CAULAINCOURT [from the back]
The Emperor was ill: I have ground for knowing.
[NAPOLÉON enters.]
NAPOLÉON [buoyantly]
Comrades, the outlook promises us well!
MURAT [dryly]
Right glad are we you tongue such tidings, sire.
To us the stars have visaged differently;
To wit: we muster outside Leipzig here
Levies one hundred and ninety thousand strong.
The enemy has mustered, OUTSIDE US,
Three hundred and fifty thousand—if not more.
NAPOLÉON
All that is needful is to conquer them!
We are concentred here: they lie a-spread,
Which shrinks them to two-hundred-thousand power:—
Though that the urgency of victory
Is absolute, I admit.
MURAT
Yea; otherwise
The issue will be worse than Moscow, sire!
[MARMONT, DUKE OF RAGUSA [Wellington’s adversary in Spain], is
announced, and enters.]
NAPOLÉON
Ah, Marmont; bring you in particulars?
MARMONT
Some sappers I have taken captive, sire,
Say the Allies will be at stroke with us
The morning next to to-morrow’s.—I am come,
Now, from the steeple-top of Liebenthal,
Where I beheld the enemy’s fires bespot
The horizon round with raging eyes of flame:—
My vanward posts, too, have been driven in,
And I need succours—thrice ten thousand, say.
NAPOLÉON [coldly]
The enemy vexes not your vanward posts;
You are mistaken.—Now, however, go;
Cross Leipzig, and remain as the reserve.—
Well, gentlemen, my hope herein is this:
The first day to annihilate Schwarzenberg,
The second Blücher. So shall we slip the toils
They are all madding to enmesh us in.
BERTHIER
Few are our infantry to fence with theirs!
NAPOLÉON [cheerfully]
We’ll range them in two lines instead of three,
And so we shall look stronger by one-third.