PITT
Not one in all the land but knows it, sir.
KING
Now, Mr. Pitt, you must require repose;
Consult your own convenience then, I beg,
On when you leave.
PITT
I thank your Majesty.
[He departs as one whose purpose has failed, and the scene shuts.]
SCENE II
BEFORE THE CITY OF ULM
[A prospect of the city from the east, showing in the foreground
a low-lying marshy country bounded in mid-distance by the banks
of the Danube, which, bordered by poplars and willows, flows
across the picture from the left to the Elchingen Bridge near
the right of the scene, and is backed by irregular heights and
terraces of espaliered vines. Between these and the river stands
the city, crowded with old gabled houses and surrounded by walls,
bastions, and a ditch, all the edifices being dominated by the
nave and tower of the huge Gothic Munster.
On the most prominent of the heights at the back—the Michaelsberg
—to the upper-right of the view, is encamped the mass of the
Austrian army, amid half-finished entrenchments. Advanced posts
of the same are seen south-east of the city, not far from the
advanced corps of the French Grand-Army under SOULT, MARMONT,
LANNES, NEY, and DUPONT, which occupy in a semicircle the whole
breadth of the flat landscape in front, and extend across the
river to higher ground on the right hand of the panorama.
Heavy mixed drifts of rain and snow are descending impartially
on the French and on the Austrians, the downfall nearly blotting
out the latter on the hills. A chill October wind wails across
the country, and the poplars yield slantingly to the gusts.]
DUMB SHOW
Drenched peasants are busily at work, fortifying the heights of
the Austrian position in the face of the enemy. Vague companies
of Austrians above, and of the French below, hazy and indistinct
in the thick atmosphere, come and go without apparent purpose
near their respective lines.
Closer at hand NAPOLÉON, in his familiar blue-grey overcoat, rides
hither and thither with his marshals, haranguing familiarly the
bodies of soldiery as he passes them, and observing and pointing
out the disposition of the Austrians to his companions.
Thicker sheets of rain fly across as the murk of evening increases,
which at length entirely obscures the prospect, and cloaks its
bleared lights and fires.
SCENE III
ULM. WITHIN THE CITY
[The interior of the Austrian headquarters on the following
morning. A tempest raging without.
GENERAL MACK, haggard and anxious, the ARCHDUKE FERDINAND, PRINCE
SCHWARZENBERG, GENERAL JELLACHICH, GENERALS RIESC, BIBERBACH, and
other field officers discovered, seated at a table with a map
spread out before them. A wood fire blazes between tall andirons
in a yawning fireplace. At every more than usually boisterous
gust of wind the smoke flaps into the room.]
MACK
The accursed cunning of our adversary
Confounds all codes of honourable war,
Which ever have held as granted that the track
Of armies bearing hither from the Rhine—
Whether in peace or strenuous invasion—
Should pierce the Schwarzwald, and through Memmingen,
And meet us in our front. But he must wind
And corkscrew meanly round, where foot of man
Can scarce find pathway, stealing up to us
Thiefwise, by out back door! Nevertheless,
If English war-fleets be abreast Boulogne,
As these deserters tell, and ripe to land there,
It destines Bonaparte to pack him back
Across the Rhine again. We’ve but to wait,
And see him go.
ARCHDUKE
But who shall say if these bright tales be true?
MACK
Even then, small matter, your Imperial Highness;
The Russians near us daily, and must soon—
Ay, far within the eight days I have named—
Be operating to untie this knot,
If we hold on.