MÉNEVAL
Why are you here, de Montrond? All is hopeless!
DE MONTROND
Wherefore? The offer of the Regency
I come empowered to make, and will conduct her
Safely to Strassburg with her little son,
If she shrink not to breech her as a man,
And tiptoe from a postern unperceived?
MÉNEVAL
Though such quaint gear would mould her to a youth
Fair as Adonis on a hunting morn,
Yet she’ll refuse! A German prudery
Sits on her still; more, kneaded by her arts
There’s no will left to her. I conjured her
To hold aloof, sign nothing. But in vain.
DE MONTROND [looking towards Marie Louise]
I fain would put it to her privately!
MÉNEVAL
A thing impossible. No word to her
Without a word to him you see with her,
Neipperg to wit. She grows indifferent
To dreams as Regent; visioning a future
Wherein her son and self are two of three
But where the third is not Napoléon.
DE MONTROND [In sad surprise]
I may as well go hence then as I came,
And kneel to Heaven for one thing—that success
Attend Napoléon in the coming throes!
MÉNEVAL
I’ll walk with you for safety to the gate,
Though I am as the Emperor’s man suspect,
And any day may be dismissed. If so
I go to Paris.
[Exeunt MÉNEVAL and DE MONTROND.]
SPIRIT IRONIC
Had he but persevered, and biassed her
To slip the breeches on, and hie away,
Who knows but that the map of France had shaped
And it will never now!
[There enters from the other side of the gardens MARIA CAROLINA,
ex-Queen of Naples, and grandmother of Marie Louise. The latter,
dismissing MONTESQUIOU and the child, comes forward.]
MARIA CAROLINA
I have crossed from Hetzendorf to kill an hour;
Why art so pensive, dear?
MARIE LOUISE
Ah, why! My lines
Rule ruggedly. You doubtless have perused
This vicious cry against the Emperor?
He’s outlawed—to be caught alive or dead,
Like any noisome beast!