MARIA CAROLINA
Nought have I heard,
My child. But these vile tricks, to pluck you from
Your nuptial plightage and your rightful glory
Make me belch oaths!—You shall not join your husband
Do they assert? My God, I know one thing,
Outlawed or no, I’d knot my sheets forthwith,
Were I but you, and steal to him in disguise,
Let come what would come! Marriage is for life.
MARIE LOUISE
Mostly; not always: not with Joséphine;
And, maybe, not with me. But, that apart,
I could do nothing so outrageous.
Too many things, dear grand-dame, you forget.
A puppet I, by force inflexible,
Was bid to wed Napoléon at a nod,—
The man acclaimed to me from cradle-days
As the incarnate of all evil things,
The Antichrist himself.—I kissed the cup,
Gulped down the inevitable, and married him;
But none the less I saw myself therein
The lamb whose innocent flesh was dressed to grace
The altar of dynastic ritual!—
Hence Elba flung no duty-call to me,
Neither does Paris now.
MARIA CAROLINA
I do perceive
They have worked on you to much effect already!
Go, join your Count; he waits you, dear.—Well, well;
The way the wind blows needs no cock to tell!
[Exeunt severally QUEEN MARIA CAROLINA and MARIE LOUISE with
NEIPPERG. The sun sets over the gardens and the scene fades.]
SCENE V
LONDON. THE OLD HOUSE OF COMMONS
[The interior of the Chamber appears as in Scene III., Act I.,
Part I., except that the windows are not open and the trees
without are not yet green.
Among the Members discovered in their places are, of ministers
and their supporters, LORD CASTLEREAGH the Foreign Secretary,
VANSITTART Chancellor of the Exchequer, BATHURST, PALMERSTON
the War Secretary, ROSE, PONSONBY, ARBUTHNOT, LUSHINGTON, GARROW
the Attorney General, SHEPHERD, LONG, PLUNKETT, BANKES; and among
those of the Opposition SIR FRANCIS BURDETT, WHITBREAD, TIERNEY,
ABERCROMBY, DUNDAS, BRAND, DUNCANNON, LAMBTON, HEATHCOTE, SIR
SAMUEL ROMILLY, G. WALPOLE, RIDLEY, OSBORNE, and HORNER.
Much interest in the debate is apparent, and the galleries are
full. LORD CASTLEREAGH rises.]
CASTLEREAGH
At never a moment in my stressed career,
Amid no memory-moving urgencies,
Have I, sir, felt so gravely set on me
The sudden, vast responsibility
That I feel now. Few things conceivable
Could more momentous to the future be
Than what may spring from counsel here to-night
On means to meet the plot unparalleled
In full fierce play elsewhere. Sir, this being so,
And seeing how the events of these last days
Menace the toil of twenty anxious years,
And peril all that period’s patient aim,
No auguring mind can doubt that deeds which root
In steadiest purpose only, will effect
Deliverance from a world-calamity
As dark as any in the vaults of Time.
Now, what we notice front and foremost is
That this convulsion speaks not, pictures not
The heart of France. It comes of artifice—
From the unique and sinister influence
Of a smart army-gamester—upon men
Who have shared his own excitements, spoils, and crimes.—
This man, who calls himself most impiously
The Emperor of France by Grace of God,
Has, in the scale of human character,
Dropt down so low, that he has set at nought
All pledges, stipulations, guarantees,
And stepped upon the only pedestal
On which he cares to stand—his lawless will.
Indeed, it is a fact scarce credible
That so mysteriously in his own breast
Did this adventurer lock the scheme he planned,
That his companion Bertrand, chief in trust,
Was unapprised thereof until the hour
In which the order to embark was given!
I think the House will readily discern
That the wise, wary trackway to be trod
By our own country in the crisis reached,
Must lie ’twixt two alternatives,—of war
In concert with the Continental Powers,
Or of an armed and cautionary course
Sufficing for the present phase of things.
Whatever differences of view prevail
On the so serious and impending question—
Whether in point of prudent reckoning
’Twere better let the power set up exist,
Or promptly at the outset deal with it—
Still, to all eyes it is imperative
That some mode of safeguardance be devised;
And if I cannot range before the House,
At this stage, all the reachings of the case,
I will, if needful, on some future day
Poise these nice matters on their merits here.
Meanwhile I have to move:
That an address unto His Royal Highness
Be humbly offered for his gracious message,
And to assure him that his faithful Commons
Are fully roused to the dark hazardries
To which the life and equanimity
Of Europe are exposed by deeds in France,
In contravention of the plighted pacts
At Paris in the course of yester-year.
That, in a cause of such wide-waked concern,
It doth afford us real relief to know
That concert with His Majesty’s Allies
Is being effected with no loss of time—
Such concert as will thoroughly provide
For Europe’s full and long security. [Cheers.]
That we, with zeal, will speed such help to him
So to augment his force by sea and land
As shall empower him to set afoot
Swift measures meet for its accomplishing. [Cheers.]
BURDETT
It seems to me almost impossible,
Weighing the language of the noble lord,
To catch its counsel,—whether peace of war. [Hear, hear.]
If I translate his words to signify
The high expediency of watch and ward,
That we may not be taken unawares,
I own concurrence; but if he propose
Too plunge this realm into a sea of blood
To reinstate the Bourbon line in France,
I should but poorly do my duty here
Did I not lift my voice protestingly
Against so ruinous an enterprise!
Sir, I am old enough to call to mind
The first fierce frenzies for the selfsame end,
The fruit of which was to endow this man,
The object of your apprehension now,
With such a might as could not be withstood
By all of banded Europe, till he roamed
And wrecked it wantonly on Russian plains.
Shall, then, another score of scourging years
Distract this land to make a Bourbon king?
Wrongly has Bonaparte’s late course been called
A rude incursion on the soil of France.—
Who ever knew a sole and single man
Invade a nation thirty million strong,
And gain in some few days full sovereignty
Against the nation’s will!—The truth is this:
The nation longed for him, and has obtained him....
I have beheld the agonies of war
Through many a weary season; seen enough
To make me hold that scarcely any goal
Is worth the reaching by so red a road.
No man can doubt that this Napoléon stands
As Emperor of France by Frenchmen’s wills.
Let the French settle, then, their own affairs;
I say we shall have nought to apprehend!—
Much as I might advance in proof of this,
I’ll dwell not thereon now. I am satisfied
To give the general reasons which, in brief,
Balk my concurrence in the Address proposed. [Cheers.]
PONSONBY
My words will be but few, for the Address
Constrains me to support it as it stands.
So far from being the primary step to war,
Its sense and substance is, in my regard,
To leave the House to guidance by events
On the grave question of hostilities.
The statements of the noble lord, I hold,
Have not been candidly interpreted
By grafting on to them a headstrong will,
As does the honourable baronet,
To rob the French of Buonaparte’s rule,
And force them back to Bourbon monarchism.
That our free land, at this abnormal time,
Should put her in a pose of wariness,
No unwarped mind can doubt. Must war revive,
Let it be quickly waged; and quickly, too,
Reach its effective end: though ’tis my hope,
My ardent hope, that peace may be preserved.
WHITBREAD
Were it that I could think, as does my friend,
That ambiguity of sentiment
Informed the utterance of the noble lord
[As oft does ambiguity of word],
I might with satisfied and sure resolve
Vote straight for the Address. But eyeing well
The flimsy web there woven to entrap
The credence of my honourable friends,
I must with all my energy contest
The wisdom of a new and hot crusade
For fixing who shall fill the throne of France.
Already are the seeds of mischief sown:
The Declaration at Vienna, signed
Against Napoléon, is, in my regard,
Abhorrent, and our country’s character
Defaced by our subscription to its terms!
If words have any meaning it incites
To sheer assassination; it proclaims
That any meeting Bonaparte may slay him;
And, whatso language the Allies now hold,
In that outburst, at least, was war declared.
The noble lord to-night would second it,
Would seem to urge that we full arm, then wait
For just as long, no longer, than would serve
The preparations of the other Powers,
And then—pounce down on France!
CASTLEREAGH
No, no! Not so.