NAPOLÉON [opening and reading another dispatch]
Now eastward. Ohe!—
The Orient likewise looms full somberly....
The Turk declines pacifically to yield
What I have promised Alexander. Ah!...
As for Constantinople being his prize
I’ll see him frozen first. His flight’s too high!
And showing that I think so makes him cool. [Rises.]
Is Soult the Duke Dalmatia yet at hand?
OFFICER
He has arrived along the Leon road
Just now, your Majesty; and only waits
The close of your perusals.
[Enter SOULT, who is greeted by NAPOLÉON.]
FIRST DESERTER
Good Lord deliver us from all great men, and take me back again to
humble life! That’s Marshal Soult the Duke of Dalmatia!
SECOND DESERTER
The Duke of Damnation for our poor rear, by the look on’t!
FIRST DESERTER
Yes—he’ll make ’em rub their poor rears before he has done with
’em! But we must overtake ’em to-morrow by a cross-cut, please God!
NAPOLÉON [pointing to the dispatches]
Here’s matter enough for me, Duke, and to spare.
The ominous contents are like the threats
The ancient prophets dealt rebellious Judah!
Austria we soon shall have upon our hands,
And England still is fierce for fighting on,—
Strange humour in a concord-loving land!
So now I must to Paris straight away—
At least, to Valladolid; so as to stand
More apt for couriers than I do out here
In this far western corner, and to mark
The veerings of these new developments,
And blow a counter-breeze....
Then, too, there’s Lannes, still sweating at the siege
Of sullen Zaragoza as ’twere hell.
Him I must further counsel how to close
His twice too tedious battery.—You, then, Soult—
Ney is not yet, I gather, quite come up?
SOULT
He’s near, sire, on the Benavente road;
But some hours to the rear I reckon, still.
NAPOLÉON [pointing to the dispatches]
Him I’ll direct to come to your support
In this pursuit and harassment of Moore
Wherein you take my place. You’ll follow up
And chase the flying English to the sea.
Bear hard on them, the bayonet at their loins.
With Merle’s and Mermet’s corps just gone ahead,
And Delaborde’s, and Heudelet’s here at hand.
While Lorge’s and Lahoussaye’s picked dragoons
Will follow, and Franceschi’s cavalry.
To Ney I am writing, in case of need,
He will support with Marchand and Mathieu.—
Your total thus of seventy thousand odd,
Ten thousand horse, and cannon to five score,
Should near annihilate this British force,
And carve a triumph large in history.
[He bends over the fire and makes some notes rapidly.]
I move into Astorga; then turn back,
[Though only in my person do I turn]
And leave to you the destinies of Spain.
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS
More turning may be here than he design.
In this small, sudden, swift turn backward, he
Suggests one turning from his apogee!
[The characters disperse, the fire sinks, and snowflakes and
darkness blot out all.]