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delight to France. Bonaparte says he will date his next

       dispatches from London, and the landing of his army may be daily

       expected.

       [Exit horseman.]

      THIRD PASSENGER

       Sir, I apologize. He's not to be trusted! War is his name, and

       aggression is with him!

       [He repacks the pistols. A silence follows. The coach and

       passengers move downwards and disappear towards the coast.]

      SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       Ill chanced it that the English monarch George

       Did not respond to the said Emperor!

      SPIRIT SINISTER

       I saw good sport therein, and paean'd the Will

       To unimpel so stultifying a move!

       Which would have marred the European broil,

       And sheathed all swords, and silenced every gun

       That riddles human flesh.

      SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

       O say no more;

       If aught could gratify the Absolute

       'Twould verily be thy censure, not thy praise!

      SPIRIT OF THE YEARS

       The ruling was that we should witness things

       And not dispute them. To the drama, then.

       Emprizes over-Channel are the key

       To this land's stir and ferment.—Thither we.

       [Clouds gather over the scene, and slowly open elsewhere.]

      SCENE II

       PARIS. OFFICE OF THE MINISTER OF MARINE

       [ADMIRAL DECRES seated at a table. A knock without.]

      DECRES

       Come in! Good news, I hope!

       [An attendant enters.]

      ATTENDANT

       A courier, sir.

      DECRES

       Show him in straightway.

       [The attendant goes out.]

       From the Emperor

       As I expected!

      COURIER

       Sir, for your own hand

       And yours alone.

      DECRES

       Thanks. Be in waiting near.

       [The courier withdraws.]

      DECRES 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.—NAPOLEON.”

       [DECRES 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

      

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