MILAN. THE CATHEDRAL [The interior of the building on a sunny May day. The walls, arched, and columns are draped in silk fringed with gold. A gilded throne stand in front of the High Altar. A closely packed assemblage, attired in every variety of rich fabric and fashion, waits in breathless expectation.]

DUMB SHOW From a private corridor leading to a door in the aisle the EMPRESS JOSÉPHINE enters, in a shining costume, and diamonds that collect rainbow-colours from the sunlight piercing the clerestory windows. She is preceded by PRINCESS ELIZA, and surrounded by her ladies. A pause follows, and then comes the procession of the EMPEROR, consisting of hussars, heralds, pages, aides-de-camp, presidents of institutions, officers of the state bearing the insignia of the Empire and of Italy, and seven ladies with offerings. The Emperor himself in royal robes, wearing the Imperial crown, and carrying the sceptre. He is followed my ministers and officials of the household. His gait is rather defiant than dignified, and a bluish pallor overspreads his face. He is met by the Cardinal Archbishop of CAPRARA and the clergy, who burn incense before him as he proceeds towards the throne. Rolling notes of music burn forth, and loud applause from the congregation.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES What is the creed that these rich rites disclose?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS A local cult, called Christianity, Which the wild dramas of the wheeling spheres Include, with divers other such, in dim Pathetical and brief parentheses, Beyond whose span, uninfluenced, unconcerned, The systems of the suns go sweeping on With all their many-mortaled planet train In mathematic roll unceasingly.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES I did not recognize it here, forsooth; Though in its early, lovingkindly days Of gracious purpose it was much to me.

ARCHBISHOP [addressing Bonaparte] Sire, with that clemency and right goodwill Which beautify Imperial Majesty, You deigned acceptance of the homages That we the clergy and the Milanese Were proud to offer when your entrance here Streamed radiance on our ancient capital. Please, then, to consummate the boon to-day Beneath this holy roof, so soon to thrill With solemn strains and lifting harmonies Befitting such a coronation hour; And bend a tender fatherly regard On this assembly, now at one with me To supplicate the Author of All Good That He endow your most Imperial person With every Heavenly gift.

[The procession advances, and the EMPEROR seats himself on the throne, with the banners and regalia of the Empire on his right, and those of Italy on his left hand. Shouts and triumphal music accompany the proceedings, after which Divine service commences.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES Thus are the self-styled servants of the Highest Constrained by earthly duress to embrace Mighty imperiousness as it were choice, And hand the Italian sceptre unto one Who, with a saturnine, sour-humoured grin, Professed at first to flout antiquity, Scorn limp conventions, smile at mouldy thrones, And level dynasts down to journeymen!— Yet he, advancing swiftly on that track Whereby his active soul, fair Freedom’s child Makes strange decline, now labours to achieve The thing it overthrew.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Thou reasonest ever thuswise—even if A self-formed force had urged his loud career.

SPIRIT SINISTER Do not the prelate’s accents falter thin, His lips with inheld laughter grow deformed, While blessing one whose aim is but to win The golden seats that other b—-s have warmed?

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Soft, jester; scorn not puppetry so skilled, Even made to feel by one men call the Dame.

SHADE OF THE EARTH Yea; that they feel, and puppetry remain, Is an owned flaw in her consistency Men love to dub Dame Nature—that lay-shape They use to hang phenomena upon— Whose deftest mothering in fairest sphere Is girt about by terms inexorable!

SPIRIT SINISTER The lady’s remark is apposite, and reminds me that I may as well hold my tongue as desired. For if my casual scorn, Father Years, should set thee trying to prove that there is any right or reason in the Universe, thou wilt not accomplish it by Doomsday! Small blame to her, however; she must cut her coat according to her cloth, as they would say below there.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS O would that I could move It to enchain thee, And shut thee up a thousand years!—[to cite A grim terrestrial tale of one thy like] Thou Iago of the Incorporeal World, “As they would say below there.”

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES Would thou couldst! But move That scoped above percipience, Sire, It cannot be!

SHADE OF THE EARTH The spectacle proceeds.

SPIRIT SINISTER And we may as well give all attention thereto, for the evils at work in other continents are not worth eyesight by comparison. [The ceremonial in the Cathedral continues. NAPOLÉON goes to the front of the altar, ascends the steps, and, taking up the crown of Lombardy, places it on his head.]

NAPOLÉON ’Tis God has given it to me. So be it. Let any who shall touch it now beware! [Reverberations of applause.] [The Sacrament of the Mass. NAPOLÉON reads the Coronation Oath in a loud voice.]

HERALDS Give ear! Napoléon, Emperor of the French And King of Italy, is crowned and throned!

CONGREGATION Long live the Emperor and King. Huzza! [Music. The Te Deum.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES That vulgar stroke of vauntery he displayed In planting on his brow the Lombard crown, Means sheer erasure of the Luneville pacts, And lets confusion loose on Europe’s peace For many an undawned year! From this rash hour Austria but waits her opportunity By secret swellings of her armaments To link her to his foes.—I’ll speak to him. [He throws a whisper into NAPOLÉON’S ear.] Lieutenant Bonaparte, Would it not seemlier be to shut thy heart To these unhealthy splendours?—helmet thee For her thou swar’st-to first, fair Liberty?

NAPOLÉON Who spoke to me?

ARCHBISHOP Not I, Sire. Not a soul.

NAPOLÉON Dear Joséphine, my queen, didst call my name?

JOSÉPHINE I spoke not, Sire.

NAPOLÉON Thou didst not, tender spouse; I know it. Such harsh utterance was not thine. It was aggressive Fancy, working spells Upon a mind o’erwrought! [The service closes. The clergy advance with the canopy to the foot of the throne, and the procession forms to return to the Palace.]

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Officious sprite, Thou art young, and dost not heed the Cause of things Which some of us have inkled to thee here; Else wouldst thou not have hailed the Emperor, Whose acts do but outshape Its governing.

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES I feel, Sire, as I must! This tale of Will And Life’s impulsion by Incognizance I cannot take!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Let me then once again Show to thy sceptic eye the very streams And currents of this all-inhering Power, And bring conclusion to thy unbelief. [The scene assumes the preternatural transparency before mentioned, and there is again beheld as it were the interior of a brain which seems to manifest the volitions of a Universal Will, of whose tissues the personages of the action form portion.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES Enough. And yet for very sorriness I cannot own the weird phantasma real!

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS Affection ever was illogical.

SPIRIT IRONIC [aside] How should the Sprite own to such logic—a mere juvenile— who only came into being in what the earthlings call their Tertiary Age! [The scene changes. The exterior of the Cathedral takes the place of the interior, and the point of view recedes, the whole fabric smalling into distance and becoming like a rare, delicately carved alabaster ornament. The city itself sinks to miniature, the Alps show afar as a white corrugation, the Adriatic and the Gulf of Genoa appear on this and on that hand, with Italy between them, till clouds cover the panorama.]