It shall not be! Our burst of natal joy Must not be sullied by so mean a thing: Aid shall be rendered. Much as we may suffer, England must suffer more, and I am content. What has come in from Spain and Portugal? BERTHIER Vaguely-voiced rumours, sire, but nothing more, Which travel countries quick as earthquake thrills, No mortal knowing how. NAPOLEON Of Massena? BERTHIER Yea. He retreats for prudence' sake, it seems, Before Lord Wellington. Dispatches soon Must reach your Majesty, explaining all. NAPOLEON Ever retreating! Why declines he so From all his olden prowess? Why, again, Did he give battle at Busaco lately, When Lisbon could be marched on without strain? Why has he dallied by the Tagus bank And shunned the obvious course? I gave him Ney, Soult, and Junot, and eighty thousand men, And he does nothing. Really it might seem As though we meant to let this Wellington Be even with us there! BERTHIER His mighty forts At Torres Vedras hamper Massena, And quite preclude advance. NAPOLEON O well--no matter: Why should I linger on these haps of war Now that I have a son! [Exeunt NAPOLEON by one door and by another the PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE, CAMBACERES, LEBRUN, BERTHIER, and officials.] CHORUS OF IRONIC SPIRITS [aerial music] The Will Itself is slave to him, And holds it blissful to obey!-- He said, “Go to; it is my whim “To bed a bride without delay, Who shall unite my dull new name With one that shone in Caesar's day. “She must conceive--you hear my claim?-- And bear a son--no daughter, mind-- Who shall hand on my form and fame “To future times as I have designed; And at the birth throughout the land Must cannon roar and alp-horns wind!” The Will grew conscious at command, And ordered issue as he planned. [The interior of the Palace is veiled.] SCENE IV SPAIN. ALBUERA [The dawn of a mid-May day in the same spring shows the village of Albuera with the country around it, as viewed from the summit of a line of hills on which the English and their allies are ranged under Beresford. The landscape swept by the eye includes to the right foreground a hill loftier than any, and somewhat detached from the range. The green slopes behind and around this hill are untrodden--though in a few hours to be the sanguinary scene of the most murderous struggle of the whole war.