ALEXANDER [stirred and flushed]
I see vast prospects opened!—yet, in truth,
Ere you, sire, broached these themes, their outlines loomed
Not seldom in my own imaginings;
But with less clear a vision than endows
So great a captain, statesman, philosoph,
As centre in yourself; whom had I known
Sooner by some few years, months, even weeks,
I had been spared full many a fault of rule.
—Now as to Austria. Should we call her in?
NAPOLÉON
Two in a bed I have slept, but never three.
ALEXANDER
Ha-ha! Delightful. And, then nextly, Spain?
NAPOLÉON
I lighted on some letters at Berlin,
Wherein King Carlos offered to attack me.
A Bourbon, minded thus, so near as Spain,
Is dangerous stuff. He must be seen to soon!...
A draft, then, of our treaty being penned,
We will peruse it later. If King George
Will not, upon the terms there offered him,
Conclude a ready peace, he can be forced.
Trumpet yourself as France’s firm ally,
And Austria will fain to do the same:
England, left nude to such joint harassment,
Must shiver—fall.
ALEXANDER [with naive enthusiasm]
It is a great alliance!
NAPOLÉON
Would it were one in blood as well as brain—
Of family hopes, and sweet domestic bliss!
ALEXANDER
Ah—is it to my sister you refer?
NAPOLÉON
The launching of a lineal progeny
Has been much pressed upon me, much, of late,
For reasons which I will not dwell on now.
Staid counsellors, my brother Joseph, too,
Urge that I loose the Empress by divorce,
And re-wive promptly for the country’s good.
Princesses even have been named for me!—
However this, to-day, is premature,
And ’twixt ourselves alone....
The Queen of Prussia must ere long be here:
Berthier escorts her. And the King, too, comes.
She’s one whom you admire?
ALEXANDER [reddening ingenuously]
Yes.... Formerly
I had—did feel that some faint fascination
Vaguely adorned her form. And, to be plain,
Certain reports have been calumnious,
And wronged an honest woman.
NAPOLÉON
As I knew!
But she is wearing thready: why, her years
Must be full one-and-thirty, if she’s one.