Bonaparte, François-Charles-Joseph, Herzog von Reichstadt, 1811-1832 -- Drama
I'll not allow one of your men to touch him:
What! the clean soldier touched by soiled policemen!
Leave us alone together. Go!--Begone!
FLAMBEAU.
My Lord--!
SEDLINZKY.
[_To a policeman, pointing to the old man of the hut._]
Lead off that peasant.
[_The old man is led off._]
THE DUKE.
I'll await
My regiment. 'Tis summoned here at dawn.
The standards shall salute him, and the drums,
And my own soldiers shall uplift his body.
SEDLINZKY.
[_To a policeman._]
Where are the horses?
THE POLICEMAN.
[_Aside to him._]
Gone.
SEDLINZKY.
Then let him be.
[_To the_ DUKE.]
Highness, we cede.
THE DUKE.
Begone!
SEDLINZKY.
I understand--
THE DUKE.
I turn you out.
SEDLINZKY.
My Lord!
THE DUKE.
I turn you out!
For on the field of Wagram I'm at home!
[SEDLINZKY _and the policeman go._]
FLAMBEAU.
It's funny, all the same, that on this field
Where I was wounded for the Father, now
I perish for the son.
THE DUKE.
No! not for me!
It is for him: I am not worth your death.
FLAMBEAU.
For him?
THE DUKE.
For him! This is the field of Wagram.
FLAMBEAU.
Ah, yes!--I die--
THE DUKE.
Do you not recognize
Wagram, the field, the hill, the pointed steeple?
FLAMBEAU.
Yes!
THE DUKE.
Do you see the Austrian cannon yonder
All painted yellow, belching fire and smoke?
FLAMBEAU.
The battle--!
THE DUKE.
Do you hear the noise of it?
FLAMBEAU.
I die at Wagram! Ah! I die at Wagram!
THE DUKE.
Do you not see the wounded horse rush by,
Dragging his slaughtered rider by the stirrups?
We are at Wagram! 'Tis a solemn moment.
Davoust has come to turn Neusiedel's flank;
The Emperor has raised his little spy-glass;
You have been wounded by a bayonet,
And I have brought you to this little hill.
FLAMBEAU.
But the light cavalry? Haven't they charged?
THE DUKE.
Yonder the blue, striped with white shoulder-belts:
Those are the Infantry.
FLAMBEAU.
With General Reille!
THE DUKE.
The Emperor should send Oudinot to help!
He lets his left be crushed!
FLAMBEAU.
Ah! that's his cunning!
THE DUKE.
They fight! They fight! Macdonald hastens up,
And wounded Massena drives slowly by.
FLAMBEAU.
If the Archduke deploys his right he's lost.
THE DUKE.
All's well!
FLAMBEAU.
They fight?
THE DUKE.
The Prince of Auersburg
Is taken by the Polish Lancers of the Guard.
FLAMBEAU.
The Emperor? What's the Emperor doing?
THE DUKE.
Watching.
FLAMBEAU.
Is the Archduke caught in the little 'un's trap?
THE DUKE.
The distant dust-cloud yonder is Nansouty.
FLAMBEAU.
Has the Archduke not yet deployed his right?
THE DUKE.
The smoke is Lauriston--
FLAMBEAU.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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