A rumour is a-wind, your Majesty, That the French host, the Emperor in its midst, Lannes, Massena, and Bessieres in its van, Advancing hither along the Ratisbon road, Has seized the castle and town of Ebersberg, And burnt all down, with frightful massacre, Vast heaps of dead and wounded being consumed, So that the streets stink strong with frizzled flesh.-- The enemy, ere this, has crossed the Traun, Hurling brave Hiller's army back on us, And marches on Amstetten--thirty miles Less distant from Vienna from before! EMPRESS The Lord show mercy to us! But O why Did not the Archdukes intercept the foe? OFFICER His Highness Archduke Charles, your Majesty, After his sore repulse Bohemia-wards, Could not proceed with strength and speed enough To close in junction with the Archduke John And Archduke Louis, as was their intent. So Marshall Lannes swings swiftly on Vienna, With Oudinot's and Demont's might of foot; Then Massena and all his mounted men, And then Napoleon, Guards, Cuirassiers, And the main body of the Imperial Force. EMPRESS Alas for poor Vienna! OFFICER Even so! Your Majesty has fled it none too soon. [The window is shut, and the procession disappears behind the sheets of rain.] SCENE II THE ISLAND OF LOBAU, WITH WAGRAM BEYOND [The northern horizon at the back of the bird's-eye prospect is the high ground stretching from the Bisamberg on the left to the plateau of Wagram on the right. In front of these elevations spreads the wide plain of the Marchfeld, open, treeless, and with scarcely a house upon it.[16] In the foreground the Danube crosses the scene with a graceful slowness, looping itself round the numerous wooded islands therein. The largest of these, immediately under the eye, is the Lobau, which stands like a knot in the gnarled grain represented by the running river. On this island can be discerned, closely packed, an enormous dark multitude of foot, horse, and artillery in French uniforms, the numbers reaching to a hundred and seventy thousand. Lifting our eyes to discover what may be opposed to them we perceive on the Wagram plateau aforesaid, and right and left in front of it, extended lines of Austrians, whitish and glittering, to the number of a hundred and forty thousand. The July afternoon turns to evening, the evening to twilight. A species of simmer which pervades the living spectacle raises expectation till the very air itself seems strained with suspense. A huge event of some kind is awaiting birth.] DUMB SHOW The first change under the cloak of night is that the tightly packed regiments on the island are got under arms. The soldiery are like a thicket of reeds in which every reed should be a man.