Part 1 / Act 1 — SCENE II

PARIS. OFFICE OF THE MINISTER OF MARINE [ADMIRAL DECRÈS seated at a table. A knock without.]

DECRÈS Come in! Good news, I hope! [An attendant enters.]

ATTENDANT A courier, sir.

DECRÈS Show him in straightway. [The attendant goes out.] From the Emperor As I expected!

COURIER Sir, for your own hand And yours alone.

DECRÈS Thanks. Be in waiting near. [The courier withdraws.]

DECRÈS reads: “I am resolved that no wild dream of Ind, And what we there might win; or of the West, And bold re-conquest there of Surinam And other Dutch retreats along those coasts, Or British islands nigh, shall draw me now From piercing into England through Boulogne As lined in my first plan. If I do strike, I strike effectively; to forge which feat There’s but one way—planting a mortal wound In England’s heart—the very English land— Whose insolent and cynical reply To my well-based complaint on breach of faith Concerning Malta, as at Amiens pledged, Has lighted up anew such flames of ire As may involve the world.—Now to the case: Our naval forces can be all assembled Without the foe’s foreknowledge or surmise, By these rules following; to whose text I ask Your gravest application; and, when conned, That steadfastly you stand by word and word, Making no question of one jot therein. “First, then, let Villeneuve wait a favouring wind For process westward swift to Martinique, Coaxing the English after. Join him there Gravina, Missiessy, and Ganteaume; Which junction once effected all our keels— While the pursuers linger in the West At hopeless fault.—Having hoodwinked them thus, Our boats skim over, disembark the army, And in the twinkling of a patriot’s eye All London will be ours. “In strictest secrecy carve this to shape— Let never an admiral or captain scent Save Villeneuve and Ganteaume; and pen each charge With your own quill. The surelier to outwit them I start for Italy; and there, as ’twere Engrossed in fetes and Coronation rites, Abide till, at the need, I reach Boulogne, And head the enterprize.—NAPOLÉON.” [DECRÈS reflects, and turns to write.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS He buckles to the work. First to Villeneuve, His onetime companion and his boyhood’s friend, Now lingering at Toulon, he jots swift lines, The duly to Ganteaume.—They are sealed forthwith, And superscribed: “Break not till on the main.” [Boisterous singing is heard in the street.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES I hear confused and simmering sounds without, Like those which thrill the hives at evenfall When swarming pends.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS They but proclaim the crowd, Which sings and shouts its hot enthusiasms For this dead-ripe design on England’s shore, Till the persuasion of its own plump words, Acting upon mercurial temperaments, Makes hope as prophecy. “Our Emperor Will show himself [say they] in this exploit Unwavering, keen, and irresistible As is the lightning prong. Our vast flotillas Have been embodied as by sorcery; Soldiers made seamen, and the ports transformed To rocking cities casemented with guns. Against these valiants balance England’s means: Raw merchant-fellows from the counting-house, Raw labourers from the fields, who thumb for arms Clumsy untempered pikes forged hurriedly, And cry them full-equipt. Their batteries, Their flying carriages, their catamarans, Shall profit not, and in one summer night We’ll find us there!”

RECORDING ANGEL And is this prophecy true?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Occasion will reveal.

SHADE OF EARTH What boots it, Sire, To down this dynasty, set that one up, Goad panting peoples to the throes thereof, Make wither here my fruit, maintain it there, And hold me travailling through fineless years In vain and objectless monotony, When all such tedious conjuring could be shunned By uncreation? Howsoever wise The governance of these massed mortalities, A juster wisdom his who should have ruled They had not been.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Nay, something hidden urged The giving matter motion; and these coils Are, maybe, good as any.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES But why any?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Sprite of Compassions, ask the Immanent! I am but an accessory of Its works, Whom the Ages render conscious; and at most Figure as bounden witness of Its laws.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES How ask the aim of unrelaxing Will? Tranced in Its purpose to unknowingness? [If thy words, Ancient Phantom, token true.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Thou answerest well. But cease to ask of me. Meanwhile the mime proceeds.—We turn herefrom, Change our homuncules, and observe forthwith How the High Influence sways the English realm, And how the jacks lip out their reasonings there. [The Cloud-curtain draws.]