MARIE LOUISE [with a start]
Here are the Emperor and Prince Metternich.
Wrote you as I directed?
NEIPPERG
Promptly so.
I said your Majesty had not part
In this mad move of your Imperial spouse,
And made yourself a ward of the Allies;
Adding, that you had vowed irrevocably
To enter France no more.
MARIE LOUISE
Your worthy zeal
Has been a trifle swift. My meaning stretched
Not quite so far as that.... And yet—and yet
It matters little. Nothing matters much!
[The EMPEROR and METTERNICH come forward. NEIPPERG retires.]
FRANCIS
My daughter, you did not a whit too soon
Voice your repudiation. Have you seen
What the allies have papered Europe with?
MARIE LOUISE
I have seen nothing.
FRANCIS
Please you read it, Prince.
METTERNICH [taking out a paper]
“The Powers assembled at the Congress here
Owe it to their own troths and dignities,
And to the furtherance of social order,
To make a solemn Declaration, thus:
By breaking the convention as to Elba,
Napoléon Bonaparte forthwith destroys
His only legal title to exist,
And as a consequence has hurled himself
Beyond the pale of civil intercourse.
Disturber of the tranquillity of the world,
There can be neither peace nor truce with him,
And public vengeance is his self-sought doom.—
Signed by the Plenipotentiaries.”
MARIE LOUISE [pale]
O God,
How terrible!... What shall—-[she begins weeping.]
KING OF ROME
Is it papa
They want to hurt like that, dear Mamma ’Quiou?
Then ’twas no good my praying for him so;
And I can see that I am not going to be
A King much longer!
COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU [retiring with the child]
Pray for him, Monseigneur,
Morning and evening just the same! They plan
To take you off from me. But don’t forget—
Do as I say!