉON
Ay—both of us.
JOSÉPHINE [falling on her knees]
So far advanced—so far!
Fixed?—for the fifteenth? O I do implore you,
My very dear one, by our old, old love,
By my devotion, don’t cast me off
Now, after these long years!
NAPOLÉON
Heavens, how you jade me!
Must I repeat that I don’t cast you off;
We merely formally arrange divorce—
We live and love, but call ourselves divided.
[A silence.]
JOSÉPHINE [with sudden calm]
Very well. Let it be. I must submit! [Rises.]
NAPOLÉON
And this much likewise you must promise me,
To act in the formalities thereof
As if you shaped them of your own free will.
JOSÉPHINE
How can I—when no freewill’s left in me?
NAPOLÉON
You are a willing party—do you hear?
JOSÉPHINE [quivering]
I hardly—can—bear this!—It is—too much
For a poor weak and broken woman’s strength!
But—but I yield!—I am so helpless now:
I give up all—ay, kill me if you will,
I won’t cry out!
NAPOLÉON
And one thing further still,
You’ll help me in my marriage overtures
To win the Duchess—Austrian Marie she,—
Concentrating all your force to forward them.
JOSÉPHINE
It is the—last humiliating blow!—
I cannot—O, I will not!
NAPOLÉON [fiercely]
But you SHALL!
And from your past experience you may know
That what I say I mean!
JOSÉPHINE [breaking into sobs]
O my dear husband—do not make me—don’t!
If you but cared for me—the hundredth part
Of how—I care for you, you could not be
So cruel as to lay this torture on me.
It hurts me so!—it cuts me like a sword.
Don’t make me, dear! Don’t, will you! O,O,O!
[She sinks down in a hysterical fit.]
NAPOLÉON [calling]
Bausset!
[Enter DE BAUSSET, Chamberlain-in-waiting.]
Bausset, come in and shut the door.
Assist me here. The Empress has fallen ill.
Don’t call for help. We two can carry her
By the small private staircase to her rooms.
Here—I will take her feet.
[They lift JOSÉPHINE between them and carry her out. Her moans
die away as they recede towards the stairs. Enter two servants,
who remove coffee-service, readjust chairs, etc.]
FIRST SERVANT
So, poor old girl, she’s wailed her Missere Mei, as Mother Church
says. I knew she was to get the sack ever since he came back.
SECOND SERVANT
Well, there will be a little civil huzzaing, a little crowing and
cackling among the Bonapartes at the downfall of the Beauharnais
family at last, mark me there will! They’ve had their little hour,
as the poets say, and now ’twill be somebody else’s turn. O it is
droll! Well, Father Time is a great philosopher, if you take him
right. Who is to be the new woman?
FIRST SERVANT
She that contains in her own corporation the necessary particular.
SECOND SERVANT
And what may they be?
FIRST SERVANT
She must be young.
SECOND SERVANT
Good. She must. The country must see to that.
FIRST SERVANT
And she must be strong.
SECOND SERVANT
Good again. She must be strong. The doctors will see to that.
FIRST SERVANT
And she must be fruitful as the vine.
SECOND SERVANT
Ay, by God. She must be fruitful as the vine. That, Heaven help
him, he must see to himself, like the meanest multiplying man in
Paris.
[Exeunt servant. Re-enter NAPOLÉON with his stepdaughter, Queen
Hortense.]
NAPOLÉON
Your mother is too rash and reasonless—
Wailing and fainting over statesmanship
Which is no personal caprice of mine,
But policy most painful—forced on me
By the necessities of this country’s charge.
Go to her; see if she be saner now;
Explain it to her once and once again,
And bring me word what impress you may make.
[HORTENSE goes out. CHAMPAGNY is shown in.]
Champagny, I have something clear to say
Now, on our process after the divorce.
The question of the Russian Duchess Anne
Was quite inept for further toying with.
The years rush on, and I grow nothing younger.
So I have made up my mind—committed me
To Austria and the Hapsburgs—good or ill!
It was the best, most practicable plunge,
And I have plunged it.
CHAMPAGNY
Austria say you, sire?
I reckoned that but a scurrying dream!
NAPOLÉON
Well, so it was. But such a pretty dream
That its own charm transfixed it to a notion,
That showed itself in time a sanity,
Which hardened in its turn to a resolve
As firm as any built by mortal mind.—
The Emperor’s consent must needs be won;
But I foresee no difficulty there.
The young Archduchess is a bright blond thing
By general story; and considering, too,
That her good mother childed seventeen times,
It will be hard if she can not produce
The modest one or two that I require.
[Enter DE BAUSSET with dispatches.]
DE BAUSSET
The courier, sire, from Petersburg is here,
And brings these letters for your Majesty.
[Exit DE BAUSSET.]
NAPOLÉON [after silently reading]
Ha-ha! It never rains unless it pours:
Now I can have the other readily.
The proverb hits me aptly: “Well they do
Who doff the old love ere they don the new!”
[He glances again over the letter.]
Yes, Caulaincourt now writes he has every hope
Of quick success in settling the alliance!
The Tsar is willing—even anxious for it,
His sister’s youth the single obstacle.
The Empress-mother, hitherto against me,
Ambition-fired, verges on suave consent,
Likewise the whole Imperial family.
What irony is all this to me now!
Time lately was when I had leapt thereat.
CHAMPAGNY
You might, of course, sire, give th’ Archduchess up,
Seeing she looms uncertainly as yet,
While this does so no longer.
NAPOLÉON
No—not I.
My sense of my own dignity forbids
My watching the slow clocks of Muscovy!
Why have they dallied with my tentatives
In pompous silence since the Erfurt day?
—And Austria, too, affords a safer hope.
The young Archduchess is much less a child
Than is the other, who, Caulaincourt says,
Will be incapable of motherhood
For six months yet or more—a grave delay.
CHAMPAGNY
Your Majesty appears to have trimmed your sail
For Austria; and no more is to be said!
NAPOLÉON
Except that there’s the house of Saxony
If Austria fail.—then, very well, Champagny,
Write you to Caulaincourt accordingly.
CHAMPAGNY
I will, your Majesty.
[Exit CHAMPAGNY. Re-enter QUEEN HORTENSE.]
NAPOLÉON
Ah, dear Hortense,
How is your mother now?
HORTENSE
Calm; quite calm, sire.
I pledge me you need have no further fret
From her entreating tears. She bids me say
That now, as always, she submits herself
With chastened dignity to circumstance,
And will descend, at notice, from your throne—
As in days earlier she ascended it—
In questionless obedience to your will.
It was your hand that crowned her; let it be
Likewise your hand that takes her crown away.
As for her children, we shall be but glad
To follow and withdraw ourselves with her,
The tenderest mother children ever knew,
From grandeurs that have brought no happiness!
NAPOLÉON [taking her hand]
But, Hortense, dear, it is not to be so!
You must stay with me, as I said before.
Your mother, too, must keep her royal state,
Since no repudiation stains this need.
Equal magnificence will orb her round
In aftertime as now. A palace here,
A palace in the country, wealth to match,
A rank in order next my future wife’s,
And conference with me as my truest friend.
Now we will seek her—Eugène, you, and I—
And make the project clear.
[Exeunt NAPOLÉON and HORTENSE. The scene darkens and shuts.]