MARIE LOUISE [sinking into a chair] My divination pencilled on my brain Something not unlike that! The rigid mien That mastered Wellington suggested it.... Complicity will be ascribed to me, Unwitting though I stand!... [A pause.] He'll not succeed! And my fair plans for Parma will be marred, And my son's future fouled!--I must go hence, And instantly declare to Metternich That I know nought of this; and in his hands Place me unquestioningly, with dumb assent To serve the Allies.... Methinks that I was born Under an evil-coloured star, whose ray Darts death at joys!--Take me away, Count.--You [to the ladies] Can stay and see the end. [Exeunt MARIE LOUISE and NEIPPERG. MESDAMES DE MONTESQUIOU and DE BRIGNOLE go to the grille and watch and listen.] VOICE OF ALEXANDER [below] I told you, Prince, that it would never last! VOICE OF TALLEYRAND Well, sire, you should have sent him to the Azores, Or the Antilles, or best, Saint-Helena. VOICE OF THE KING OF PRUSSIA Instead, we send him but two days from France, Give him an island as his own domain, A military guard of large resource, And millions for his purse! ANOTHER VOICE The immediate cause Must be a negligence in watching him. The British Colonel Campbell should have seen That apertures for flight were wired and barred To such a cunning bird! ANOTHER VOICE By all report He took the course direct to Naples Bay. VOICES [of new arrivals] He has made his way to France--so all tongues tell-- And landed there, at Cannes! [Excitement.] COUNTESS OF BRIGNOLE Do now but note How cordial intercourse resolves itself To sparks of sharp debate! The lesser guests Are fain to steal unnoticed from a scene Wherein they feel themselves as surplusage Beside the official minds.--I catch a sign The King of Prussia makes the English Duke; They leave the room together. COUNTESS OF MONTESQUIOU Yes; wit wanes, And all are going--Prince Talleyrand, The Emperor Alexander, Metternich, The Emperor Francis.... So much for the Congress! Only a few blank nobodies remain, And they seem terror-stricken.... Blackly ends Such fair festivities. The red god War Stalks Europe's plains anew! [The curtain of the grille is dropped. MESDAMES DE MONTESQUIOU and DE BRIGNOLE leave the gallery. The light is extinguished there and the scene disappears.] SCENE III LA MURE, NEAR GRENOBLE [A lonely road between a lake and some hills, two or three miles outside the village of la Mure, is discovered. A battalion of the Fifth French royalist regiment of the line under COMMANDANT LESSARD, is drawn up in the middle of the road with a company of sappers and miners, comprising altogether about eight hundred men.