FIRST LADY-IN-WAITING
Perhaps, your Highness, they are not so particular in Russia, where
they are rather new themselves, as we in Austria, with your ancient
dynasty, are in such matters.
MARIA LOUISA
Perhaps not. Though the Empress-mother is a pompous old thing, as
I have been told by Prince Schwarzenberg, who was negotiating there
last winter. My father says it would be a dreadful misfortune for
our country if they were to marry. Though if we are to be exiled
I don’t see how anything of that sort can matter much.... I hope
my father is safe!
[An officer of the escort rides up to the carriage window, which
is opened.]
EMPRESS [unclosing her eyes]
Any more misfortunes?
OFFICER
A rumour is a-wind, your Majesty,
That the French host, the Emperor in its midst,
Lannes, Masséna, and Bessieres in its van,
Advancing hither along the Ratisbon road,
Has seized the castle and town of Ebersberg,
And burnt all down, with frightful massacre,
Vast heaps of dead and wounded being consumed,
So that the streets stink strong with frizzled flesh.—
The enemy, ere this, has crossed the Traun,
Hurling brave Hiller’s army back on us,
And marches on Amstetten—thirty miles
Less distant from Vienna from before!
EMPRESS
The Lord show mercy to us! But O why
Did not the Archdukes intercept the foe?
OFFICER
His Highness Archduke Charles, your Majesty,
After his sore repulse Bohemia-wards,
Could not proceed with strength and speed enough
To close in junction with the Archduke John
And Archduke Louis, as was their intent.
So Marshall Lannes swings swiftly on Vienna,
With Oudinot’s and Demont’s might of foot;
Then Masséna and all his mounted men,
And then Napoléon, Guards, Cuirassiers,
And the main body of the Imperial Force.
EMPRESS
Alas for poor Vienna!
OFFICER
Even so!
Your Majesty has fled it none too soon.
[The window is shut, and the procession disappears behind the
sheets of rain.]
SCENE II
THE ISLAND OF LOBAU, WITH WAGRAM BEYOND
[The northern horizon at the back of the bird’s-eye prospect is
the high ground stretching from the Bisamberg on the left to the
plateau of Wagram on the right. In front of these elevations
spreads the wide plain of the Marchfeld, open, treeless, and with
scarcely a house upon it.[16]
In the foreground the Danube crosses the scene with a graceful
slowness, looping itself round the numerous wooded islands therein.
The largest of these, immediately under the eye, is the Lobau,
which stands like a knot in the gnarled grain represented by the
running river.
On this island can be discerned, closely packed, an enormous dark
multitude of foot, horse, and artillery in French uniforms, the
numbers reaching to a hundred and seventy thousand.
Lifting our eyes to discover what may be opposed to them we
perceive on the Wagram plateau aforesaid, and right and left in
front of it, extended lines of Austrians, whitish and glittering,
to the number of a hundred and forty thousand.
The July afternoon turns to evening, the evening to twilight.
A species of simmer which pervades the living spectacle raises
expectation till the very air itself seems strained with suspense.
A huge event of some kind is awaiting birth.]