SECOND POSTILLION
We kings? Kings of the underground country, then, by this time, if
we hadn’t been too rotten-fleshed to follow the drum. However, I’ll
think over your defence, and I don’t mind riding a stage with him,
for that matter, to save him from them that mean mischief here.
I’ve lost no sons by his battles, like some others we know.
[Enter a TRAVELLER on horseback.]
Any tidings along the road, sir of the Emperor Napoléon that was?
TRAVELLER
Tidings verily! He and his escort are threatened by the mob at
every place they come to. A returning courier I have met tells me
that at an inn a little way beyond here they have strung up his
effigy to the sign-post, smeared it with blood, and placarded it
“The Doom that awaits Thee!” He is much delayed by such humorous
insults. I have hastened ahead to escape the uproar.
SECOND POSTILLION
I don’t know that you have escaped it. The mob has been waiting
up all night for him here.
MARKET-WOMAN [coming up]
I hope by the Virgin, as ’a called herself, that there’ll be no
riots here! Though I have not much pity for a man who could treat
his wife as he did, and that’s my real feeling. He might at least
have kept them both on, for half a husband is better than none for
poor women. But I’d show mercy to him, that’s true, rather than
have my stall upset, and messes in the streets wi’ folks’ brains,
and stabbings, and I don’t know what all!
FIRST POSTILLION
If we can do the horsing quietly out here, there will be none of
that. He’ll dash past the town without stopping at the inn where
they expect to waylay him.—Hark, what’s this coming?
[An approaching cortege is heard. Two couriers enter; then a
carriage with NAPOLÉON and BERTRAND; then others with the
Commissioners of the Powers,—all on the way to Elba.
The carriages halt, and the change of horses is set about instantly.
But before it is half completed BONAPARTE’S arrival gets known, and
throngs of men and women armed with sticks and hammers rush out of
Avignon and surround the carriages.]
POPULACE
Ogre of Corsica! Odious tyrant! Down with Nicholas!
BERTRAND [looking out of carriage]
Silence, and doff your hats, you ill-mannered devils!
POPULACE [scornfully]
Listen to him! Is that the Corsican? No; where is he? Give him up;
give him up! We’ll pitch him into the Rhone!
[Some cling to the wheels of NAPOLÉON’S carriage, while others,
more distant, throw stones at it. A stone breaks the carriage
window.]
OLD WOMAN [shaking her fist]
Give me back my two sons, murderer! Give me back my children, whose
flesh is rotting on the Russian plains!
POPULACE
Ay; give us back our kin—our fathers, our brothers, our sons—
victims to your curst ambition!
[One of the mob seizes the carriage door-handle and tries to
unfasten it. A valet of BONAPARTE’S seated on the box draws his
sword and threatens to cut the man’s arm off. The doors of the
Commissioners’ coaches open, and SIR NEIL CAMPBELL, GENERAL
KOLLER, and COUNT SCHUVALOFF—The English, Austrian, and Russian
Commissioners—jump out and come forward.]