MADAME METTERNICH
In a flash
I recognized you, sire; as who would not
The bearer of such deep-delved charactery?
NAPOLÉON
The devil, madame, take your piercing eyes!
It’s hard I cannot prosper in a game
That every coxcomb plays successfully.
—So here you are still, though your loving lord
Disports him at Vienna?
MADAME METTERNICH
Paris, true,
Still holds me; though in quiet, save to-night,
When I have been expressly prayed come hither,
Or I had not left home.
NAPOLÉON
I sped that Prayer!—
I have a wish to put a case to you,
Wherein a woman’s judgment, such as yours,
May be of signal service. [He lapses into reverie.]
MADAME METTERNICH
Well? The case—
NAPOLÉON
Is marriage—mine.
MADAME METTERNICH
It is beyond me, sire!
NAPOLÉON
You glean that I have decided to dissolve
[Pursuant to monitions murmured long]
My union with the present Empress—formed
Without the Church’s due authority?
MADAME METTERNICH
Vaguely. And that light tentatives have winged
Betwixt your Majesty and Russia’s court,
To moot that one of their Grand Duchesses
Should be your Empress-wife. Nought else I know.
NAPOLÉON
There have been such approachings; more, worse luck.
Last week Champagny wrote to Alexander
Asking him for his sister—yes or no.