The scene shuts with midnight.
SCENE VII
BRUSSELS. THE PLACE ROYALE
[The same night, dark and sultry. A crowd of citizens throng the
broad Place. They gaze continually down the Rue de Namur, along
which arrive minute by minute carts and waggons laden with wounded
men. Other wounded limp into the city on foot. At much greater
speed enter fugitive soldiers from the miscellaneous contingents
of WELLINGTON’S army at Quatre-Bras, who gesticulate and explain
to the crowd that all is lost and that the French will soon be in
Brussels.
Baggage-carts and carriages, with and without horses, stand before
an hotel, surrounded by a medley of English and other foreign
nobility and gentry with their valets and maids. Bulletins from
the battlefield are affixed on the corner of the Place, and people
peer at them by the dim oil lights.
A rattle of hoofs reaches the ears, entering the town by the same
Namur gate. The riders disclose themselves to be Belgian hussars,
also from the field.]
SEVERAL HUSSARS
The French approach! Wellington is beaten. Bonaparte is at our heels.
[Consternation reaches a climax. Horses are hastily put-to at the
hotel: people crowd into the carriages and try to drive off. They
get jammed together and hemmed in by the throng. Unable to move
they quarrel and curse despairingly in sundry tongues.]
BARON CAPELLEN
Affix the new bulletin. It is a more assuring one, and may quiet
them a little.
[A new bulletin is nailed over the old one.]
MAYOR
Good people, calm yourselves. No victory has been won by Bonaparte.
The noise of guns heard all the afternoon became fainter towards the
end, showing beyond doubt that the retreat was away from the city.
A CITIZEN
The French are said to be forty thousand strong at Les Quatre-Bras,
and no forty thousand British marched out against them this morning!
ANOTHER CITIZEN
And it is whispered that the city archives and the treasure-chest
have been sent to Antwerp!
MAYOR
Only as a precaution. No good can be gained by panic. Sixty or
seventy thousand of the Allies, all told, face Napoléon at this
hour. Meanwhile who is to attend to the wounded that are being
brought in faster and faster? Fellow-citizens, do your duty by
these unfortunates, and believe me that when engaged in such an
act of mercy no enemy will hurt you.
CITIZENS
What can we do?