MASSÉNA
Plain ’tis, no less,
We may heap corpses vainly hereabout,
And crack good bones in waste. By human power
This passes mounting! What say you’s behind?
LOISON
Another line exactly like the first,
But more matured. Behind its back a third.
MASSÉNA
How long have these prim ponderosities
Been rearing up their foreheads to the moon?
LOISON
Some months in all. I know not quite how long.
They are Lord Wellington’s select device,
And, like him, heavy, slow, laborious, sure.
MASSÉNA
May he enjoy their sureness. He deserves to.
I had no inkling of such barriers here.
A good road runs along their front, it seems,
Which offers us advantage.... What a night!
[The tempest cries dismally about the earthworks above them, as
the reconnoitrers linger in the slight shelter the lower ground
affords. They are about to turn back.
Enter from the cross-road to the right JUNOT and some more
officers. They come up at a signal that the others are those
they lately parted from.]
JUNOT
We have ridden along as far as Calandrix,
Favoured therein by this disordered night,
Which tongues its language to the disguise of ours;
And find amid the vale an open route
That, well manoeuvred, may be practicable.
MASSÉNA
I’ll look now at it, while the weather aids.
If it may serve our end when all’s prepared
So good. If not, some other to the west.
[Exeunt MASSÉNA, JUNOT, LOISON, FOY, and the rest by the paved
crossway to the right.
The wind continues to prevail as the spot is left desolate, the
darkness increases, rain descends more heavily, and the scene is
blotted out.]
SCENE III
PARIS. THE TUILERIES
[The anteroom to the EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE’S bed-chamber, in which
are discovered NAPOLÉON in his dressing-gown, the DUCHESS OF
MONTEBELLO, and other ladies-in-waiting. CORVISART the first
physician, and the second physician BOURDIER.
The time is before dawn. The EMPEROR walks up and down, throws
himself on a sofa, or stands at the window. A cry of anguish comes
occasionally from within.
NAPOLÉON opens the door and speaks into the bed-chamber.]
NAPOLÉON
How now, Dubois?