MARMONT Some sappers I have taken captive, sire, Say the Allies will be at stroke with us The morning next to to-morrow's.--I am come, Now, from the steeple-top of Liebenthal, Where I beheld the enemy's fires bespot The horizon round with raging eyes of flame:-- My vanward posts, too, have been driven in, And I need succours--thrice ten thousand, say. NAPOLEON [coldly] The enemy vexes not your vanward posts; You are mistaken.--Now, however, go; Cross Leipzig, and remain as the reserve.-- Well, gentlemen, my hope herein is this: The first day to annihilate Schwarzenberg, The second Blücher. So shall we slip the toils They are all madding to enmesh us in. BERTHIER Few are our infantry to fence with theirs! NAPOLEON [cheerfully] We'll range them in two lines instead of three, And so we shall look stronger by one-third. BERTHIER [incredulously] Can they be thus deceived, sire? NAPOLEON Can they? Yes! With all my practice I can err in numbers At least one-quarter; why not they one-third? Anyhow, 'tis worth trying at a pinch.... [AUGEREAU is suddenly announced.] Good! I've not seen him yet since he arrived. [Enter AUGEREAU. Here you are then at last, old Augereau! You have been looked for long.--But you are no more The Augereau of Castiglione days! AUGEREAU Nay, sire! I still should be the Augereau Of glorious Castiglione, could you give The boys of Italy back again to me! NAPOLEON Well, let it drop.... Only I notice round me An atmosphere of scopeless apathy Wherein I do not share. AUGEREAU There are reasons, sire, Good reasons for despondence! As I came I learnt, past question, that Bavaria Swerves on the very pivot of desertion. This adds some threescore thousand to our foes. NAPOLEON [irritated] That consummation long has threatened us!... Would that you showed the steeled fidelity You used to show! Except me, all are slack! [To Murat] Why, even you yourself, my brother-in-law, Have been inclining to abandon me! MURAT [vehemently] I, sire? It is not so. I stand and swear The grievous imputation is untrue. You should know better than believe these things, And well remember I have enemies Who ever wait to slander me to you! NAPOLEON [more calmly] Ah yes, yes. That is so.--And yet--and yet You have deigned to weigh the feasibility Of treating me as Austria has done!... But I forgive you. You are a worthy man; You feel real friendship for me. You are brave. Yet I was wrong to make a king of you. If I had been content to draw the line At vice-king, as with young Eugene, no more, As he has laboured you'd have laboured, too! But as full monarch, you have foraged rather For your own pot than mine!