exploitful soul's ambitions,
And their great Confederacy dissolves like the diorama of a dream.

DUMB SHOW [continues]

NAPOLEON and ALEXANDER emerge from their seclusion, and each is
beheld talking to the suite of his companion apparently in
flattering compliment. An effusive parting, which signifies
itself to be but temporary, is followed by their return to the
river shores amid the cheers of the spectators.

NAPOLEON and his marshals arrive at the door of his quarters and
enter, and pass out of sight to other rooms than that of the
foreground in which the observers are loitering. Dumb show ends.

[A murmured conversation grows audible, carried on by two persons
in the crowd beneath the open windows. Their dress being the
native one, and their tongue unfamiliar, they seem to the officers
to be merely inhabitants gossiping; and their voices continue
unheeded.]

FIRST ENGLISH SPY[14] [below]

Did you get much for me to send on?

SECOND ENGLISH SPY

Much; and startling, too. "Why are we at war?" says Napoleon when
they met.--"Ah--why!" said t'other.--"Well," said Boney, "I am
fighting you only as an ally of the English, and you are simply
serving them, and not yourself, in fighting me."--"In that case,"
says Alexander, "we shall soon be friends, for I owe her as great
a grudge as you."

FIRST SPY

Dammy, go that length, did they!

SECOND SPY

Then they plunged into the old story about English selfishness,
and greed, and duplicity. But the climax related to Spain, and
it amounted to this: they agreed that the Bourbons of the Spanish
throne should be made to abdicate, and Bonaparte's relations set
up as sovereigns instead of them.

FIRST SPY

Somebody must ride like hell to let our Cabinet know!

SECOND SPY

I have written it down in cipher, not to trust to memory, and to
guard against accidents.--They also agree that France should have
the Pope's dominions, Malta, and Egypt; that Napoleon's brother
Joseph should have Sicily as well as Naples, and that they would
partition the Ottoman Empire between them.

FIRST SPY

Cutting up Europe like a plum-pudding. Par nobile fratrum!

SECOND SPY

Then they worthy pair came to poor Prussia, whom Alexander, they
say, was anxious about, as he is under engagements to her. It
seems that Napoleon agrees to restore to the King as